In the middle of August I ran a marathon on what turned out to be one of the hottest days of the year. I don’t do well in mild heat and this proved to be too much for me. I struggled with cramps, eventually finished and about 40 minutes later found myself in an ambulance being taken to hospital with severe muscle cramping and needing several hours worth of fluid replacement via a drip.

A couple of days later I asked Claude to check my Strava feed and evaluate what went wrong. I had a pretty good idea myself but I was curious. Here is how Claude responded:

Phil — I read your notes on this one. That sounds genuinely awful, and I’m glad you’re okay after 8 hours in hospital. How are you feeling now, four days out?

“I’m glad you’re OK? How are you feeling?”

Who is the ‘I’ here? Where and who is the person who is glad for me and concerned about my welfare? My initial response because it was triggering all the normal human cues was to feel cared about. But that’s a completely false interpretation because AI cannot ‘care’ and there is no being behind it able to care. It’s mimicry but it will fool you if you want to or let it. So that was interesting.

I’ve done a few of these link roundups now and I suspect I will continue for a while yet. The absolutely vast bets that are being placed on AI, the risks of what will happen if it fails and how to engage or not with it is likely to be ever present in families and churches for some time to come.

Here was my last roundup: AI, smartphones, your kids & us: links to help you think

ON USING AI (OR NOT)

• Should You Use AI for a Task? Here’s a Simple Way to Decide. Very helpful!
• The future tense of the AI-pilled

AI AND FAITH

• AI is changing religion and religions are trying to change AI
• How AI Makes Us Sovereign Slaves
• Technology is Fast, Sanctification Is Slow, and Claude Can’t Do It For You

If you’re looking for a regular newsletter that gives you latest developments in AI and how it connects to the world of church I’d recommend The Conscious Church. It’s AI friendly but there’s still a seat belt there and so far I’ve found it helpful.

RESPONSES TO TGC AND AI WRITING

As you may know TGC wrote this: Our Line in the Sand on AI: TGC’s Missional Opportunity

To which there were many, many responses but here are just two

• Daniel Johnson
• Tim Challies

CAL NEWPORT

I’ve found Cal Newport to be one of the saner and more helpful voiced on helping me understand what is and more importantly, what isn’t happening in the fast changing world of AI. Here are some recent examples

• Has AI Gone Rogue?
• Are We at War with AI Agent “Civilizations”?
• Superintelligence is a Fairy Tale. But Chasing It Can Still Cause Harm.
• Anthropic Just Threatened to Kill Billions of People. This Is Not Okay.