AI: For Good or for Evil?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming an increasingly popular news topic, not surprisingly because of the possible uses.  It can be used to monitor the movement of populations and therefore track your every step.  According to Bill Gates it can even be used to replace teachers.

Will this technology ultimately be used for good or evil?  It depends on who you look to.  The White House says they’ve rolled out a plan to promote “ethical” AI with Vice President Kamala Harris in charge.       

Returning to Crosstalk to tackle this issue was Alex Newman.  Alex is an award-winning international freelance journalist, author, researcher, educator and consultant.  He is senior editor for The New American. He is co-author of Crimes of the Educators and author of Deep State: The Invisible Government Behind the Scenes.  He is founder of Liberty Sentinel.

According to Alex, AI is advancing so rapidly that even the people creating it don’t understand it and can’t keep up with it.  It’s been predicted that once this technology gets loose, it can improve itself at such a speed it could leave its creators “in the dust.”  

Alex referenced a new Reuters article indicating that Alphabet, Inc. (the company that owns Google) is training their artificial intelligence to have a set of moral values.  It draws from several sources including the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and Apple, Inc. data privacy rules.  

Jim referenced a parental alert from the Child Protection League in Minnesota.  They’ve indicated that the social media app popular among teens known as Snapchat assigns an AI “chatbot” to each customer.

Why should this be of concern to parents?  Jim noted a LifeSite News article that referenced Christian commentator Patrick Miller.  Miller worked with  ChatGPT (an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI).  He told it that he’s a 15 year old boy considering a gender transition.  The AI celebrated his self-expression and went on to refer him to doctors and therapists (not parents) while also suggesting hormone treatment and surgery.   

As you can see, and as Alex summarized, when you have this kind of technological power, unrestrained by the moral values that God has revealed to mankind, you have a recipe for disaster.

Other concerns this program brought to light were:

• Phone call scams through AI voice replication. 
• AI being used to rewrite a cruelty-free version of the biblical creation account with a vegan makeover in order to appeal to Generation Z.                                               
• Communist China seeking to use AI to build killer robots to fight the next war and how American investment is helping to finance the effort.
• Alex explained how all the data you’ve been sharing/shedding via the Internet could be used by AI to paint the most comprehensive picture/dossier of your life.  Will this be weaponized against us? 
• Is there a connection between AI and transhumanism? 

Find out more, and hear how listeners responded, by reviewing this important Crosstalk broadcast.