Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
You’re tired.
Not just physically; though yeah, that too.
You’re tired in your bones. In your soul.
Trying to be a steady husband, an intentional dad, a man of God… but deep down, you feel like you’re falling short. Like you’re carrying more than you know how to hold.
Dad Tired is a podcast for men who are ready to stop pretending and start healing.
Not with self-help tips or religious platitudes, but by anchoring their lives in something (and Someone) stronger.
Hosted by Jerrad Lopes, a husband, dad of four, and fellow struggler, this show is a weekly invitation to find rest for your soul, clarity for your calling, and the courage to lead your family well.
Through honest stories, biblical truth, and deep conversations you’ll be reminded:
You’re not alone. You’re not too far gone. And the man you want to be is only found in Jesus.
This isn’t about trying harder.
It’s about coming home.
Hey guys. Welcome back to the Dad Tired podcast. If you're watching on YouTube or Spotify, uh, you can see I'm wearing my dad tired hat here. It's been really fun to hear all the stories, how you guys have been wearing these dad tired hats and getting stopped at parks or in the airport or wherever you're at, uh, by other dad tired listeners, and it's just a cool way to connect and let them know that you are also a guy who is taking your faith in your family and your marriage very seriously.
If you want to pick up one of these hats, you can go to dad tire.com, click the shop tab. Um, in the shop you'll see that we have registration open for our dad tired annual retreat at the end of this year, uh, or in September. And, uh, that is filling up. So if you have not grabbed a ticket for that and you still want to go make sure that you get that ticket before, um, we fill up on those.
That being said, I do have a kind of an urgent volunteer need that I was hoping to put out to you the listeners. And hoping for your help. Um, the camp that we're staying at requires us to provide our own work crew. We need 33 volunteers who are not attending the retreat, um, who will come and serve, help set up the dinner times and help with the dishes afterwards.
Really just be, um, servants to all these dads, um, who are coming to learn what it looks like to be more like Jesus and help their families do the same. Usually this is done by young adults, college students. We will surprise. Supply room and board for free. They'll be able to come, stay, hang out and um, when they're not serving, they can just hang out with each other.
Enjoy the facilities. The food is free, the lodging is free. Um, but we have not been able to get a young adult group. To come, um, that is able to come do it during the dates that we have our retreat. So we desperately need 33 more volunteers who can do this. If you know a young person who would be willing to serve in this way, it would be a huge, huge help for us.
If you have any leads on that or any um, young adult groups, college groups, college around the area. We're gonna be in South Carolina, kind of at the border of South Carolina, North Carolina B, South Carolina. It's this little town. I think the closest big city might be Asheville. Don't quote me on that. I'm terrible at that.
Geography. Uh, it's really pretty area, but I don't know it very well. Uh, anyway, if, if that all at all sounds of something that you might be interested in helping out with. I'll put a link in the show notes here, so you can click that and, um, you can find out more information on how to volunteer in that way or get, um, us connected with somebody who might be able to help us volunteer in that way.
Um, before we jump into today's episode, which is a really fascinating conversation, I do want to thank my friends over at lifeway. They've got a CSB Men's Daily Study Bible, which is awesome. You've heard me talk about it before I give this gift. Um, or this Bible as a gift to a lot of guys in my life.
They love it. It's got daily devotionals. It's written and geared towards, obviously it's the scriptures, but they've got devotionals and kind of excerpts and study guides all written into the Bible, into the scripture to make the scripture come to life and really help you as a man, figure out what it looks like to you, for you, um, to lead your family well, to become the man God's called you to be.
It is a great discipleship tool to really, again, bring the scriptures to life. If you are a woman listening. Uh, and you don't want to get the men in your life ties or golf balls or whatever you get them. Um, this is a great gift to get them the CSB Men's Daily Study Bible. Uh, if you're a man just looking to get into God's word and really see it, that the scriptures come alive again, this is a great bible for you to pick up at.
Highly encourage you to get, grab a copy LifeWay's given you a great deal. If you go to lifeway.com and use the promo code MDB 50. Checkout. Again, that's MDB 50 at checkout, they're going to give you 50% off of the Bible, which is a great deal. Again, go to lifeway.com, use the promo code MD MDB 50, and you will get 50% off.
That being said, let's jump into today's episode 3, 2, 1.
Steel. So excited to be hanging out with you today, man. Uh, for our audience who may not be familiar with you, tell us who you are and what you're up to these days. Yeah, steel billings. I am, uh, sitting in Memphis, Tennessee, my hometown today. Um, I am with a company called Glue. I get to lead glues. AI strategy.
I'm the head of AI at Glue, which is a Boulder, Colorado based redemptive ai, uh, or redemptive technology company, as we say. And so we get to sit on the front end of. All the ways that we can use technology for God's purposes. We really challenge ourselves constantly to say, okay, why did God allow this technology to come into existence and how can we use it for his glory?
Get to do that for a living. Um, married to my best friend, Jacqueline. Uh, we've been married. We, we met in high school, been married now, we just celebrated our 10th anniversary. We have, uh, two young ones. We have a 8-year-old boy named Noah and a five-year-old girl named Sutton. Uh, I myself come from a big family.
I'm one of five kids and, uh, so have experienced all the trauma that comes along with, uh, being the middle child in a, in a family of five. But yeah, excited to be here. Thanks so much. That's awesome, dude, bro. First of all, can we just talk about how strong the names are? Like you got a strong name, family.
Uh, your kids. Yeah. No kidding. Steal. I feel like you're, like, there should be like a country song with your name. What's the, how do you steal billings? Yeah. How did your, uh, is there like a story behind your name? Oh, well, the, the great story is just that my, my dad dropped me as a baby and I didn't cry. And so he, he picked that, uh, but the real name, the, the real, the real story I found out is that there is a famous artist here in town that, uh, really helped raise my dad and her maiden name was Steel.
And so Wow. He named me kind of after her. Yeah, dude, I love that you had like a, you have a go-to story that the dropping the baby was that, that just, oh yeah. That fits. Um, yeah, man, well, I'm, I'm very excited to pick your brain on AI stuff. I, um, probably most guys don't know this, but I, before there was a interim between, I was, I was working in a church world for like, I dunno, 12 years, went through this like failed church plant.
And be between the failed church plant and starting dad tired on accident, which is a whole story in itself. I was just scrambling to figure out how to keep the bills paid, and so I was doing everything, like I was selling gutters at Costco. I drove for Uber. Uh, I, I mean, just so many like odd jobs just to try, just try to keep.
The lights on. And uh, one of the things that I was doing was photography and video, which frankly I don't know anything about, but I was just trying to like do fake it till I make it to try to pay the bills. Anyway, I say all that because we ended up having this client, um, who was, this was over, this was about 10 years ago, I guess, or maybe even more than 10 years ago.
But we had this client who had just started an AI company and, um. We, this was out in Chicago, so we flew out to Chicago multiple times, me and these other film guys, and their whole goal was to like build some marketing content for them and some, uh, you know, branding videos. And dude, I would sit with them all day for multiple days just.
Doing interviews, trying to, trying to learn like about ai. This was, again, about 10 years ago, so nobody was really talking about ai. Yeah, nobody, um, back then, not in the normal, like public sphere, you know, the nerds were talking about it back then, but like nobody else was, knew of what it was. Anyway, I say all that, bro, because I would sit there for hours and days like asking them questions, trying to understand.
And I would literally get done and be like, I have, I, I have no idea like what you want. I don't even know how I'm gonna put this into a video 'cause I have no idea what you've just said. You know, like I still don't understand what AI is and how it works. So all that to say, um, fast forward 10 years and, um, I think most people have heard of chat, CBT and that's kind of their AI framework, but we still don't really know.
Like, I don't even know how this, the internet works. I don't know how I'm getting wifi right now to do this conversation. Who does? And I certainly don't know how. Yeah. Uh, AI works. So all that to say like, um, what is AI bro? Like what, where are we at in 2024 with ai? I. You know, it, uh, such a great place to start, right?
Just at the foundation of what is this stuff. And, um, it, my wife and I, my wife is not a techie whatsoever. She'll be the first to admit that, uh, you know, I get into like a, a car or a rental car, and I'm like. You know, infatuated with all the technology in it. She's like, does it have comfortable seats?
That's all I really care. Totally, totally. Cruise control. She's not tech. Yeah. Yeah. And, and she got on a kick. She wanted to go watch all the AI movies recently. And, you know, my line of work certainly alluded to that, but, uh, we watch iRobot, we watch The Matrix, and it's actually incredible, you know, I'll use the word prophetic here, uh, in, in no biblical way whatsoever.
But those movies in many ways, were so ahead of their time and so predictive of some of the terminology that we are using today. And what you start to, what you see in those movies that, that really is, um, you know, uh, replicate of today is that AI is really this idea of, of autonomous computing, right? So that's another way to think about artificial intelligence is autonomous computing.
The, the computers that we're using right now to record this. There the computers that maybe many of your, your listeners are actually listening to this podcast on are, um, not necessarily autonomous. They're doing the things that, that, that user of that device is telling it to do. Now, they might have AI on them already, but artificial intelligence at the, at the broadest sense is these are, they are computers that are doing things that people did not necessarily tell them to do it right.
They mm-hmm. They gave it an outcome that we were trying to get to, and it is automatically working its way toward that outcome. Now that's okay. In the era that we're in, because in the era that we're in, it's called uh, narrow ai, narrow artificial intelligence. It's this idea that it only does exactly what job we gave it to do.
So for instance, chat, GPT, you can go to it and say, give me a list of 10 steps that I need to take to, um, you know, convert my. Uh, you know, living room into an office, for example, and it'll say things like, well, you know, have you thought about your floors? Pull the carpet up, maybe think about a different flooring.
Have you thought about the, the paint color? And it'll, so it'll give you those 10 steps, right? It's generative. It's only doing that task in the next era of artificial intelligence that companies like OpenAI are working toward, which is called general. AI or, um, you know, artificial general intelligence, a GI is what you'll hear it referred to as the, the AI will take the next step and it will say, Hey, I can go ahead and convert your living room into an office for you.
I can go ahead and line up the, uh, the subcontractors that will come do the work, or, you know, maybe there's even robotics that will come and do some of that work for us. That a GI ERA is now AI saying. Hey, you want this outcome? I can actually line up all the jobs that are necessary to, to get you to that outcome.
It's doing more than what I specifically asked it to do. And then in the, the, the last era of AI that most people believe is, you know, even fathomable is called super artificial intelligence. And you know, that one might be a little more concerning. There was a new company that just recently launched in the last couple of weeks called SSI or Safe Super Intelligence.
It's this idea that artificial intelligence is now. Um, well beyond human capabilities and human intelligence, and it is the most powerful force in the world. And, um, that is the point at which you see those movies like iRobot and, uh, the Matrix Trilogy. So we have multiple errors of ai, but ultimately think of it as autonomous computing.
It is a computer that is doing things that we either told it to do or, or did not tell it to do in very autonomous ways. You said that the company just came out, um, would you say this week or in the last couple weeks? That that SSI company? Yeah. Yeah. Within the last few weeks company called SSI. Okay.
Co-founder of OpenAI who founded it. So part of my question was gonna be how you were talking about eras. How far away are we from that super AI era being part of normal life in your opinion? Well, that's the question that I think everyone is, is out, um, to try and answer. And, you know, a GI, let's say that we're, we're in narrow AI now already here, so you know, even go back 10 years ago when you were saying that you were hearing these people talking about artificial intelligence.
It was just in the early 2010s, so I think it was around 2012, that this idea of neural networks even came into existence. Now, AI itself was a, to a term that was coined back in the fifties, right? So artificial intelligence is not a new term. Um, it's been something that's been explored for several decades, but just, you know, post 2010, did this idea of neural networks come into existence?
And that's this idea. That we can try and recreate the human brain using computing. You know, that we can create these computers that work similarly to how our brains work, where there's multiple pieces to it and different things do different jobs and, you know, it can do things at light speeds. Right? Um, when that came into existence, it dramatically, uh, brought attention and funding to it.
And that's around the time that you're talking about. So you were really on the bleeding edge of some of this stuff when you were, you know, back with that group. And so. You know, we're, we've been in narrow AI now for the last decade or so, open AI says their mission is to get to a GI. It's to get to the, that general era.
Um, if you were to ask a AI chat bot a year ago, will we ever get to a GI? It would say the, the likelihood is no. In, in our, in any of our lifetimes. We will never see a GI today. If you were to ask a, a chat bot that. You're gonna get a different answer, and the answer is likely to be yes. We will probably see a GI happen.
And some people say it will be a year from now. Some people say it'll, it'll be a decade from now. We don't know when. Now, this new company that was just formed Safe, super Intelligence, as they named it, SSI, they believe that we are closer to SSI, um, than anyone else believes. The original thinking was that SSI or, or I'm sorry.
Um, super intelligence. Was something that we would never see in any of our lifetimes. Um, I tend to side on that, by the way. I, I tend to still be one that's, that struggles to believe that we will get to super intelligence in our lifetimes. Um, not because the technology isn't capable of getting there, but I believe that the right governance will be wrapped around artificial intelligence that will protect us from those eras.
So that, that's my personal belief. Why do you believe that? One? I believe in, um. I believe in God's design. So as a believer, I believe that, um, we are not called to live in fear. In fact, I wear a bracelet that is, you know, second Timothy one seven, I. And, um, I believe that we know how, what does second Timothy one seven say?
Sorry, for the, for those of us, uh, we are not called to, to live in fear. Right? That's second Timothy one seven, right? That, uh, we are, we as believers are called to live boldly, right? Um, and so we know how the book ends as, as Christians. Yeah. Yeah. So I believe divinity and God has a, uh, a purpose for artificial intelligence.
Now, that is not to say that God's purpose for artificial intelligence, um. Is, is not, you know, going to lead us to a place where we have no disruption by it. I do believe that we have dramatic disruption coming in our lifetimes by ai. We can talk about that. Uh, but, but I do believe that the right governance will come around it.
God will allow the right organizations to, to serve into the world of ai. It will not be led by companies just like OpenAI and Microsoft and Google. I believe there are other companies working us being one of them. To get to the global table around artificial intelligence so that we can put the right governance and build trust and build the right infrastructures that allow for the safe, uh, artificial intelligence that leads to human flourishing and does not lead us away from human flourishing.
Hmm. On that note, uh, I've heard that Elon Musk, who he was part of the, correct me where I'm wrong on these details, but wasn't he part of like the open AI team originally? And then some of those found, he was, he was part of the founding team of OpenAI. Right. Okay. And so now he's not. And then, um, he's got some concern about like, the OpenAI team.
I'm like super fuzzy on the details. 'cause I just read like a headline. Do you know anything about, like, what, what is, I guess, do you know what Elon Musk is concerned about, um, when it comes to AI and specifically opening, you know, what? Right. Yeah. Yeah. Open. Uh, Elon has been very vocal about his, his concern to the point where he, you know, um, publicized the fact that he was suing OpenAI for, yeah.
Uh, I can't remember exact amount, maybe $40 million or something. His initial donation to the nonprofit that was OpenAI. Mm-hmm. OpenAI was formed as a nonprofit originally. Uh, formed with, with it seems to be well, intent of, you know, pursuing safe artificial intelligence or safe, you know, a GI, I think is the actual mission statement.
And so, uh, Elon Musk would have been all supportive of that mission. Now, somewhere in that journey over the last couple of years, OpenAI has shifted to a model that they, um, self proclaim that they are pursuing the benefits of capitalism. Right. So a nonprofit saying, Hey, there's too many benefits of capitalism for us to ignore, so we're going to pursue a for-profit model and allow us to, to benefit, to leverage the benefits of capitalism.
Now, whether that's for self gain or just to fund the ongoing development, that's up for debate. Uh, but Elon had a problem with that model. Uh, and it turns out that the Board of OpenAI also had a problem with that model. So much so that last year the CEO of OpenAI was ousted by the board pretty abruptly, it felt like, at least to the public.
Uh, lots of skepticism, you know, about what happened, lots of debate about really what happened there. The CEO was reappointed back to OpenAI. That is Sam Altman, Sam Altman's back in charge at Open ai. Um, and since then, Elon Musk has, has gotten a lot more vocal about his displeasure. The what I've heard Elon talking about.
Is this idea of posthumanism and that Elon is very anti the I Posthumanism. Posthumanism says that the idea of intelligence. Is eternal and that humans are not, humans will not be, uh, around forever, but intelligence always will be. And robots will one day be the holder of intelligence in the world.
Mm-hmm. And that's just a part of evolution. And so, uh, you know, again, as a believer, I believe that. That conflicts with our personal beliefs and, and what the Bible says. Uh, I don't necessarily believe that humans necessarily are in, uh, eternal, but I believe that, you know, our spirit will live on. I don't believe in this idea of a posthumanism environment where, uh, robots are ruling the world.
Um. And so that's, that's the conflict right now is where you have open AI's, CEO, Sam Altman saying positive things. And you also have other major tech players saying positive things about Posthumanism, where Elon is saying, no, AI should only be pursued for purposes of benefiting humanity, not for leading us to a place where robots are the, you know, the most powerful entity in the world.
Dude, when you said, uh, like when you gave, I don't remember exactly how you just said it, but basically. Said what they said that hu, that robots would like take over that. That just made my heart feel funny. Like my chest got weird. It probably should when you said that. It's a wild idea and I It is a wild idea.
And I guess that's kind of where, why do, why do you think that they would pursue that? Like why do you think, why would these leaders in the AI space want to build something that would basically, knowing. That this was gonna wipe out humanity. Man, such a great question. Um, wish, like why would I build a bomb to blow ourselves up?
You know what I mean? Like it, yeah. Right. Doesn't that feel like what it, like Totally. Uh, you know, and, and there's a lot of people, uh, you know, I had a, there's a, there's a professor at Biola University named Marito Guta, and uh, I got to interview him on a podcast last year. And Martu was talking about this idea of singularity and singularity.
Another term, I'm throwing a lot of big AI terms, uh, to, to the audience out there. But singularity, if you're still tracking here, is this idea that it is a moment in time that we will pass, that we cannot return. Um, we can't turn it off, if you will, that we've passed the threshold of which the robots are now, or, or the.
Or the AI beings are now more powerful than we can control. Um, that moment of singularity, somebody ev most people believe is sometime in the future. Right. And, uh, you know, it's, it's so such a popular concept that, you know, you have, you have the, the CEOs of the largest companies in the world getting together on shows like this saying, you know, the, the best.
Outcome for AI is, um, the democratization of ai that you make sure that no one organization or one governing body has so much power over it, um, that they control whether we turn it off or not, right. But it's becomes totally democratized where us as the parents, for example, right? As, as a father to my two children, I have the, the control over how AI is used in their lives.
And I also have control over what data. AI actually uses and extracts from their lives and allows it to be shared with other people. That democratization of artificial intelligence an extremely powerful thing. Not everyone believes in that. There are evil forces in the world today. Yeah, and I don't wanna spend too much time on evil forces 'cause I think that's the big scary topic, but, and I think there's so much great thing or great things that are happening with AI right now.
Uh, but there are evil forces in the world to quote Marta Gda last year. And some of those people are working towards just getting us to that place of singularity. And so, uh, I heard this, this quote earlier this year where somebody said, you know, the, the job of being a good guy is not always just doing good in the world, it's also keeping the bad from happening in the world.
Mm. And so that's the role that we as Christians get to play today. And I believe AI presents a huge opportunity and responsibility for us to live up to that. I love, man, that you are, um, you know, I think for a lot of us, we just don't understand this world. Like I'm not smart enough to really understand it and so I just, there's part of me that just like wants to put my hands over my ears and eyes and be like, I don't get it, so I'm just gonna live out whatever I need to do today and see how the chips may fall.
Um, but I love that there are guys like you who are like, no, I'm gonna get in the battle and see, wanna see Kingdom redemption. In this space, I do wanna talk to you about that kingdom redemption stuff and the things that you guys are doing to see AI use for God's glory and for good. Um, but can I just stay on the hard stuff for a minute?
Yeah, yeah. If that's okay. Uh, 'cause I do, I do think that there, it is a real, like, um, I mean this is a, this is a reality for us, like that we have to know some of the things that, um, it's not just chat GBT. There are some very big, there are some like evil things. At force, potentially at play, potentially evil forces at play.
And so I, I just wanna like, understand those well, and part of me is just, um, I think I kind of geek out on like conspiracy theory stuff in my private time. You know, like, just like what, what's happening out in the world. Yeah. Uh, it's a good way for me to shut my brain off. Um, but AI is definitely a part of that.
Um. Did you hear the, I I heard on a podcast, I can't remember what podcast it was I was listening to, but it was, they were talking to AI and they had had the, the machine, repeat a word. If you know what story I'm talking about, like, just interrupt me so I don't butcher the details here, but they had the machine repeat a word, like they just said, say this word repeatedly until I tell you to stop.
And the word was being repeated over and over and over and over again. And then at some point the machine said the word, like threw in the word torture. Hmm. Did you hear that story? No, I haven't heard this. Well, then, yeah, it'll be hard for me to like to pick your brain on it, but like, it was almost like the, like was the machine just gathering information that was just like, it knew that humids, if it were forced to repeat the same word over and over indefinitely would be tortured.
Or was the machine feeling something and said it was tortured? Like that was, I heard that story and I'm like, that is very. Fascinating slash disturbing. Yeah. Like what did it develop? Some kind of consciousness? Um, I think that's part of the research, you know, that's going on right now is we are still extremely early in this, um, artificial intelligence is a, you know, you've maybe heard it said before, but it, it is very infant in the eras that we're in.
And so when you think about. The, the fact that we are teaching this thing to, and I, I, I say this thing as if it is a singular thing and it's not artificial intelligence is, uh, it is very democratized right now. So I will say that, um, and that's an Elon Musk concept, that it, we need to make sure that it stays democratized, that no one organization or governing body maintains or grows such a control over it.
Uh, but it stays democratized. So when you think about the training and the research that's going on around artificial intelligence. We don't yet know if we can get computers to a place of powering, you know, uh, thoughts and emotion, right? You know, some, a lot of people believe that that is a spiritual element.
Some people believe that's an intellectual element, and, and we don't totally know what this idea of emotion is. I can tell you this. My daughter, my 5-year-old daughter was, uh, wanting a bedtime story and chat, GPT uh, 4.0. You may know of chat, GPT, but um, OpenAI, the company behind chat, GPT creates a model, a data model called GPT-4 Oh, and it's their most recent one.
And so we were playing around with it on my phone and I said, Hey, Chet, can you, can you, um, come up with a bedtime story for, for my daughter Sutton? Her name's Sutton. And she said that the model responds and we're talking audibly, right? We're not just typing these things. We're now talking to it through speaker and it's responding, uh, audibly and, and it says, Hey, Sutton.
What story would you like? You know? And she says, well, I want a, a story about princesses. She's a huge princess fan, right? Mm-hmm. Typical 5-year-old girl. And so it says, great, where do you want your princesses to be? And what types of princesses are there and what are they doing? What activities are they doing?
It's just asking her these, this series of questions to create this story for, and then she says, that's enough. And she starts to read back the story. This, this chatt pt, this robot is doing it as if a real person would do it. The, the sound waves are ebbing and flowing like a normal person's voice.
There's emotion pouring out of this AI model. So much so that my 5-year-old daughter at the end of the story says, thank you so much. I love you. You're my best friend. Mm. And I had to pause for a second as her dad, just hearing her say that going, she is, she's building emotion now for this robot. Yeah. And I had to pause and teach my five-year-old daughter.
That, Hey, this, this is not a real person, by the way. Right? Like any, any friendship or or love or affection that you're feeling for this, this thing that is a thing that is not another person on the other side of it. So there are companies now building and, and I don't believe that that was an accident that OpenAI did that.
I believe that was very intentional thing, that they're now architecting these AI models to be, or at least, um. Resemble emotion so that you can start to build an affection and a love for these things, right? That's a real thing that's already happening, right? Like, remember the movie you talk about prophetic, not in the spirit, like biblical terms, but um, you know, just these movies or whatever back in the day where they were kind of giving language to things that we would see 10, 15 years later.
But there was that movie her. Yes. You remember that movie where that right. Um, that guy falls in love with essentially an AI model and it becomes his girlfriend and, you know, whatever. Um, and what you just described with your five-year-old, I think that there's part of me that, and guys know that this, who listen to the podcast anytime we talk about technology.
I have such a love hate relationship. I'm fascinated by ai. I'm like super intrigued by it. Um, I watch documentaries about it, but there's also a part of me that I'm just so nostalgic to towards how things used to be and like, um, I probably over romanticize, you know, how things used to be before technology boom.
Like my childhood when it, when we were very tech free. Um, and 'cause there's part of me that just feels like it, it always cheapens things like you, even if you think about like pornography, we talk about that a lot on the show and guys getting free from that. It's just a cheap version of. Some, a beautiful gift that God has given us and it requires very little effort on our part to enjoy really a gift that God gave us.
So God gives us this gift. We over tech it, and it becomes like this cheap version of what was once a beautiful gift. We see that in food and in nature, like so many things. It's been cheapened down and I feel like AI is just gonna like. Pour gasoline on that cheap and fire, you know, uh, where it's like, yeah, I don't, why would I pursue a woman?
Like, I guess there's part of me that's terrified my 13-year-old son when he's 33, like, I'll just build my girlfriend. You know, I, gosh, if my son does that, I'm gonna punch him in the face. But like, you know, like, uh, that would be a real, like, that's gonna be a real thing. It's already happening. Like guys are already sitting in their mom's basement building their girlfriend on some AI model, and I'm like, dude, you're, it's just cheapening the beauty of God's creation.
I. Uh, that wasn't really a question, but do you have any thoughts on that? That's such a, that No, I, I think you articulated that really, really well. We, you know, we have this, um, we, we have a lot of beliefs that we hold to at Glue, and one of them is that, uh, maybe two here, one, that AI plus a human is always going to be greater than ai, right?
Mm-hmm. That we cannot believe that, uh, we should not believe that we can out-create God. And there are people that are trying to do that. Yeah. But if we, if we pursue this belief that we can out-create God, we will cheapen existence. Right? Yeah. And just imagine that And, and who's to say that God would not allow that to happen?
That that's the new Tower of Babel that is, that is trying to happen, is that we are trying to out-create God. In fact, many people could argue that artificial intelligence altogether is, is man's attempt to create something. That God perfected, right? Yeah. And God, God perfected this emotion and these intelligences that we have and you know, like just imagine all the workings that's going on in the human brain.
And humans right now are trying to recreate our own manmade version of that. So absolutely we're, we're, there's definitely a cheapening going on. The other saying that we have is that. God's design for human flourishing is the best design for human flourishing. Yeah. And we actually see artificial intelligence as an opportunity to reintroduce the world back to God's design for human flourishing and get us away from this cheapened sense of human flourishing that we have, you know, come to believe or, or experience as normal, or that the world has, you know, uh, the Bible says in Psalms 19, that God's law is perfect and it leads to the renewing of the soul.
Right. And the way I interpret that personally is that God's word, the, the, the Bible is perfect. And, and, and our engagement and consumption of it leads to the flourishing of ourselves. And what a beautiful thing that is, that God has given us this gift. And so we are out in the world today trying to recreate this, this perfect image of personal health or mental health, um, you know, or financial wealth, right?
Uh, you know, financial wellbeing. Even, even spiritual wellbeing man has created their own versions of spiritual wellbeing. So many times the Bible says God's design for those things guys is actually what's perfect. Yeah. God's design for financial wellbeing, relational wellbeing, uh, you know, et cetera, et cetera, is what's perfect.
So yeah, how do we, how do we leverage this new technology to actually reintroduce the world to, to God's design for these things so that we don't settle for that cheapened experience that you're talking about. That's good man. And I think that, um, I don't think you have to do a lot of mental gymnastics to really come to some conclusions on how AI could be really detrimental to the human experience.
Um, but it is harder to understand like, how can these technologies be used to see God's glory expanded? Um. You know, how can these technologies be used for our good and for his glory? Um, so that's all you're thinking about, that's all Glue is thinking about. Can you help us tie some of those dots? Like, instead of just throwing it all out, um, what are you guys doing to say, okay, this is a tool, God has allowed this tool into our world, and we wanna see this tool be used for God's glory.
Like, how, how is that happening and what are you guys working on? Yeah. So for, uh, for example, the first thing that we wanted to do, uh, or the, so glue's been in the, the AI industry, if you will, since 2018. We started using large data sets to understand, uh, you know, predictive modeling and start to understand, okay, how do we, how do we now use this idea of machine learning for God's glory?
So how do we, you know, understand if, um. Uh, a divorce is likely to happen and, you know, how would we, how would we, you know, allow what we call champions glue. Glue exists to serve champions. And a champion is anybody that exists to help somebody grow. So think a pastor is a champion. You are a champion, Jared.
Whether you see yourself as that or not, you are actually championing the growth of others. Uh, and so we believe that. Inside of, of all of us, God instilled this desire for everyone to actually champion the growth of another. And so how do we release that, that desire in everyone to champion the growth of another and enable them with powerful technologies?
So for example, we started researching this idea of artificial intelligence and, and how specifically churches are seeing themselves in the role that the global church plays in artificial intelligence. So we started doing these surveys and this research. Uh, we partnered with the Barna group to do that.
They're a world class researcher in the faith ecosystem. Uh, and out out of that has come, um, several research, um, releases, if you will. And this, uh, the most recent one that we did was it focused a lot on parenting and, and how does parenting, uh, see AI and what are the concerns and how are parents navigating AI and what's the overall understanding of it?
So research and education is a huge role that we play in the overall AI ecosystem. Uh, and we want to bring that research to the forefront. We, we don't want that to just stay in Christian dome, if you will, right? We don't want that to just stay, uh, Christian speak. We want that to influence, um, the, the secular world and say, Hey, um, we, we believe that there are powerful, positive ways to do it.
We believe though that there are governance and guardrails required, and so we also do a lot of convening. Uh, one of the things that we did last year that we're doing again this year is something called the AI and the Church Hackathon. And that is this idea of bringing together technologists from around the world for, for about 48 hours, two and a half days where very little sleep happens.
And, uh, we, we rapidly innovate and create new technologies using artificial intelligence, but we do it in safe and ethical ways. Uh, and so that's the AI in the church hackathon. We're actually hosting that in Boulder, Colorado. Uh, September 13th through the 15th this year. Mm, super excited about it. It's gonna be, uh, a great event.
Last year was awesome. We gave away $250,000 in cash prizes last year. We're gonna do that again this year. So on the final day, we award $250,000 in cash prizes to the teams. Uh, so these are teams of like tech guys that are coming in trying to figure out how can we use ai. Um. Uh, help me understand. Is it, yeah.
Is it to equip the church or to equip, like what, what are they doing in those, in that 48 hours specifically? So, so a hackathon, so we actually partner with, uh, a group that helps put on the hackathons for nasa, right? So there's uh, there's major hackathons that happen all over the world. Some of the best ones in the world happen, um, within NASA itself.
Really incredible things that happen. Um, so that same, uh, group came in and, and has helped us put on this hackathon and hackathons have what's called challenges. And so a challenge could be, hey, think through how AI can actually lead people closer to guide and not leave people away from God, right? So that's a challenge statement.
So we would have teams come in and build solutions, actually write code and build apps and software. That lead you to that, the, the solution of that challenge. Another one would be, how do we help people be better at discipleship and evangelism using ai, not away from those things. Right. Wow. Well, this year our challenges are around human flourishing.
They're around how do we help people grow in their finances, grow in their faith, grow in their relationships, in their vocation or their purpose, um, and in their overall wellness? And how do we use AI to do those things and not actually disintermediate those things? So those are examples of challenges and that's what those, the, the hackers, if you will come together to, to do for about two and a half days.
Oh, is it hacker? I was thinking like hack, like a life hack. But is it like hackers? Like tech? Oh, yeah, yeah. No, no. Look like, like tech hackers. Exactly. Oh, okay. Same little tongue in cheek on the hack. Yeah. Not, not it. Like hacking in the, in the maybe negative sense that a lot of people might think anonymous.
Yeah. Um, what did they come up with last year? What were some things that they came up with last year? So the winning, the winning prize took home a hundred thousand dollars. Uh, check. Wow. Uh, it was a group out of, uh, I believe California, and it's called Basil Tech. Might maybe Oregon West Coast. They're, they're on the West Coast.
Uh, basil Technologies. Basil Tech is the, the group that has built a lot of really cool. Biblical scriptural technologies. Uh, if you know Francis Chan and, you know, some of the technologies that, that he recommends, like the read scripture app, uh, basal Tech has played a role in the creation of those types of apps.
Mm-hmm. And, uh, so Basal Tech was there and they created an app for parents actually that would allow them to almost instantly create a highly persona, personalized illustrated children's book. Um, that they could go in and say, Hey, my kid is. Eight years old. My kid struggles with anxiety. Uh, my kid, you know, loves this topic.
And, uh, you know, um, you know, a couple of other details. And I want this to be an uplifting story for my child to overcome their anxiety and find, you know, uh, a renewed faith in the Lord. And it would immediately build you that children's story that you could then read to your child. And it was extremely well put together.
Uh, well coded high quality code, you know, if you're gonna get on the geeky side of it. Very good. Um, graphics that it created. And so, uh, it illustrated it too. It illustrated the whole thing. Yeah. Wow. It was amazing. Do you remember the name of the app? Is it still going? Uh, it's not live on the app store, but, okay.
Um, I, I actually, I don't remember the name of it. I'd have to go back and look at the name of it itself, but yeah. So these guys like wrote the code in to create this, this you wrote code that weekend. Yeah. Incredible. That is cool. That's really cool. Yeah. Yeah. So we had 40, so you're selling me a little bit last year.
Yeah. You're selling me a little bit where it's like you can use AI to, uh, to, it's hard. Again, it is hard for me to like, make the leap, like how could this be used for God's glory? But that is a, that's a cool tool. I like that. Yeah. Um, another thing that we're working on is this idea of, you know, um, one of the problems with ai, Jared, going a little bit back into the, the negatives is that there's this idea of corporate bias showing up in ai.
And so if you are a parent today, one of the concerns that I have is think about putting your child in front of your television and just giving 'em the remote control. Assume they know how to work that remote control and now they can find anything that's on tv. Right? Imagine how scary that is, just as a parent.
And so you don't do that. Instead you say, maybe here's YouTube kids, or here's this specific thing, or here's right now media kids, you know, or here's the Bible app kids. You give 'em very specific things, right? That they can use. And you, you, you use parental controls. If you actually take the time to set those things up, um, you, you kind of govern those things.
Well, that by itself is a bias. You are trying to, to use your Christian bias to influence the things that you're, you're doing now, you're doing that out of the name of protection. And, um, you know, spiritual discernment. Now there's another form of bias, and it's called corporate bias. And that corporate bias is showing up in these AI models.
So, for instance, uh, many people may have heard what happened when Google released the update of Gemini, where it was painting the, the founding fathers, uh, you know, as. Uh, multiple nationalities and ethnicities that they weren't factually, you know, um, that ethnicity, that was a corporate bias that was showing up.
And even Google came out and condemned it from its top level and said, Hey, we, we let this happen. We won't let it happen again. Well, that corporate bias is not quite as explicit as some people may think. Sometimes it's a lot more hidden. Um, and so we're working right now to break down corporate biases and artificial intelligence and create the right infrastructures where there's trust and there's transparency so that I, as a parent, know exactly what's in that AI tool that I'm using for my own purposes or I'm allowing my child to use.
Um, so breaking down those, those bias walls is a really important job to do. And so we're, we're working to pull together all the right faith-based organizations from around the world who are coming together to build something called the Flourishing Collection. That is solving for, for that one big problem.
What would the tool be that you guys are trying to work on? Well, there's gonna be a lot of tools that are built on top of it, but they're built on top of, you know, a, a set of these, these data models that are trained, you know, to, to have, for instance, scripture as the ultimate basis of truth. That if there's a gray area where I, you know, I don't know if I should answer it this way or that way.
It goes back to, well, if I were basing it just based off of how scripture would interpret it, wow. Um, then how would I answer that? So that's an example of just a set of data models, but several apps, hundreds of apps, thousands of apps are built on top of that infrastructure and those data models. Uh, one in particular that we are working on is a GPT like app.
It will come out later this fall and it will be used for. Christians parents, uh, just anybody that's looking for that high trust, um, GPT like experience that they can go to and they can have a source of truth that is founded off of some of the most trusted content in the world, um, that is all curated from a faith-based perspective.
I. So, I mean, the way that I describe, um, chat, GBT in my very elementary rudimentary, ignorant, uh, knowledge is essentially, it's like Google on steroids. So whatever you would type into Google, I. Um, you know, for somebody that's completely unfamiliar with chat GBT and ai, like instead of going to Google, just ask Chat GBT and it's gonna be, it's gonna give you the answer you're looking for on steroids, a million times better and more, but it's pulling, the information that's pulling from is essentially all of the internet.
And what you're saying is they've kind of showed a little bit of their cards because when it's pulling from all the internet, it's also slightly tweaking it. To have these either subtle or pretty direct biases towards what the information it wants you to hear, um, versus being a completely neutral source.
Am I describing that correctly so far? Yeah. Very well. Very well. Okay. So what you're saying is we want to make essentially a Google a. On steroids, like a chat CBT. But the basis is not pulling everything from the internet with a slight bias with whomever created that model, but saying, we're gonna train the model.
We're gonna create the model to say, your foundation is scripture and the truths of God. And so now as you're quote unquote Googling, for lack of better words, the information that it's pulling from the foundation that it's pulling from is scripture. Did I describe that correctly? Very well. Yeah. Great job.
Yeah. Okay. And so there's actually, um, if you go all the way back to chat, GPT, and again, the, the data model behind it, the data model that actually influences chat. GPT originally was GPT-3 0.5, then it went to GPT-4, and now it is GPT-4 0.0. And you know, those data models are trained on really, really big data sets.
But one, for instance, is a, it's called Common Crawl. It's a download of the internet. Another huge portion of the, the training sets are big sets of books or what's called corpuses and uh, you can actually go to what's in my ai, you can just Google what's in my ai. You're gonna find a diagram that's out there that shows you what some of those earlier GPT models look like.
It would actually show you the ingredients, if you will. Um, you're, you're gonna see that that vampire novels represented, uh, you know, like 5.6% of the books that it, that it ingested interesting romance novels represented, you know, somewhere over 25% of the books that it ingested. Interesting. Wow. Uh, Christianity is somewhere buried inside of all that information, right?
And so what, what we're working on right now is building out these data models that says, Hey. There is very specific sources of organizations out there that solve for human flourishing. They create really high quality, high trusted content that helps me lead to a, a deeper relationship with God grows my marriage, uh, helps me, you know, grow as a dad, um, helps me grow my mental health and my physical health.
And it does all of this from a basis of absolute truth according to scripture. And so we're saying. We we're working to pull all of that together right now through what we're calling the flourishing collection and train those models on that set of information so that somebody can use, uh, that new model of search engine, if you will.
'cause your, your idea of search is a great example and they have the most trusted search engine that leads them to the right sources of information that leads them to, to human flourishing. That's a, that's a huge piece. Yeah. That's cool. I really like that. Do you mind me asking how old you are? I actually turned 34 next week.
Ah, happy early birthday, man. So we're, we're close to the same age. Um, what do you think, um, as a dad the world is gonna look like when your kids are 34? Whew. That's a big question. Um, I mean, you're in the AI world all the time. Like, you're, you're living and breathing this stuff, eating and breathing this stuff.
What do you, based on where it's going, so they've got another, you know, 20 years, um, 20 plus years of this developing. What do you think it's gonna look like for them, you know, um.
I have a hope for what it will look like and my hope for what it will look like is a one. Let me just back up. My, my influence and my perspective on this question is dramatically changing. I mean, like. Almost daily at this point, as these new revelations and these new technological technological advances continue to to happen, um, we are in a new industrial revolution.
We are living in it right now. You and I are, I assume you're also in your thirties. We are. We are living in this industrial revolution. We are likely to be the generation that is most impacted by this industrial revolution. If you go back and you study previous industrial revolutions, and I have what you find.
Are job classes that nosedive in terms of just the, the need for those specific roles, right? Um, but then what you see within the next decade usually, or the next few decades, is that new job classes arise, and overall the overall economy grows. So our children are likely to benefit from the growing of the economy.
We are likely to benefit from the disruption of the economy. And I mean in, not in subtle ways. I, I don't believe that this is going to be something that we just quietly squeak by and people can sit on the sidelines and go, well, yeah, I'll just deal with it. When it comes, it's coming. The disruption related to AI is coming.
It will impact every single person that is here in this podcast. And, uh, you should be thinking, how am I getting on the right side of that equation? Because there were people in the previous industrial revolutions that were on the right side of it, and there were people that were on the wrong side of it.
Um, and. That's coming. So I do believe that when, when our children are, are fully grown and they're, you know, managing their own families, as, as you know, moms and dads, they're going to be in a spot where the economy is likely flourishing As a result of some of these things, now they're gonna deal with their own challenges.
For example, will the access to pornography be even more rampant than it is today? Will the access to, um, sexual immorality be even more rampant than it is today? I. I believe the answer to those questions are very likely unless governance, and I'm not a big, big government fan, I'm not advocating for big government.
But in this specific category, I believe that we need strong governance related to artificial intelligence. And you're seeing states as we speak, there are states that are already debating things like a ban on pornography. Uh, the state of Texas is, is debating that thing right now. Uh, those are huge pieces for the future of this because AI will exaggerate the problems that we already live in.
Um, and so yeah, we're, we're likely to live in a place where sin continues to exaggerate, and we also have the Bible that continues to tell us that, that until Jesus comes back, we will live in those, those eras. Um, and at the same time, artificial intelligence will dramatically impact the lives of our children.
Um, likely over the next 10 to 20 years, uh, likely over the next five to 20 years actually. And, uh, and so yeah, there's disruption coming, but our children will have a whole new set of challenges and opportunities at their fingertips based on that picture of what life could be like for our kids as their parents, um, 20 years from now.
Um, for you personally as a dad. What, what do you want your kids to be like based on that information 20 years from now? I want them to be well equipped, right? So, so I mentioned my, my 8-year-old son, my five-year-old daughter who I didn't mention, our, our two teenage girls who, you know, we, we treat like their own.
Uh, they, they've become like our own daughters. They started out as babysitters, but man, we just, uh, love and adore these girls. And these girls are. You know, being a teenager right now in the emergence of AI is not something to be taken lightly. It is something that they themselves are navigating every single day.
They're going, Hey, I hear my friend is using this for their homework. Let's try it. I wonder what else it can do. I. Uh, you know, Snapchat has their AI Pal front and center. Every time you open that app, Snapchat is like recommending you use ai. Meta has now in, you know, what is the, I don't have Snapchat.
What is the, what is the AI or the AI Pal or the Snapchat, I think it's called My AI that's inside of Snapchat and, and it's a chat bot, just like all the other ones, you know, but it, it influences you to. Um, you know, to a ask it questions related to friendships and deep questions related to life. And it tries to get emotional.
It's mentor conversation's. A mentor, it's a little bit right? Uh, geez. Now think about that. A big tech company, you know, based out west in Silicon Valley, is becoming a friend to a lot of our teenage children. Um, so the, the number one thing that I want our, my, my children, um, to do is be equipped and to be aware of what artificial intelligence is.
Um, how to use it, how not to use it, how to seek God's will for it above all else. Uh, and I believe that that is something that if you're a, a dad listening to this podcast and, and you aren't able to answer those questions for yourself of what is it and how to seek God's will for it, start there with yourself.
You know, uh, the, the data that we did with Barna. Uh, says that, you know, 72% of all parents are concerned about AI's impact on their children and teens, and they should be. And they quote, just a lack of understanding overall. Yeah. They say, I, we don't, we don't understand ai. So, so that's the number one thing that I want for my kids.
But I think it starts with just a foundation of, um, guys, God allowed this technology to come into existence and the technology is actually not the star of the show. It's really, um, the, the, what has God called us to do? And God called us to go make disciples. He calls us to know him and to make him known.
And so how do we think about AI as a tool and an enabler to do those things? And AI also as a threat that leads us to more, um, you know, opportunities to sin and to be aware of those concerns and to watch out for the enemy trying to allow these technologies to infiltrate those areas of your life. Yeah, so it's just an awareness and equipping job.
I think for me, man, part of what I want to teach my kids, my son just turned 13, so I, I've started a rite of passage process for him that will go over the next five years of his life. Um, but part of it, what I want him to know, um, is just the, the goodness of like, I want him to, not to be cheesy here, but like to taste and see the goodness of God and to like.
Understand what things about God's design and humanity are good and just be able to recognize it. And specifically, I would mean like, um, like he would know how to sit around a table and have a long conversation with no technology. Hmm. And over a meal. And again, I, I'm a little bit nostalgic, like I'm kind of old school.
I like that kind of stuff, but like. You know, like a campfire, like the smell of a campfire. And like, just like the other day we just, two days ago, we just sat around a campfire, a little bonfire in our backyard and made s'mores. But all those little moments of like, this is good. This is the way God designed.
Things like the human relationships and slow conversations, and deep friendships and meaningful conversations, and a good meal. Like all these things are good. Um, I, I really want my kids to just know those, experience 'em, I want 'em to experience with me and I wanna point those out as they're happening. So I'm like, man, just look how cool.
Look at the stars. Look how cool that is. You know, look at the, look at the ocean right now, and how, look at how, how that makes you feel when you see God's design and how big he is. So that as they grow in an increasingly technological world and the world does offer some of those kind of, like I said at the beginning, maybe cheaper versions of God's design, um, that they would at least have known like, ah, I remember what it tastes like.
To experience some of the, of the things that God has created that were actually good and not a cheaper version of it. And then hopefully come to a conclusion like you, what you guys are doing, just say, AI is not, doesn't have to be Satan or, or the enemy necessarily, but it can, um, maybe that's a cool tool to help me experience more of the good things that God's created.
But anyway, man, that was a little bit of a rant. Slow as I'm just thinking through. Slow down. Yeah. Yeah. It's the, it's just how do you, how do you teach these kids to slow down, right. Yeah, that's a, that's a really, really good lesson that you're talking about there at church on Sunday. Um, I was sitting towards the back end.
There's a group of like college students and, uh, probably like six of them. We don't go to a very big church, but probably six of 'em, like all together. This group, like one by one throughout the sermon just like got up. I'm assuming they just like went to the bathroom or something, but I was just thinking like.
Do they just not know how to like, sit for a long time? Yeah. And like quiet and listen to what, like, are they so inundated with fast moving, uh, screens and technology and entertainment that they can't just sit for like an hour. But anyway, that's a, that I felt so old saying that I'm like, this is my grandpa, you know?
I know, right? Yeah. Get mad at young kids. But bro, thank you. Uh, I feel like I took this conversation in all kinds of weird directions, so thanks for, I love it. Keeping, keeping up with my a DD. Um, I love what you guys are doing, man. How can, how can people. Stay connected to what you guys are doing and the, the tools and, um, research and all the stuff that you guys are doing to try to use technology for the sake of God's glory.
Well, one, thank you for what you do. Thank you for this podcast. It is, uh, there's not enough celebration of the dads in society and people like you are championing dads and reminding us just the importance of dads and, and, and the role that we should be playing in the communities to not live passively.
So. Thank you for what you're doing. Thanks for this podcast. Uh, we are, our friends at Barna do incredible research and they've published a lot on the topic of parenting. I would strongly encourage any friends to go to barna.com and find some of that research that's out there. Uh, if you are interested in what's going on around ai, we do our best to keep, you know, audiences just like this informed on what's happening in the changing landscapes over there.
And, uh, so you can go to Glue us slash ai and you can. Learn all the different things that we're doing to keep you engaged there. That's GLOO, right? GLOO, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Thanks. Yeah. And then, uh, if you know anybody that maybe would be interested in participating in something like our hackathon, uh, we are taking applications now, so you can go to g g.us/hackathon and uh, find the application form.
Yeah. That's awesome, man. Well, thank you brother. Seriously, uh, thank you for what you're doing in this space and, um, seeing God's redemptive work in this space. And thanks for taking, carving some time out of, I'm sure your very busy schedule to, uh, to talk to us about it and educate us guys that don't really know what we're talking about.
So I appreciate it. It was great. Love the conversation, Jared. Thanks man.