By now some of the novelty and hype about ChatGPT (and other LLMs) has died down somewhat but it’s not going anywhere and we need to get our heads around what to think about it. And, of course, the wider blessing curse that is the internet. Here are some of the people that I’ve been reading on this issue and I hope you find their thoughts helpful.

Cal Newport is not too worried by it.

“Only by taking the time to investigate how this technology actually works—from its high-level concepts down to its basic digital wiring—can we understand what we’re dealing with. We send messages into the electronic void, and receive surprising replies. But what, exactly, is writing back?”

Joe Carter is a big fan.

I may be proven embarrassingly wrong in the future, but right now my position is that ChatGPT and other AI large language models are among the most beneficial tools ever provided to small churches.

But why?

If used well, ChatGPT can be as important and transformative in our day as word processors, email, or photocopiers were in previous decades. Their significance might be missed, though, because we often take for granted or forget how much those previous technologies transformed the work of church staff.

But it’s worth taking a moment to think.

Jeffrey Bilbro wants to know, What Problem Does ChatGPT Solve?

If it’s that we’re curious to read a Shakespearean sonnet about climate change, then it seems we’re investing a lot of time and energy into a pretty frivolous endeavor – though I’m as interested as the next person is to listen in on a conversation between Elon Musk and Wendell Berry. If it’s that we want to save the time we waste writing emails and memos and assessments, then I’m not sure accelerating the production of pointless text solves the problem of its abundance. And if it’s that we are drowning in a sea of too much data and need a computer to sort through it all and distill the particular information we need, then I don’t see how pumping out unreliable – but confidently asserted – answers improves our information ecosystem. My fear is that the problem in search of a solution is the human effort required to learn and communicate truth. Unfortunately, this is not, in fact, a problem.

It’s also good to read someone who really doesn’t like where this technology is taking us. Cue Paul Kingsnorth.

I don’t hate many things in this world – hate is an emotion I can’t sustain for long – but I hate screens, and I hate the digital anticulture that has made them so ubiquitous. I hate what that anticulture has done to my world and to me personally. When I see a small child placed in front of a tablet by a parent on a smartphone, I want to cry; either that or smash the things and then deliver an angry lecture. When I see people taking selfies on mountaintops, I want to push them off. I won’t have a smartphone in the house. I despise what comes through them and takes control of us. It is prelest, all of it, and we are fooled and gathered in and eaten daily.

For the record I currently find myself closest in thought to Bilbro.

ChatGPT exits within a broader conversation about technology more generally and I would be remiss if I didn’t point you to John Dyer’s new book People of the Screen (reviewed here by Samuel James). Also worth reading is Tim Suffield’s post The digital world shapes us.

Of course if you can’t think of any practical use for an LLM you could always ask it to sign off a letter for you!