Built to Agree

On SocialAI, an app that looks like X, you post, and perhaps millions of “followers” reply instantly. Those followers, though, are built by you, from a menu that can include supporters, critics, trolls, conservatives or liberals.  

SocialAI’s founder promotes it as “liberating” because users can’t be canceled. That’s because no actual person is reacting to the posts. In a sea of millions of engaged followers, there’s only one human—you. And you know it.  

Saying something in public, especially something true but unpopular, takes courage. There’s risk of being misread, canceled or socially ruined. SocialAI removes those risks and, thus, the courage. There could be a legitimate use for the app, like floating a controversial stance to test your reaction from “critics” before posting on a real site. But SocialAI isn’t marketed as a risk rehearsal tool. It’s a risk-removed world.  

This is part of a growing escapist trend. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said in an interview that some of us have “Reality Privilege,” living in a world “rich, even overflowing with glorious substance.” Most others, he said, live in bleak or challenging circumstances. The solution, according to Andreessen and other AI pioneers, is to build virtual worlds that close the gap for the “reality deprived.”  

Of course, no one is reality deprived. We all live in realities with varying ups and downs. Giving people a virtual world to escape to is the true reality deprivation. That irony is lost on many techno-utopianists, perhaps because the seduction of becoming godlike world-builders blinds them to it.  

Such escapism doesn’t produce sturdier souls. It atrophies them. In trying to become those world-building gods, we reduce ourselves from deiform souls to digitized simulations. We become the dangerously “dissatisfied and irresponsible gods” that atheist Yuval Harari warned we’d become.  

Lest Christians think digital escapism is confined to the un-churched, a Barna study found the opposite. Their survey of 1,500 American teenagers revealed that the teens most engaged in their faith, the “Faith-Activated,” were nearly twice as likely as their peers to trust AI’s answers to important questions over a person’s.  

These aren’t isolated kids substituting a chatbot for friends they don’t have. Nor are they afraid to talk to their youth leaders. Many said they feel free to bring doubts to their youth groups and that they’re encouraged to think critically about faith. Yet they trust machines more. 

Though explanations are still being explored, there are clues to why this retreat to silicon entices even the faithful. We all struggle with automation bias—the belief that since machines lack emotion, they’re objective. Young people could also think AI systems provide a curation of collected human wisdom on a topic; an advantage over relying on the wisdom of just one pastor.  

Protecting feelings may also be at play, even in the safest of environments. A pastor might subtly sigh. A friend might speak truth you don’t want to hear in a confession. But a chatbot will never think less of you because it never had an opinion of you in the first place. Confessing to a chatbot—like posting to a community of bots—removes risk entirely.  

We’ve wrung our hands over whether AI will get so good we can’t distinguish it from a human. What we’re learning now is that fewer young people care about the distinction so long as something answers when they call.  

Interestingly, even though we respond to the hardest-to-believe videos or images with, “That’s probably AI,” we don’t distrust AI. We distrust the people using AI. Whether we think they are manipulative or ignorant, we decreasingly rely on people in favor of machines to avoid risks.  

But real community entails risks. Christian community isn’t meant to be curated for optimal emotional ease or predictability. Jesus’ interactions with his disciples and the people he encountered were marked by affirmation and correction, even rebuke. That’s what prepared his disciples to speak truth to power and endure hardships when preaching the gospel. Real community, marked by reliable answers and compassionate (though unpredictable) connection, fosters resilience.  

The relationships—and the faith—worth having are those that can surprise us, correct us and uplift us amid life’s triumphs and tragedies. God has privileged us with living in a harsh reality that we can impact, not avoid. That requires courage. Anything that removes that courage is just a mirror with a chat function.   

That was Abdu Murray, author of the book Fake ID: How AI and Identity Ideology Are Collapsing Reality and a speaker at the upcoming Great Lakes Symposium, “What Does It Mean to be Human in an AI Age?” on August 6 in Bay Harbor, Michigan. The event is free online or in person, but you must register. Find out more at greatlakessymposium.org.

Photo Credit: ©Glenn Carstens Peters/Unsplash

ABDU MURRAY offers the credibility of the gospel message as a speaker and writer with Embrace the Truth. He has written several books, including “Saving Truth,” “Grand Central Question,” “Apocalypse Later,” and his latest, “More than a White Man’s Religion.” For most of his life, Abdu was a proud Muslim until a nine-year historical, philosophical, theological, and scientific investigation pointed him to the Christian faith. 

Abdu has spoken to diverse international audiences and has participated in debates and dialogues across the globe. He holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor and earned his Juris Doctor from the University of Michigan Law School. Abdu lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their three children.

EMBRACE THE TRUTH knows people of all ages and walks of life have sophisticated questions regarding faith, reason and culture. The organization offers thoughtful answers to thoughtful people with questions and doubts.

The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of CrosswalkHeadlines.

BreakPoint is a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. BreakPoint commentaries offer incisive content people can't find anywhere else; content that cuts through the fog of relativism and the news cycle with truth and compassion. Founded by Chuck Colson (1931 – 2012) in 1991 as a daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint provides a Christian perspective on today's news and trends. Today, you can get it in written and a variety of audio formats: on the web, the radio, or your favorite podcast app on the go.