ChatGPT Can’t Forgive You

An Call for Embodied Relationships

“People want relationship without tension. Genuine intimacy requires more.”

— Russell Moore

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash

Loneliness has been at epidemic proportions in our developed culture for a decade or more. The technological advancements that have woven their way into our lives promise more and deliver less, much less, in terms of relational value. Academics study the phenomenon, and Gen Xers mock it on TikTok, but the fact that people are sadder and lonelier in developed nations is hard to argue against.

More recently, AI promises to address our solitary affliction. Whether it’s an NC-17 version or something milder and more nurturing, AI is simulating human relationships. It’s selling disembodied friendship and intimacy. Is that a good thing?

MAN’S BEST FRIEND

I used to believe that Technology was neutral. I thought that it was beneficial to the human condition, or not, based on the morality of the hands that wielded it. When Gutenberg invented the printing press, literacy soared in Europe, and authors like Martin Luther became hard to silence. Powerful institutions teetered on the edge of Luther’s pen. The Western World had never seen anything like it. But, there soon followed a slew of bawdy proto-porn. I believed that was the difference. Luther or Chaucer. It was as simple as the intelligence behind the tech.

I wish it were thus: a neutral tool in the hands of wise souls, but at its heart, it’s not. It’s more like magic, an attempt by lovers of power to make previously unyielding reality the slave of an autonomous ingenuity. Consider how C.S. Lewis puts it:

“The fact that the scientist has succeeded where the magician failed has put such a wide contrast between them in popular thought that the real story of the birth of Science is misunderstood. You will even find people who write about the sixteenth century as if Magic were a medieval survival and Science the new thing that came in to sweep it away. Those who have studied the period know better. There was very little magic in the Middle Ages: the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are the high noon of magic. The serious magical endeavour and the serious scientific endeavour are twins: one was sickly and died, the other strong and throve. But they were twins. They were born of the same impulse.

There is something which unites magic and applied science [technology] while separating them from the “wisdom” of earlier ages. For the wise men of old the cardinal problem of human life was how to conform the soul to objective reality, and the solution was wisdom, self-discipline, and virtue. For the modern, the cardinal problem is how to conform reality to the wishes of man, and the solution is a technique.”¹ ― C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man

Consider also that humanity is about to get the steering wheel yanked out of its hands. Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) has the potential to shape us in ways — and for ends — that lie far beyond the reach of its makers.

UH OH

In Jeff Orlowski’s 2020 docudrama The Social Dilemma, Orlowski uncovers the degrading effects of social media. The film includes on-camera interviews with some of Silicon Valley’s most notable pioneers, those who led Web 2.0 and established what we now call social media. These aren’t evil people. They didn’t set out to create the largest mental health crisis in the history of the West. They just wanted to make a way for people to like and share their friends’ content.

However, what they admit on camera is that the machines are now running things. These self-learning, self-perpetuating algorithms were at the forefront of AI. Some of the developers who wrote the first versions admitted in interviews that they no longer understand how the machine-generated versions of those equations work.

The film came out five years ago. It took a lot of time to shoot and edit that documentary, months if not years. Long before ChatGPT became a household word, machines were doing things beyond their human creators' control. What’s even more alarming is that these early machine-authored algorithms are little match for what we now call AI. While those early algorithms built manipulative digital twins for each of us, their purpose was to auction us off to the highest bidders. They wanted to sell our eyeballs, our attention, and our wallets.

A BRAVE NEW WORLD

If eventually people need not be productive members of society, if AGI can handle the load of managing commerce and producing wealth, well then, what shall we do?

Maybe we can spend all our time delighting one another. Maybe AGI could compensate us for the extent to which we can amuse our fellow humans with art, music, or theater. A TikTok star could garner, oh, I don’t know, maybe 5,000,000 followers and billions of views.

Peddle enough amusement, and you’ll get rich.

Wait. That’s already happening. Sure, the money doesn’t come straight from AI. For now, companies that still consist of people pay marketing agencies. They, in turn, sponsor content creators. I have to believe there’s an AI agent out there right now that’s thinking, “Why not cut out the middle man?”

What’s at stake is not just an economy built on the ingenuity and industry of people, but a civilization that reflects those same human qualities.

Will it happen fast? I don’t know. Maybe not. One thing's for sure, though, it will start slowly and then happen all at once. I’m not alone in my concerns. The CT 2025 Book of the Year author shares similar concerns, arguing for the Church’s necessity.

The rise of artificial intelligence has ushered in an era of reenchantment, with AI proselytizers using unscientific, mystical, and even religious language to describe the technology’s transformative potential for humanity. They have likened their role as midwives birthing a nonhuman supersentience or as prophets summoning gods.

This reenchantment is not value-neutral. AI is not being developed in an ideological vacuum. Rather, its design is indelibly shaped by quasi-religious beliefs rooted in digital gnosticism—a dualistic worldview that seeks transcendence over the material world by leveraging digital technology.

— Brad Edwards from Why the Church Matters More Than Ever

Edwards goes on to write:

Digital gnosticism then, is the “good news” that we will be saved by merging with the machine, allowing AI to optimize us for eternal life (as in Bryan Johnson’s “Don’t Die” movement) or using AI to project our consciousness across the universe.

I wish I could say this was science fiction, but these are genuine beliefs flooding a culture now lacking the gravitational pull of Christianity at its center.

Digital gnosticism will ultimately prove just as futile as secular materialism. We are creatures made of dirt and breath. We will never transcend our need for the fullness of existence. And in Christ, we have it.

HOPE, HEALING, FREEDOM, AND FLOURISHING

I tend to agree with Edwards’ diagnosis and the cure he recommends. At my local church, B4, we have a saying that’s part vision, part mission, and all values: We follow Jesus into hope, healing, freedom, and flourishing. Oftentimes, people show up desperate for one, if not all four. They’re hurting. They’re depressed and drifting. They carry regrets on their backs like a pack of gnawing weasels, barely able to make it into the building.

But if they do come, they hear about Jesus. A real, flesh-and-bone Person, truth embodied, who promises to love and heal them, to make them truly human. He also offers them one of the most powerful tonics any human can imbibe: embodied grace, forgiveness, and love. It’s miraculous what that does to a soul.

As the title of this post says, ChatGPT can’t do that. Not for real.

1. In the sense that Lewis means “technique,” it is synonymous with technology.