ChatGPT and the Heart(less)

By Jack Hoey

Almost 20 years ago, I was sitting in a college classroom waiting to turn in the most difficult paper I had ever written, proud of what months of work had produced. Another student walked (strutted?) in and, clapping a hand on my shoulder, said with a big smile, “Wrote the whole thing last night.” I’m not sure if his life flashed before his eyes, but it should have—I almost killed him.

I wasn’t upset that I had worked harder than him; I was upset at his indifference. This guy was studying to be a pastor. Didn’t he care that he was preparing to lead a congregation entrusted to him by God? Where was his heart?

This brings me to ChatGPT. Now hold on, let me explain. This isn’t a “look at these lazy pastors” article. My concern about ChatGPT (and other language AI tools like it) is not that it will make us lazy, but that it will make us less human.

We live in an age of wonders. I don’t even mean iPhones—let’s give it up for indoor plumbing, people. When was the last time you remembered to be thankful that the vast majority of children don’t die before they’re 8? This is a tremendous time to be alive. Yet our cultural moment has made us forget that not every innovation is good. There is a reason no one has used a nuclear bomb in anger for 80 years.

That is not to say that we need to divide technology into “good” and “bad.” Technology itself is neither. The problem isn’t technology but the humans who use it. A book is a piece of technology and humans have used it to print both the Bible and Mein Kampf. The question we should ask is not, “Is it good” but “What will we do with it?” Technology used rightly makes us more human; technology abused dehumanizes us.

So, what do we do with a technology like ChatGPT? Well, what will you do with it? I can envision a pastor who uses it as a sort of enhanced Google: Fact-checking, questions about dates or who said what when, perhaps verifying a quote. Okay. I know some pastors now who are just playing around with it, curious to see whether it can write a good message, or have a theological argument, without any intention to use the results for anything other than their own amusement. Fine, have fun!

But some pastors will, in fact, use it to write the sermons their congregations hear. I know of at least one who has used it to reply to a difficult email from a congregant. These, to me, seem beyond the limits of what is acceptable. They are delegating what are meant to be profoundly human tasks to a machine, and that can only dehumanize them.

Here is a thought experiment, one that far too many pastors have lived: A family in your church loses their four-year-old daughter in a tragic accident and has asked you to perform the memorial service.

Do you use ChatGPT to write the message for that service?

No. I mean, goodness. If you answered “yes,” in all sincerity please find another line of work. Today.

Okay, but why is that obviously unacceptable? Because the family isn’t asking you for a message. They are asking you to walk them through this moment. We do not offer a grieving family our clever writing; we offer them our heart. ChatGPT can probably write a more articulate message than you, but it cannot hug grieving parents, or sit with a boy asking why daddy took his own life.

“Come on Jack, people won’t use it for that.” Oh yes, they will. But you don’t have to. Look, I could write about how ChatGPT shortcuts the important and edifying struggle of writing a message. I could write about it making us dumber and lazier. I could write about how it actually seems to have coding that requires it advocate for a very specific set of cultural values.

But my biggest concern is what it will do to your heart. Listen, it’s easy to assume people want better writing, better structure, clearer arguments, more facts. They don’t. They want YOU. They want your messy, mostly-okay messages with the lame jokes you don’t realize you tell over and over. ChatGPT can do a lot, but it cannot demonstrate a life transformed by the Gospel. No one will ever look at an AI, no matter how advanced, and say “something is different about you.”

People come to us hoping to see humanity fully alive and that is something no technology can give them. Only a human can have a heart.