Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

Artificial intelligence really began back in the 1950s with what was known then as machine learning.

Over the past decade, and especially the past year, dreams about so-called machine learning became possibilities and

actualities, and new dreams were born about both the benefits and dangers of artificial

intelligence. Now, among the potential abuses of AI that we learned about this year was how

mentally vulnerable users were manipulated into thinking that their profits and had access

to the secrets of the

universe. Rolling Stone told us chilling stories of spouses and parents who watched their loved

ones lose touch with reality through AI. Cashmer Hill wrote in the New York Times about

chatbots that lured users down conspiratorial rabbit holes, encouraging them to take drugs, assuring

them they could fly, even egging some on to suicide. Oh yeah, and we also learned that GROC relied

on Nazi sources for much of its intelligence. AI has also disrupted learning by normalizing

cheating. The technology news site futurism declared AI is destroying a generation of students.

New York Magazine warned everyone's cheating their way through college. I know of at least one

Christian college religion class in which there are no textbooks, and the professor actually

encourages students to use AI to produce their assignments. New technologies always require humans to wrestle again with

ultimate questions, not just what's right and wrong, but also what it means to be human and what

the meaning of life is. You see, our work is vital as humans, not just as a way to love and serve

our neighbors, but also as a fulfillment of the creation mandate, how God made us to be.

The fault turned much of human work, of course, into what Scripture refers to as toil,

frustrating and futile effort that's unnecessarily complicated and often falls short of our

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