Welcome to the Upside-Down Parenting podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting can feel overwhelming and disorienting. But you don’t have to do it alone. We’re here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s counter-cultural truth, his upside-down kingdom, and champion a biblical worldview.
In today’s episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Todd Korpi, a leader in helping Christian parents thoughtfully engage with artificial intelligence. Todd holds a DMiss from Fuller Theological Seminary and brings a wealth of experience as a pastor, missiologist, and church consultant. He’s also the dean of digital ministry programs at Ascent College, an assistant professor of Christian leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, and works in several roles with OneHope. Todd recently authored AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. Alongside his wife, Tara, Todd lives in Chicagoland with their three daughters.
Episode 10: Summary & Transcript
Disclaimer: Please note that this is an automatically generated transcript. Although the transcription is largely accurate, it may be incomplete or inaccurate in some cases due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.
Episode Summary
In this episode of the Upside Down Parenting Podcast, host Matt welcomes Todd Korpi, a distinguished leader in helping Christian parents navigate artificial intelligence thoughtfully. Todd is the author of the book AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. The discussion centers on helping Christian parents develop a biblical perspective on AI, addressing common concerns about whether families should completely avoid AI technology. Todd explores both the benefits and risks of AI, including its potential to accelerate Bible translation work while also posing serious concerns like the tragic case of a teenager who developed an unhealthy relationship with an AI chatbot. Throughout the episode, he emphasizes the importance of using AI wisely to maximize human presence and relationships rather than simply doing more tasks, while maintaining a biblical worldview anchored in our identity as image-bearers of God and the hope of Christ’s return.
Episode Transcript
Dr. Matt Jones (00:00):
Welcome to the Upside Down Parenting Podcast from Summit Ministries. Parenting can feel overwhelming and disorienting, and I’ve experienced that too. But the reality is, you don’t have to do it alone. We’re not designed to do it alone. We are here to walk with you as you raise your kids to embrace God’s counter-cultural truth, embrace his upside down kingdom, and champion a biblical worldview.
In today’s episode, we’re thrilled to welcome Todd Korpi, a leader in helping Christian parents thoughtfully engage with artificial intelligence. Todd holds a doctorate of missiology from Fuller Theological Seminary, brings a wealth of experience as a Pastor, Missiologist, and church consultant, and he’s also a dean of digital ministry programs at Ascent College. As an assistant professor at Christian Leadership at Fuller Theological Seminary, he works in several roles, including roles with an organization called One Hope. Todd recently authored AI Goes to Church: Pastoral Wisdom for Artificial Intelligence. Alongside with his wife Tara, Todd lives in Chicago, land with their three daughters.
Well, Todd, it’s a pleasure to have you on the Upside Down Parenting Podcast today. Before we get into the serious questions, I have to know two things. One’s based on your book and one’s based on you being from Chicagoland. Are you a Cubs or a White Sox fan?
Todd Korpi (01:28):
I’m actually a Tigers fan. I grew up in East Michigan, so yep, I’ve retained that Detroit sports loyalty.
Dr. Matt Jones (01:36):
Well, you should, especially with how they’re playing this year.
Todd Korpi (01:38):
Right, exactly. That’s great.
Dr. Matt Jones (01:39):
Okay, good. And then I noticed from reading the majority of your book, Star Trek. What’s your favorite Star Trek series?
Todd Korpi (01:48):
I’d have to say the Next Generation, that was my childhood. That was definitely the most impactful for me for sure.
Dr. Matt Jones (01:54):
Okay. My dad had me watching the original with Kirk and Spock, and so I have to go with that. But alright, so we’ve got some interesting questions for us to engage in today. How would you respond to the parent who says, listen, there’s no good use for AI and we should completely avoid it? Because I actually have run into some folks who would argue that,
Todd Korpi (02:15):
Yeah, I have too. I’ve actually run into a few fellow seminary professors and whatnot that have said the same thing. And for parents, for pastors, for whoever it is, it’s asking the question. I think it’s worth recognizing that whether or not you want to engage it, you are. So if you’ve Googled something or looked up something or responded to Netflix, we think you’ll like this section. You’ve interacted with AI and using Apple Maps or whatever. We live in a world that is shaped by AI, so whether or not we directly or willfully use it, it doesn’t mean we’re not actually using it.
So I think the question is not so much whether or not we should use AI, but how to engage both artificial intelligence directly and the world that’s shaped by it in a way that’s wise, that honors God and that represents the truth of the gospel faithfully. So yeah, that’s kind of a juke to the question, but it’s true. AI’s been around since the 1950s and obviously when people use that statement, they were thinking about things like Chat GPT and resources like that, but I think recognizing it’s much more broad, all encompassing of a technology is really important to understand.
Dr. Matt Jones (03:48):
Well, you bring up the 1950s and I appreciate that because I honestly didn’t even know it was as far back as 1950. So in terms of us thinking about this as parents, as us thinking about this as even educators, what are two areas that maybe AI is affecting our lives or colleges or churches that might surprise our parental listeners?
Todd Korpi (04:11):
Yeah, I think one that’s probably most important for parents to understand is the reality that beyond the, because we’ve both in schools and in churches, kind of jumped to these low hanging fruit conversations about plagiarism, whether that’s in student academic writing, whether that’s in sermon preparation, but there are more significant kind of foundational implications that AI has that we need to consider.
Things like, what does it mean to be human in an age where artificial intelligence increasingly not only mimics human emotion and responsiveness and things of that sort, but as the world of cybernetics is looking to fast track robotics, whether it be in warehouses or in your home to do your laundry and whatnot, and increasingly looks more human as those two fields converge? That poses some significant questions, especially for young people coming of age in that kind of a world. And we’re already starting to see some of the impacts of that.
Now, there was a case not long ago that’s still in core as the recording of this, but there was a young man, 16 years old, developed a strong relationship with an AI chatbot, an app called Character AI, and had it created a profile or persona off of a Game of Thrones character and developed this relationship that ended up in taking a turn to what we would call romantic and it degraded his mental health to an extent to where he ended up taking his own life.
(06:04):
And so we have to recognize that these have powerful capacity to bond emotionally, and the more it looks human, the more it acts human, the more that’s going to provoke those kinds of conversations of, is it human? So that’s one area that it’s already rapidly changing the way that we think about even things like humanity.
But the other thing too, I think to take a more positive look when it comes to church ministry is artificial intelligence has profound opportunity to fast track some of the things that specifically in the world of missions or in wanting to reach people for the gospel, specifically in the area of bridging language barriers that local churches are employing to be able to put, to translate sermon content online into minority language groups within their cultural region and even the world of Bible translation on a global scale and cross-cultural missions.
We’re looking at what was a hundred year goal to finish the process of translating the Bible into every heart language on the face of the planet to now with the proper human checks and whatnot, closing that gap to about 30 years. So tremendous potential for good as well as some of the cautions that we may be overlooking as well.
Dr. Matt Jones (07:29):
Yeah, one of the missionaries at our church right now, they are in the process of implementing AI and I forget which language they were translating the Bible into, but they’d worked with a tribe where it is dramatically increasing the speed with which they can translate the New Testament. So again, some really exciting stuff, but also some challenging stuff. And even at universities, even at Christian universities, I work at one, we have assignments that students have to use AI to accomplish the work.
And so it’s putting our head in the sand saying, hey, we should completely avoid it. It really doesn’t help parents like myself to say, well, wait a minute, how do I help my child interact with this? And so with helping my child interact with this, I wanted to ask, let’s get back to basics here for just a second. What is a biblical perspective on AI? How should we, first of all, as Christians approach it? And then I’ll have a follow up on that.
Todd Korpi (08:27):
Yeah, I think when we talk about things like a biblical perspective, a lot of times we can kind of, and I use this metaphor in the book, we can treat the Bible like a magic eight ball. You remember that toy from where, which I was not allowed to play with as a kid.
Dr. Matt Jones (08:47):
But yeah, no, I was just thinking about this girl I really liked and I asked, will she ever date me? And it came back consistently, probably not. And so thankfully I tried that with one girl and thankfully I’m married to somebody else. But anyway, sorry.
Todd Korpi (09:03):
Well, the prediction ended up coming true fairly. But yeah, if we’re not careful, we can out of a desire to, I think a well-meaning desire to hold scripture in high esteem, treat it like that, where we come to it demanding and answer a question that we give it. But instead, we need to consider, what are the questions that scripture is seeking to answer? And some of the things that scripture kind of foundationally addresses that transcend time and culture and technology are things like what it means to be created in the image of God. Why are we even here?
The Genesis account really, it kind of taps into the nitty gritty of why we’ve been placed on this earth. And so as we navigate changing times and seasons, we can kind of anchor back to our origin story as it were, but then also look for to quote the ene creed, to look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come that we have this hope that we, so we’re anchored both in our origin story but then also in our renewal story with the hope of the return of Christ and the renewal of all things.
(10:19):
And so we work with that end in mind. We labor, we form our children, we live in this life, with that end in mind, that Christ is going to come. So that has a dual effect. One, it should quell some of the dramatic concerns of the robots taking over because we know how the story ends. Christ is victorious at the end, and he doesn’t come with a robot army and he comes with the clouds of heaven. But then also we need to consider, too, how that compels us to advocate for a just world.
AI has a lot, I talk about this in the book, a lot of possibility to perpetuate biases and stereotypes. There’s a tremendous danger of it wreaking havoc on the environment because of the amount of energy it consumes, the kind of minerals like lithium that it requires. And so we need to engage it in such a way to where as the church, we’re not just talking about plagiarism. And I’m not saying that that’s a bad thing, but I agree with you that we need to think more.
I have three daughters and I’m more concerned about equipping them to handle the world that they’re going to live in than about policing whether or not they’re using chat GPT to write an English paper. And so there’s a wisdom component and walking alongside our kids that I think we need to consider as well.
Dr. Matt Jones (11:42):
Yeah, those are great insights. When I think about, and I’d be curious of your thoughts on this, just in terms of what Philippians 4 talks about, hey, think on these things, whatever is holy, whatever’s pure, whatever’s noble, fill our minds and hearts with those things. To what extent can AI encourage that? But then to what extent can AI discourage that? And that is going to set up my next question.
Todd Korpi (12:07):
Yeah, that’s a great question. And it’s not one honestly I’ve thought of, but I think that there’s a dynamic to where we can, on the one hand, we can outsource our thinking to AI in such a way to where if it gives us the response, then we take it kind of at face value. And I think that has the potential to orient our thinking in a way that is not driven by the Holy Spirit, but driven by an algorithm. It also has the potential I think, as well. And we’ve seen some instances of use in this regard of walking through certain things in a logical way. So I’m not talking about leaning on it for life advice, but in a logical way of framing things in perspective.
I come from a city culture that tends towards, kind of, a very pessimistic outlook on life. I grew up in Flint, Michigan, which is kind of the birthplace of General Motors, but also in my childhood, I watched it shrink from about half the size that it was, and with that this massive de-industrialization, this advent of poverty and violence and stuff. So it kind of created this very pessimistic outlook that was the water in which I swam as a child.
There are aspects of which things like Chat GPT, you can prompt it to walk you through reflective exercises of gratitude and things of that sort that I think can be helpful in or reorienting our perspective, just the same way that you would check a mirror for your blind spot when you’re driving your car.
Dr. Matt Jones (13:50):
Okay, great. So I’m wondering because each of our children, and we have three great kids, but each of them have had a major technological snafu in their existence. And really by the grace of God, the Lord made it clear to us so we could address those things. And they were different issues, and they weren’t AI at the time. They might’ve been background AI, but I was wondering what might be two or three signs that my teen has become too connected to AI or to screens in general, and then I have a follow up after that one.
Todd Korpi (14:29):
Yeah, I think that withdrawal is one of the first symptoms You see that when you look at, even at current events of the story I shared about the young man using character AI, there was a withdrawal from real life that should have provoked concern along the way of an increased dependence, an increased tether to those kind of, and that’s not necessarily just in their physical dependency on their phone, but it can also manifest itself in the language that they use if they’re frequently referring to chatbot conversations and stuff. It doesn’t necessarily mean that’s a red flag, but definitely a yellow flag to pay attention to.
There’s also this dynamic that I think is crucial that a technological use as a whole, I believe, has the capacity to create an unsettling effect within any human, but especially children who are more impressionable. So increased irritability, anxiety, doom, sprawling things of that sort where, and truthfully, even as parents, we have that ability as well, and if we’re not careful, can find ourselves being kind of co-opted in. The anger is controlled by our algorithm and things of that sort rather than by the Holy Spirit.
So I think that recognizing that kind of irritability, that non-anxious presence is kind of being buffeted against, but then also a withdrawal. I think, also, some dynamic of a collapse of curiosity. There’s an absence of being curious about the world around them that is not dependent on artificial intelligence.
Dr. Matt Jones (16:12):
Got it. That’s helpful. And I should have said, I have a 17 and 19 and 21-year-old, and I appreciate you bringing in the anger thing because with one of our children in particular, we could notice a dramatic shift in attitude. He was much more easily angered and it caused us to say, hey, we need to have a conversation. And so what steps might you encourage parents to take to identify those that withdraw and then to redirect their attention or redeem? Because really our fallback was alright, no tech for a week, or there were other consequences, but curious your thoughts on that.
Todd Korpi (16:52):
For me, my children are a little bit younger. So I have a 14, 11, and 9 year old. My 9-year-old actually turned nine today. Cool. So we’re kind of beginning to enter kind of the precipice of tech usage. Of course, they all have iPads and stuff mandated in their school system and all that kind of stuff, which that alone is a conversation for another day.
Dr. Matt Jones (17:19):
That’s right. It really is. And it gets tougher too.
Todd Korpi (17:22):
It really does. Oh my gosh.
Dr. Matt Jones (17:22):
We said, no tech in the bedrooms. We just said, if you’re going to engage in tech, it’s got to be in public, in present. And that was not easy for them either because you’d have three people around the dinner table. We had a very small house at the time. So anyway, sorry to interrupt, but yeah.
Todd Korpi (17:40):
No, I agree. For us, we have a strict no social media of any kind. YouVersion Bible app has a social component. We don’t even allow our oldest to use that. But the reality is that everything now has a social component to it. And I mean, it’s a daunting task for parents to keep up to that or keep up with that. The point that you were saying, I do think one of the things that you highlighted as significant of having times of digital detox, call it a Sabbath period, whatever the case may be.
For us, and this is, let’s be honest, as parents, the principles that we institute all have a varying degree of consistency because we’re human, but we try our best to have at least once a week where we’re all as disengaged from the outside world as humanly possible. For us, that’s a Saturday thing. And that’s not to say that we don’t allow them to have activities or hang out with friends and whatnot, but in terms of their digital engagement, it’s minimized. And I think that that does have a restorative impact on the unsettling effect of technology.
(19:01):
I’ve had many times where I have a lot of work to do, and before I know it, I’ve had four cups of coffee and not even realizing it and I’m getting jittery. The antidote to that is to drink some water to cut myself off the coffee. The same is true with tech. And so there is, I think, a place of digital Sabbath.
I think the thing that is a necessary component to that is in as much as we live these hybrid lives where we’re constantly online and offline at the same time, I think in as much as we need to prepare kids for an AI future and things of that sort, part of prepping them for that is to recover the value of physical engagement with the world.
To actually go outside and look at the shapes and the clouds to spend time in the dirt to those sorts of things that we’ve started doing with our kids of my youngest and me bond over working on our backyard garden and things of that sort of those restorative practices of engaging in the physical world that I think are really crucial. The last thing, and then I’ll shut up.
Dr. Matt Jones (20:11):
You’re doing great.
Todd Korpi (20:13):
When it comes to the way that algorithms, and here we kind of have AI and social media kind of converge in the way that the algorithm is kind of geared depending on the platform to one degree or another to leverage our outrage. And so the more we engage in it, the more it gives us the content that feeds that.
And so one of the antidotes to that within the digital ecosystem is to expose yourself to perspectives that you disagree with, to surround yourself digitally with smart people who disagree with you, to riff off of a quote from the West Wing. And so not just looking at, and again, this valuable advice for us as adults as well, to model this for our kids, but to welcome the input of perspectives, news sources, whatever the case may be that we would normally disagree with.
Dr. Matt Jones (21:10):
Sure, yeah. And yeah, it’s good to think outside your presuppositions and be exposed to some thinking there, but we also want to try to point them to the biblical truth after we hear those, right? We want to point them to where, alright, these are the different views and ideas out there, but alright, how do we engage with what’s true? And I kind of, like, if we can connect those things because our kids and we are exposed to all these different views, just constant bombardment.
So that really kind of sets up something that I really appreciated about your book was the spirit led holism. Before you define that, you used the term that I do not know. So can we define doom scrolling for me real quick? I didn’t know what doom scrolling is. And then tell me what spirit led holism is and how you integrate that into parenting and AI engagement with teens. Is it okay that I throw two at you at once?
Todd Korpi (22:13):
No, that’s great. So doom scrolling is something we’ve all done. If you have social media, you’ve done it at one point or another where something triggers your attention, and then in the related content or whatever the case may be, you begin to continue to look for that content and before you know it, an unacceptable amount of time has transpired and you’ve been kind of lost in the scrolling. That’s what doom scrolling is.
Dr. Matt Jones (22:42):
Got it. Okay. That’s helpful. I don’t have, well, it’s hard to define which sites are social media. I don’t have TikTok or Instagram or anything like that, but anyway, okay, back to the spirit led.
Todd Korpi (22:56):
Yeah, so spirit led holism kind of addresses within not only theological circles, but in the pulpit, in our kind of common conversations of understanding the relationship between evangelism and social justice in conversations about communicating the gospel. And there are a multitude of different perspectives about how those things interact with one another.
In the book I refer to Leslie Newbigin, who’s a renowned British mythologist, a theologian, and he talked about how the relationship between the two, they’re linked to one another, they’re not even two sides of the same coin. They are very much one and the same. And he called for kind of a recognition of the spirits, the Holy Spirit’s place in super intending that process. So whether we understand if we’re to introduce someone explicitly to the gospel or to give that cup of cold water in Jesus’ name, first is a matter of listening to the voice of the Holy Spirit.
(24:09):
What I call for in the book is kind of an expansion or kind of the next step in that of recognizing that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the attorney, is not just an abstract concept that we recognize, yes, he’s at work in our evangelistic work and the work of mission, but instead he’s ever present abiding with us, speaking to us, guiding us into the truth that is found in Christ.
And that’s a continuous process of wrestling with and discerning from the guidance and the voice of the Holy Spirit, how we’re to engage in the world around us. So holism being that the holistic presentation of the gospel that we’re to live lives that demonstrate the gospel, we’re also supposed to tell the truth of the gospel as well.
And so as it pertains to integrating that into our parenting, I think for us, I actually, in my view, it’s a matter of us as parents really embracing and modeling that for our kids, dispensing with this kind of just preach the gospel idea that kind of embodies the gospel from public action, from demonstrated acts of benevolence and mercy and justice and to live lives that advocate for the least of these, for the marginalized in addition to proclaiming the truth that’s found in Christ of his death resurrection, his atonement for our sin and his return.
(25:50):
And so it’s I think a matter of embodying that, but then also allowing this relationship to form with our children. Gen Z and Gen Alpha are, I’m a millennial and our generation was known for being very justice oriented from what I’ve seen, from what the data shows, gen Z in particular, but I think Gen Alpha as well are going to be far more cause oriented than even my generation was. And I think that has the capacity to also instruct us as to how we partner with them in preparation for one day when they lead the church.
And I think coming alongside them and helping instill wisdom into them and to how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, how to discern, respond to the world around them in a way that is faithful to the gospel, I think is how we help integrate that into their lives. So that becomes a parenting issue, not simply of just telling our children what to do, but in helping cultivate their aptitude for making wise decisions and partnering with them in that task.
Dr. Matt Jones (26:59):
Good. So we’re starting to, in the process of wrapping up, and you’ve kind of hinted at this, but what would you think are three key principles to teach our children, to teach our teens to use AI responsibly?
Todd Korpi (27:17):
I think the first would be to help them understand that AI is a mirror and a megaphone. So a lot of times we have this idea that data is kind of this, it’s this all encompassing kind of, it has, if we get just the right data, we’ll have the right answers, but that’s not actually true. AI is a mirror in the sense that it sources from human generated content available on the web, and that content is filled with bias because humans are biased, it’s filled with error because humans are error or prone to error.
And so recognizing the reality of data bias is crucial to prepare our kids to live in a world where they are not simply just taking at face value with chat GPT or claw or whatever generate, but asking the hard questions of is this actually accurate? Where does this come from?
(28:17):
I think that requires that as a society, we demand greater transparency in AI actually citing its sources, not just kind of this black box of unknown data, but advocating for the development of tools that actually cite where the information comes from to empower end users to be able to wisely discern it.
Another piece that I think is important in our formation is we need to root our understanding of how to engage well in this era of cultivating wisdom. When we look at human history, there have been movements of how humans have pursued truth. The ancient cultures pursued wisdom.
See, in the Bible, the elders would stand at the city gates and help decide matters for the population of the village. When we move into the Enlightenment, truth was pursued through the acquisition of knowledge. And then we’re kind of in this postmodern era where some of that has been upended by truth being a matter of lived experience.
(29:31):
And so for many young people, truth is partially constructed by their own experiences as well as the experiences of those closest to them. We have as the people of God, I believe, a responsibility to recover the role of wisdom in that constellation of the pursuit of truth, which is the right application of knowledge. It is the right application of understanding and discernment of experience. So we see knowledge and experience and all this stuff kind of converge in the function of wisdom.
But for us as parents, there’s some crucial truths that we have to understand. The first is when we look at scripture, scripture promises that God freely gives wisdom to those who ask. But it’s also very clear from both scripture and just observable experience that wisdom does not come naturally with the passage of time. We can all grow into old fools if we allow it, and sometimes I question whether or not that’s happening.
(30:35):
And we’ve also met young people who are wise beyond their years. The mystics and the ancient church mothers and fathers talked a lot about the role of suffering in the development of wisdom. As we suffer, we develop intimacy with God and wisdom in our lives. That’s not a popular topic of conversation that you don’t hear a lot about suffering and the value of suffering from our pulpits today. But I think recognizing that we actually have to pursue wisdom. God promises to give it, but we have to pursue it actively in our own lives so we can come alongside our children and to help instill that in them.
I think in a world that is increasingly knowledge saturated, factoid saturated, that is increasingly virtual, one of the best things that we can be, and one of the things I hope as I age at the end of my life, I’ll be remembered by the people around that were around me as someone who was consistently physically present and was a source of wisdom. Because in this kind of economy of knowledge and information and the virtual being physically present and being that source of that non-anxious presence, we’ve all been around those people, whether it’s a teacher, a pastor, someone in our lives that’s just being around them, you feel like you’ve been filled up.
To be that kind of place in the lives of our children, in the lives of the next generation, I think is crucial and is a prime opportunity for us as the church to fill.
Dr. Matt Jones (32:11):
That’s great. Yeah. In preparation for this, I asked AI, I think it was Chat GPT. I said, are there things AI cannot do? And it was pretty interesting what it acknowledged it could not do. And while it says, hey, I can point you to community, I can’t create community for you. And if we’re called to love God, love others, and make disciples, and I love that you pointed out the gospel. I grew up in the generation where the gospel was about restoring the relationship between God and humankind. And yet when you look at the scriptures, it’s about restoring those four primary relationships, God and humankind, humankind with others, humankind with itself and humankind with this world.
And so a hundred percent, when I think about AI, and I want to close with this question, but as I think about ai, how can AI help us and hinder us in terms of being who God’s created us to be? I love the wisdom point. We’ve got to continue to search out wisdom. AI gives a lot of knowledge, but not necessarily the application of that knowledge, as you pointed out, was wisdom. But as we’re thinking about parenting an AI and helping kids, because I think many times it’s used to hinder that understanding of loving oneself. How can we help students as parents? How can we help navigate that a little bit?
Todd Korpi (33:42):
Yeah. When it comes to navigating AI and preparing them for the future, I think there’s a dynamic where we have an opportunity to decide how each of us individually decide how we’re going to employ it.
There’s a meme that was going around a while ago on social media that more or less it kind of developed or showed this duality of what AI promised, which was that it would do all the administration in life and I could sit and write poetry and make music and things of that sort. And the reality it delivered, which is AI makes music and writes poetry, and I do all the administrative stuff. So I think there’s a challenge there. A Finnish philosopher talks about the need to automate the boring bits of life. And by boring, I refer to the things that take us away from people.
(34:46):
And AI does have the ability to do that. It has a lot of administrative capacity to automate things that otherwise take us away from the people in our lives that matter most. But if we’re not careful, it also has the capacity to give us a lot of time back in our schedule, and that’s attractive when the budget’s tight. So if I take on this extra project or whatever, or I can do this extra thing, I can fill up all that extra margin with stuff, or I can spend time with the people in my life that matter.
I think looking at ways, how can I use it in such a way to maximize my presence in the lives of others, in my community, with my neighbors, with my children, so that I can focus on the human things that actually matter and not just be kind of consumed with doing more.
(35:40):
The other dynamic that I think is crucial is recognizing that with every application we take up or every new use of AI that we integrate into our lives, into our church, into our family, whatever, there’s the potential to lose something sacred. I cite an essay that Wendell Berry wrote back in the eighties about why he won’t buy a computer, and long story short, I won’t go into it.
Long story short, it was because a part of his book writing process was he would sit down with his wife and she would kind of poke holes and stuff, ask clarifying questions, and he saw the potential to lose an intimacy that he valued with his wife in that task by outsourcing to a computer. And I think that we have to ask those similar questions, what do we stand to lose? Not just what do we stand to gain?
Dr. Matt Jones (36:28):
Well, Todd, I really appreciate your wisdom and insight and you joining us on the Upside Down Parenting Podcast. I think AI Goes to Church comes out in September. Thanks for giving us some great things to think about, and we truly appreciate the time and effort and work that you put into not only this text, but also kingdom stuff, kingdom priorities, and taking the time for us today. We appreciate it.
Todd Korpi (36:54):
Thanks, Matt. It was great to be with you.
Dr. Matt Jones (36:56):
Yeah, nice to meet you. Thank you. God bless.