Challies | Wise and Helpful Ways for Christians To Experiment With AI

Tim Challies provides a thoughtful review of his own experimentation with AI. He offers some helpful suggestions and (I think) wise cautions.

Some time ago, I decided I ought to familiarize myself with AI and consider whether it might become a helpful and legitimate tool in my own life. I signed up for pro-level subscriptions to two apps, Claude and Perplexity, and began to experiment. I thought I might describe the results of a few of these trials and offer some ideas for your own experimentation.

Under the cautions section, two things I strongly agree with:

Let me add one tip to the end of this section: Don’t say please or thank you to AI. AI so closely mimics a human being that you can begin to relate to it as if it were a person rather than a mere app. There is no need to say please or thank you to an app, and declining to do so is a useful means of ensuring you continue to relate to it rightly.

and

Whatever the case, having spent a good bit of time scratching the surface of AI’s capabilities, I am increasingly convinced that it is here to stay. That being the case, it may be worth your time to learn how it works, what it can do, and how it may make a positive difference in your life—and judge how it may make a negative one as well. For Christians, AI must remain a servant and never become a master. We need to evaluate it not only by whether it saves time or increases productivity, but by whether it helps or hinders us in loving God and serving our neighbor. Like so many of our latest and greatest technologies, we can be certain it will both bless and curse us, both give and take away, which means we must, as always, remain both wise and discerning.

Wise and Helpful Ways for Christians To Experiment With AI

The article is long, but well worth reading.