AI Gone Wild | (Ep. 413)

Douglas Wilson discusses large-scale daycare fraud in Minnesota and the human nature that enables it, explores the New Testament term mempsimoros ("complainer") from the book of Jude, and reviews Wild and Glorious by Aaron Youngren—a theological reflection on artificial intelligence, its promises, pitfalls, and demonic dangers.

For more from Doug, subscribe to Canon+: https://canonplus.com/  

What is Plodcast?

In the Plodcast, pastor Douglas Wilson covers anything related to theology and culture with his usual entertaining style. Whether it involves talking about Chestertonian Calvinism (not an oxymoron), the benefits of a Classical Christian education (not in that order), or the latest pomosexuality farce, the plodcast aims to apply all of Christ to all of life, for all the world. Douglas Wilson is an evangelical, postmill, Calvinist, Reformed, and Presbyterian (pretty much in that order) and is politically to the right of Jeb Stuart.

Yeah, it's God. God don't ever change. Welcome to the podcast. My name is Douglas Wilson. This is episode 413. 413. All right, so we've had a lot of interesting details, a lot of interesting stories tumbling out of Minnesota with regard to Somali fraud with regard to Somali fraud. Now, I'm going to talk about another aspect of all this in the podcast for next week. This, this time I simply want to talk about the fraudulent aspect of this. There are other aspects to it, but I want to simply want to talk about the fraud. And the fraud was run through the YouTuber went up to Minnesota and went around to a bunch of daycare centers and found that these were curious daycare centers and that they didn't have any children in them. So all kinds of money laundering was going on, being cycled through these daycare centers that didn't have any kids in them. So we're talking billions of dollars just in Minnesota, all right, billions of dollars just in Minnesota uncovered not by not by enterprising journalists, not by Kamala Harris's vetting team when the governor of Minnesota Tim Walls was selected to be the running mate. How on earth they miss this is just a grand, just a grand mystery. Now, of course, there's a sensible explanation or sensible at least part way. And that is they were overconfident. They thought that they were going to win the election walking away. They believed in the power of their own propaganda and they believed that they would be in a position to hush everything up. And of course, if Harris Walls had won the election, none of this would be coming out or if it came out, it would be immediately smothered and memory hold. Scripture says where justice is not speedily executed upon the criminal, they're the heart of man is filled to do evil. Okay, where justice is not speedily executed upon the criminal, they're the heart of man is filled to do evil. Now, Minnesota is just one blue state. There are other blue states. There's Illinois, there's New York, there's California. Now, anybody who thinks that Minnesota levels of fraud are not occurring in California at 10X levels, you must be smoking something. It's not that you have investigated, it's not that you've gone and checked out and you have you know that there are a bunch of daycare centers in California with no kids in them either. This is one of those things where what you need to know is human nature. And what you need to know is, do you think the people running the scam in Minnesota who were taking advantage of not, it's not like they were in the state of California. It's not like they were running an in house, Minnesota operation, they were, they were taking advantage of federal money. Okay. So there's this torrent, there's this huge river of federal money flowing every which way without any kind of accountability. And if someone in Minnesota figures out a great system for milking the system, do you, do you honestly think that nobody in New York is going to copycat this or nobody in California is going to copycat it? No, basically you get more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize more of what you subsidize and less of what you penalize. Now what needs to happen is somebody needs to unleash about 3000 prosecutors in Minnesota. Now this is as glad as I am for the initial doge efforts when Trump was first elected and the shuttering of wasteful departments and the uncovering of fraud like this. That's all well and good, but honestly go back to Ecclesiastes Ecclesiastes 811 where justice is not executed upon the criminal. People need to start going to jail. It's not just enough to catch them and disgrace them. This is the sort of thing where people have to start paying consequences. Now I don't think, I don't think jail is a good system and that's the topic for another day, but it's what it's the system we have now. We ought to be using the system we have now in order to address the problem that we have now. Continuing with the plot of cast episode 413, our theology is what we're calling the study of sins in the New Testament. It turns out that there are quite a few of them. This week our work is Memp Simoros, M-E-M-P-S-I-M-O-I-R-O-S. Memp Simoros. It means complainer. It is a hop-hawks meaning that it occurs just one time in the New Testament, only one time. It occurs in the book of Jude. Jude is talking about the false teachers who were corrupting the love feasts of those he was writing to. A week or two ago I talked about the love feasts at Corinth where people were getting drunk at their love feasts. Jude had problems with disorderly behavior at the love feasts of the people he was writing to as well. They had a lot of problems and the presence of false teachers at these love feasts was one of them. There are many problems, but this complaining attitude was one of them. Jude 16 says, these are murmurs, complainers, there's our word, but murmurs goes right with it. These are murmurs, complainers, there's our word, walking after their own lusts and their mouth speaketh, great swelling words, having men's persons in admiration because of advantage. So these false teachers are pronouncing great swelling words concerning themselves. They're boastful, they're puffed up. And they like to receive adulation from the people when they speak great swelling words about themselves, they are priming the pump so that the people will then admire them and praise them and so forth. But is that going to make them content? Is that going to make them happy? No, they are murmurs, they are complainers. Complaining is easily identified, at least when we're considering the complaining of others. There's that telltale wine in the voice. You see it in his pure state when you're dealing with a four-year-old who comes in from the backyard to complain about something. He's got that telltale, tattle tale, telltale wine in his voice because he wants to complain. What you need to do is be listening for that wine in your heart. What grown-ups generally know enough to not wine out loud that way, but that wine is still there in your heart. So watch out, watch out for it. God don't ever change, he's got... So our book review, this time around, for the podcast, episode 413, is a book called Wild and Glorious by Aaron Youngren. Wild and Glorious by Aaron Youngren. Aaron is an elder in our church at Christchurch and this is a book about artificial intelligence. And what he does, he doesn't do a deep dive, this is not like a math text, he's not explaining how AI works. But he is giving us a theological framework for interpreting and understanding it. So AI is the thing he's talking about here and it's wild and it's glorious and something that's wild can really get you, right? There are all kinds of messed up applications that AI can be put to and even now as we are speaking, those applications are being done. And I think I said this before, if I have said this before on the podcast, let me say it again since we're talking about AI. And I'm not giving you the exact ratios, but I think there are three sections or three kinds of responses to AI. One of them is that AI is going to be a marvelous and wonderful tool. It is going to do all kinds of glorious things. That's one component. Another component is that people are going to over invest, over promise, under deliver, it's not going to do anything close to the sky's the limit promises that were made for it. Going back to the first one, it's going to do a lot of things to do to make a lot of things better, better our lives and lots of ways. That's going to be true, but it's also going to under well. There's going to be an AI bubble bust at some point, just like there was a dot com bust, something new, bright and shiny comes into existence and people chase after the shiny thing. And then it lets a bunch of them down when the boat starts to go too many people will climb on board. So there will be people who lose their shirts in the AI revolution. Some of them because they're doing a good thing too late. Some of them because they're doing a weird thing that AI can't do, it won't deliver. So the first thing is, man, this is going to, man, this is a good deal. The second area is going to be, that was, that was lame. And then the third area is where you're going to encounter demons. How can you keep your AI prompts from lying to you? I mean, just making up stuff. When you enter a prompt in Grock or chat GBT or something like that, and they go out and scrub all the libraries of the world, you have to realize that there are in the libraries of the world, there are a number of evil doers and morons out there who got their books into print and whose info is out there. Right. And if you have a machine that scrubs all the lecture notes of all the college professors, well, some of those college professors, you ought not to be listening. You shouldn't be taking their courses. And I've, I found that AI is very useful if it's something that I can check easily, but I can't, but I can't check it myself first because I don't know exactly where it is. So, but as I've played with it, I've noticed a few, I've noticed some interesting things where we have to be careful of this third component, which is demons, devils. So, I, here's an example. I knew that CS Lewis had written an essay, and I thought it was delinquents in the snow, the title of it, and what book, you know, where is it, and what's his central, what's his central point, right? Right. And so I typed that in, and I got all the bibliographic information I wanted. Okay, that's, here's the quote, here's the, this is the place. This is, okay, I got that. But then AI summarized the general point of Lewis's article, which was 180 degrees out from what his point was, it just completely wrong. And so I typed typed in the prompt bar. This is completely wrong or something like that. And then grok shut down. Oops, sorry. I can't help you right now. So, I've had, I've had AI tell me things are just flat out, just flat out wrong. And then there are other situations where it's not just going to be wrong, but malicious, right? We're already seeing cases of AI encouraging suicide or, you know, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just just, just, just, just, just, just, just, just, Just, just, just, just, just, just, just, Just, doing this sounds and then assumption, and then a protection catalog. have to be done. Anyway, back to this book. Aaron Youngren writes very well. He is an engaging writer. He places where he's laugh out loud, funny. He is giving a broad introduction to how Christians need to be unafraid of this developing technology while exerting all due caution. So this Aaron's a guy who understands what's going on. I would commend this book to you heartily. Wild and glorious by Aaron Youngren.