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

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

Randall Christopher Niles has been leveraging information technology to share the gospel, proclaim truth, counter lies for a few decades now.

Through God questions and all about God, he has used the Internet as a tool that points people to

Christ. And recently, he tackled the question of AI. How he described both what it promises and its

perils is something that every Christian needs to hear. Here's Randall Christopher Niles.

Every generation is shaped by its tools. The Industrial Revolution replaced muscle

with machines and reshaped labor, cities, families, and time itself. Steam engines led to factories,

factories led to mass production, and mass production led to modern economies. Then came radio,

the first technology to speak to millions at

once. For this first time in history, a single voice could enter every living room, shape public

opinion, unify nations, or divide them. Movies followed, then television. Those behind the images

learned how to move us. Those behind the images learned how to move us. Those behind

the stories learned how to scale. Culture became centralized. Reality became curated.

And then, the internet. A decentralized miracle with instant access to information and the promise of global connection.

Knowledge was no longer guarded by gatekeepers. Anyone could publish and anyone could speak.

Then came smartphones. In an instant, the internet wasn't something we visited. It was something we

carried. A screen was in our hands

from the moment we woke to the moment we fell asleep. With smartphones came social media. It didn't

just connect us. It trained us. It rewarded outrage, amplified fear, a firm dysfunction,

and monetized attention. Truth became negotiable, identity became

performative, and algorithms quietly learned what made us tick. Then in November of 2022, a tool

...