The Meet Hope Podcast

44: Exploring AI and ChatGPT's Impact on the Church with James Lee

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Ever wondered about the intersection of AI, ChatGPT, and faith communities? This week's conversation is with returning guest James Lee, Director of Communications for the United Methodists of Greater New Jersey and the Eastern Pennsylvania. James and Jeff ask questions like how could AI actually help to strengthen the church and clarify its mission? Listen in for a fascinating exploration of faith, community, and technology that promises to challenge your perspective and spark your curiosity.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Meet Hope podcast, where we have conversations about faith and hope. Hope is one church made of people living out their faith through two expressions in person and online. We believe a hybrid faith experience can lead to a growing influence in our community and our world for the sake of others. Welcome to Hope.

Speaker 2:

Hey friends, welcome to the Meet Hope podcast. I'm Jeff Bills and I am being joined by my friend and colleague, James Lee. Pastor James Lee. He is the director of communications for the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, as well as the Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Try saying that in one breath. Get that on a business card, James. It's like a whole thing. Welcome. Great to have you with us.

Speaker 3:

Yeah good to be back.

Speaker 2:

Yes, so good to have you. What we are going to be talking about really timely and interesting and deep AI GPT, so AI, artificial intelligence and specifically GPT, which many of you who are listening, I'm sure have heard something about. But for those who may not, James, how would you describe what AI GPT is?

Speaker 3:

It's taking over the world. Jeff Terminator is becoming a reality.

Speaker 2:

Yikes.

Speaker 3:

Skynet is here. No, back when I was in middle school, high school I remember math class there was always at least that one student who would raise their hand and say when are we going to need to know this in the real world?

Speaker 1:

We have calculators.

Speaker 3:

I have a calculator, when am I going to need this? And the teacher would try to justify it here. There, nothing really landed. And sure enough, as adults, how often do we use calculators? The same change and shift is happening now in language. So in the fall of 2022, a company called OpenAI launched a chat GPT version 3.5 and made it public and made it free, and within the first few months they had 100 million users.

Speaker 2:

Yikes.

Speaker 3:

Now just to give a little background on what this is. So GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. Now, that's a whole lot of words Basically means that this is a chatbot like no other chatbot you have before. This is not your Alexa, this is not your Siri. It's very different. This is a neural network of servers that has been pre-trained, with all the data on the internet up until September of 2021. Trillions and trillions of data points. This has been pre-trained, analyzed over and over again, and then it's pretty much. It's a transformer, which means it's predicting what the next word is would be so, statistically, what would be the most appropriate word afterward, word by word, is just predicting it.

Speaker 3:

It sounds weird, but this is completely shift how we think about AI before we thought artificial intelligence was like you put in A and you get output B and you have to give it a bunch of rules to get there. Well, basically this is looking out at the outcome, first statistically, and then it's figuring out its own route there. This is another way to look at it, basically. So in the late fall of last year I was like I want to try this out and the first prompt I put in was write me a song about Scooby-Doo Fighting Godzilla, make it Rhyme, and within three seconds it had three verses and a chorus and a bridge and it was a beautiful story of it had the whole mystery gang what is it called? The whole gang was there, their names were there and they figured out a way to make Godzilla trip.

Speaker 2:

And it was on the music as well as the lyric.

Speaker 3:

It rhymed, it was just words, but you could easily put some music to it. It had the right rhythm. First I was blown away. I spent hours on this. The next emotion I felt was follow. My friend calls it follow, which is fear of looming obsolescence. This is going to make put me out of a job as a communicator. I would ask it to write sermons. Sermons weren't that good, but it was a solid C plus sermon. I would say so. There might be some pastors who would might benefit from it Some weeks, some might.

Speaker 3:

It passed the bar exam and it passed the MCATs. Chat GBT did so in one sense, there was a bit of fear that came over, like is this going to replace all of our jobs? More and more, I feel like that fear is unfounded and there are certainly limitations to chat GBT. And I found the best way to look at this is precisely how we look at the calculator and math right. When the calculator became more and more readily available for folks, we didn't say, oh, all our accounts are going to go out of it, lose a job. Right, it allowed accountants to use more of their cerebral energy to think of the big picture. So less on calculating the numbers, but more on thinking of the big picture.

Speaker 3:

How does this fit in with XYZ? And I believe that this tool, if used well, can actually grow our faith and grow and enhance our everyday living in such a way where now our leaders may spend a little less time on trying to think of the nuance of every word that they write and spend more time on the big picture. Interesting, yeah. So that's another way that I look at it as well.

Speaker 2:

So just processing this as you're talking about it, the thing that people have said about Google, for example, is and it's an obsolesion the fear of being obsolete. So people are no longer going to come to church to ask their spiritual questions. They'll just sit at their computer and type out these questions and get the answer. And so why would I go to church? Why do I need a pastor? The reality is that that hasn't happened, and so why not? Why do you think, why do you think chat GPT isn't going to replace the church or those who lead the church?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I will say the church will probably experience a similar existential crisis. With this tool, it will help the church really. The church will have to rethink why it exists If the pandemic challenged churches to look beyond their Sunday worship experience quote unquote putting on a show on Sunday saying, no, the church is more than that, right? I think the pandemic really forced churches to ask that existential question. And Google had forced churches to ask is this where people come to get their answers? No, this is where people come to ask questions in a deeper way in community, right? I think that's where at least churches landed post Google. Well then, chat GBT is really good at giving you answers and interpreting those answers for you. So again, it's going to ask those. I think it's going to be asking some force the church to ask some really tough questions, but I am very hopeful that it will only strengthen the church and clarify the mission of the church further and say no, it's not these.

Speaker 3:

We don't come to church for answers. We come to church to grow in our faith, to be challenged and to find community, and chat GBT is not going to replace that. I believe, if it's used well, it could actually enhance that. So recently, in a small group that I am a part of, we meet every other week and we were engaging with a text from scripture and the conversation was getting a little I don't want to say stale, but it was kind of not going in many directions. So I pulled out my phone and I asked chat GBT. Hey, we are going through first Samuel chapter, whatever. What are some interesting questions we could ask? And it came up with 10 really interesting questions that then we began to ask each other right Questions that we wouldn't have asked otherwise.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

Right. So those are ways in which it becomes an assistance to inject creativity into our lives. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2:

You know we were saying before we start recording this that any new technology feels threatening at first. If you look at the history of the pipe organ at the time it was introduced it was considered to be demonic, and now you're not allowed to have church without one.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, if you, removing it now is demonic. Yes, Television.

Speaker 2:

I remember when I was a young person and the first worship services coming on TV and there was all of this fear that it's the end of the local church because people are just going to watch it on TV, Wow. And so again, you know, there's these fears that are unfounded. Chat GBT does not have a soul.

Speaker 3:

No, no, it's not, and if you ask whether it has a soul, it will tell you it does not have a soul.

Speaker 2:

There you go, there you go. So we still need each other, we still need community, right, you can't no matter what we have come up with technologically, whether it's the radio or the television or whatever it is, you cannot replace community.

Speaker 3:

Correct and more than ever, I think, with rising and emerging new technologies, you find the desperate need for that community more and more right. So perhaps there were certain aspects of community that were now being replaced with various technologies. Right now, the United States especially is at an all time high of loneliness and anxiety and depression, and perhaps there were. You know, before the community was also the place where you played games. Community was also the place where you got your news. Community was also where you got all these things. Now, a lot of those aspects now we get alone individually on my phone. Let's say All that to say. There is a lot perhaps that you know, a lot of babies that went out with the bathwater and we say no, we need the baby right, and that baby is community.

Speaker 3:

So, if used well, I see chat, gbt and these other AI tools enhancing community and really allowing us to focus on why community really does matter I wouldn't ignore it, I wouldn't go the route of fear, but I would wrestle with it and challenge it right. So I think about Jacob wrestling with the angel of God all night, and that has been my experience with chat GBT. Right, I'm not gonna let go.

Speaker 2:

Hold on to this.

Speaker 3:

Oh yeah, and I might have a dislocated hip socket after all this, but so far I've found a lot of blessing through it.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, interesting yeah yeah, it's so it is gonna challenge, I know educators. I've heard some conversation among educators about what will this mean and Is this the end of Say?

Speaker 3:

yeah papers right right.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so what does education look like in the in light of chat, gpt and artificial intelligence and so forth?

Speaker 3:

I had a really good conversation with Dr Kate Ott of Garrett Theological Seminary. She's really into ethics and all things technology and she said she actually embraced it and said, yeah, I mean, first of all, she was not really big on assigning papers to begin with, that's not usually her mode of education. But she said, yeah, this might be a good thing because we're gonna force a lot of teachers to ask the question why do we have students write papers, which is, we want them to understand and comprehend and be able to interpret a new information and new stories, right? So what are some other ways that we can cultivate that Mmm, right?

Speaker 2:

It's good. Yeah, you know, the church has a 2000 year history of adapting to cultural shifts and without compromising the gospel. And we come at it reluctantly sometimes and Late sometimes sure but the church has always managed to adapt to what's going on in the culture and to maintain the gospel, to share that Timeless truth of Christ with an ever-changing culture. And so this is just, I think, one more example of We've got to figure this out. We will figure this out. It's just how messy it's gonna be in the process.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I think another place where the church really will matter is having those Ethical conversations so with new technologies.

Speaker 3:

It's the Wild West, right? So there are many ways in which these technologies can be used for harm, and so I think the church ought not to just stay back and say this is All bad and so we're just gonna stay in the stone ages, right, but to actually be right at in the center of the conversation and to offer up. How can we Do no harm and do good and also continue to stay in love with God In the midst of a world where chat GBT is a reality and it's a tool that we see everywhere? Yeah, I think the church has a lot to offer, and I I hope the church doesn't just adapt to it and reluctantly, but is actually at the forefront of those conversations.

Speaker 2:

Well, we always end these Podcasts with what has you hopeful, and that was a pretty hopeful word right there amen, Amen yes.

Speaker 2:

I know that, that this church loves to wrestle with these kinds of things in positive ways, in life and faith affirming ways, in a unity with one another, even is in times of disagreement and so forth. So I believe we're gonna be able to do that well and and be just as you say. We're gonna be in the midst of Figuring this out as church as well as as a culture. So, thanks, this is really fascinating, james. We could talk on and on, but we've got to wrap this up. So if this is a new subject for you, there'll be some notes about chat, gpt that you can check out, and I'm always interested in hearing from you. So please feel free to reach out to me. Jeff at meet hope org and you have questions for James, where could they reach you, james?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, and I am such a nerd when it comes to AI stuff, so I love to talk about these things. Yeah, you could reach me at Jay Lee, that's J L E E at at GnJUMCorg, and I love to talk.

Speaker 2:

I love the chat so thanks again for tuning in and, as always, we'd love to have you share this with with friends. And In the meantime, we'll see you at hope.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being a part of the hope community as we continue our conversations about faith and hope. If you don't already, please join us for worship on Sundays or on demand. You can learn more at meet hope org or find us on socials at meet hope church.