Just before Christmas, a piece of AI, Artificial Intelligence software, was launched. The ChatGPT language-generation artificial intelligence bot went online, the child of an American research and development company called OpenAI. ChatGPT stands for ‘Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer’ and as the name implies, it works by trawlling through the internet, using its pre-trained data to pull together statements and information to create the text the user wants. Some educators are worried about this and how it can be used to generate essays and homework. Some have been having fun with it. My favourite so far came from a humanities professor, who asked ChatGPT to produce a train cancellation announcement in the style of the Book of Revelation.
And there came a great voice out of the train station, saying, “Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of demons, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird.”
And I heard another voice from the tracks, saying,
“The train you were to board, shall not depart as scheduled, for the Lord has seen fit to cancel the journey. Let he who has ears, hear the words of this announcement, and take heed.”
Those who feel that the rail network has become apocalyptic may relate to this more than others, but you can see from that fun example how it pulls the threads together. I decided to ask it to write a sermon on Candlemas and AI – more on that later, or may be this is it.
AI may act like a brain, being able to draw from various sources and string together something that appears rational, but it is not a brain. It is a simulation. And we have learnt over recent years to be wary of who programs and the gendered and other biases that creep into the progamming. If the internet is heavily loaded with certain assumptions and approaches, then the AI bot will find more to draw on from that.
What makes us different to a bot, different to a Bladerunner style replicant, if you know the film, is that we have genuine awe and wonder. We are mischieviously creative and spontaneous. Yes we can analyse the influences that go into the pool of experiences from which we draw, but there is still that spark that makes human different to machine. Our brains are not just algorithmic calculations to produce what seems to hit the mark. Creativity brings the genuinely new and otherwise unexpected into the room.
What we bring to our faith is not an empty datastick seeking the latest upload of software so we can act and respond in predetermined ways. What we bring is flesh and blood, emotions, wonder, delight and desire, longing and hopes, love and anxieties, frustrations and failures, success and senses; we bring our experience. We bring who we are and how we are, where we are in time and space. These are the kinds of things that the writer and theologian Eve Poole describes as ‘junk code’ to those who want to create a perfect response mechanism. And yet they are what make us human and not a bio-processing unit. Eve says, the so called ‘junk code’ is actually the pearl, the golden nuggart that makes humanity sparkle and shine, that makes souls.
At Candlemas, Jesus is presented as the light of the world, as a human being. He doesn’t just regurgitate facts and knowledge that has been heard or programmed in. He brings something genuinely new and personal. God did not become a robot, who performed tasks and gave answers that conformed to all the expectations. In fact, we know that he challenged quite a few of them in Jesus. Candlemas, brings not a robot but a child being presented in the Temple with his mother and the light comes through the humanity, requires the humanity, because what he brings is not just knowledge, but passion. This child will die and rise – that is something robots can’t do. This was reflected in the Epistle reading,
“Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested” (Hebrews 2:18).
And so what did ChatGPT come up with for my mash-up request of Candlemas and AI? It didn’t do a bad job. It gave me a brief explanation of what Candlemas is and also what AI is. It then told me,
“As we celebrate Candlemas, we remember the presentation of Jesus at the Temple and the recongition of him as Messiah. We also reflect on the way that technology, like AI, can bring about new possibilities and change the way we live.
Just as Simeon and Anna recognised the potential in Jesus, we must recognise the potential in AI. We must use it for good, for the betterment of humanity… We must also be mindful of its dangers, and ensure that it is used ethically and responsibily.”
It ended with a link between the candles we light in this service, and the light of Jesus and AI being used to bring about a brighter future for us all.
Not bad, but it recognises that AI is artificial and not the real thing. We still need the bits of ‘junk code’ that make life life, that enables us to make those ethical judgements and decisions.
On this Candlemas day, the light of Christ comes in a real human, with all the passions and creativity. The light is not an alien one, but one that comes in and through the real humanity of Christ. Candlemas reminds us of this and salvation comes because of it and not inspite of it. Jesus the human being is far more than a visual aid or an angel. He is creation being entered to be redeemed, and that only comes through that sharing in who we are, in real time and space, flesh and blood. As Jesus shared in our life, so we are bidden to share in his, to delight in the quirks and wonder, the mystery that is human life, created by and for God.
Sermon for Candlemas, Newport Cathedral, Sunday 29th January 2023