In this week’s “Interesting Times” podcast, Ross Douthat interviews AI researcher Daniel Kokotajlo (check it out here). Kokotajlo lays out the rapid rise in AI abilities. He predicts AI will soon be able to work autonomously, an inflection point, where AI begins to give itself tasks. In 2027, he predicts AI will take over software engineering, which will lead to rapid AI development in all areas… the end scenario is AI, with intelligence and ability beyond any human, leading every facet of society. The question, for Kokotajlo, is not if this will happen. Instead he asks what will be AI’s goal or purpose… we might assume the goal has been dictated by humans. BUT, he noted that researchers do not entirely understand their own creation. Even now AI chat bots are known to give false information — even when accuracy to facts is supposably one of the machine’s ruling principles.

So Kokotajlo asks, will AI’s goal lead to a human utopia or to human annihilation?

I must say, this podcast felt straight out of Hollywood. Picture Arnold Schwarzenegger, “I’ll be back”… but the better Terminator quote for our moment, “It’s in your (human) nature to destroy yourselves.” The machine is right. We have no self control. We will always eat the fruit. Listening to the podcast I felt afraid.

But then I got a cup of coffee, paced the church, watched the wind blow through the trees. ¹

The AI researcher may be right. Then again I can remember the nuclear Doomsday clock, always nearly, but never actually midnight. Our annihilation has always been on our doorstep.

In my FB feed was a page from Lord of the Rings. It has been decades since I read those stories, but I quickly remembered the scene. The Lord of Nazgûl, a king whose soul was sold to darkness, breaks forth into Gondor. Violently he strides over the threshold “no enemy had ever crossed.” The armies retreat in fear before him, save one. Alone stands Gandalf.

It is a powerful scene. But where do I fit in the scene? Thankfully I am not the evil villain, but neither am I the strong hero. Am I one of those running? Perhaps… But the passage continues in a way I had forgotten: “And in that very moment, away behind in some courtyard of the City, a cock crowed. Shrill and clear he crowed, reckoning nothing of wizardry or war ², welcoming only the morning that in the sky far above the shadows of death was coming with the dawn.”

With the knowledge that annihilation is on our doorstep I could run in fear. Or I could find peace in watching the Light of the world. The One who has been, is, and will be. In this I will find I have a part to play. Maybe, as the crow sounds, my role is to simply declare the truth, the Son is here!

And there may be even more to our part. After all, Gandalf did not stop the Nazgûl. Instead it was a woman, arm and shield shattered by the dark Lord’s blow, and a tiny hobbit. For while evil boldly strides, seizing the fame it so eagerly desires, Good is also at work. Our destiny is not in digital hands of ones and zeros, but the pierced hands of grace.

So let us cry out the truth. Let our actions live without fear of tomorrow, but in the knowledge that tomorrow we have been saved.

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1. John 3:8 “The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”
2. Matthew 24:6 “You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come.” (See v6-14, all these destructions we fear are “birth pangs”, but in Jesus new life will be born. See also Romans 8.)