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Episode 9 The Importance of Real Connection in an Age of AI Companionship
23 Plays3 months ago
In this episode, I explore the critical question of why AI companions can never replace the God-designed community we were created for. I discuss recent concerns about how teens are increasingly turning to AI for emotional support, highlighting that this trend can lead to a dangerous substitute for genuine relationships. I emphasize the importance of teaching our students about real connection versus digital imitation, urging educators to cultivate environments that foster authentic community. Additionally, I recommend reading "The Anxious Generation" by Jonathan Haidt to better understand the impact of digital life on our students. I encourage you to reflect on your classroom culture and consider how we can guide our students toward healthier relationships.
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Transcript
AI Companionship vs Human Connections
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Can an AI chatbot ever truly be your friend? And what does it mean for your classrooms and our souls when we start to trade genuine God-given relationships for digital imitation?
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If those questions have ever crossed your mind, then you are in the right place. Join us today as we explore why real connection matters so much and why AI companionship can never replace the kind of community that God has designed us for.
Impact of AI on Faith and Education
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Welcome to the Christian Educators AI Guide podcast where we take practical, biblically grounded steps to use AI with wisdom and confidence. I'm your host of the podcast, Rob Almey, and I'm glad you're here today.
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Today we are exploring a topic that's only going to get bigger and bigger in our AI moment, artificial companionship, and what artificial companionship means for our students, for us as teachers and educators, and the formation of the human heart.
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Before we get into our big question for today, though, let's catch up on some AI news as we move to that segment of our show, the AI News of the Week.
AI as Emotional Support for Teens
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In this segment, we focus on some of the latest developments in AI and why they matter to Christian educators. Most times, I'll share with you one general AI story and one story more directly connected to AI in education.
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In the general AI development news for this week that I want to share with you, new reports continue to raise concerns about how teens and young adults are using AI tools not only for schoolwork but also for emotional support and mental health conversations. Education Week has reported this month with new research that's highlighting a growing concern over how teens use AI for learning and mental health support.
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You might ask, well, why does this matter to us as Christian educators educators? This is where the conversation stops being only about productivity when it comes to AI and starts to really hit at that formation issue.
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Because when young people begin turning to AI for emotional reassurance— conversation or companionship, we're no longer just talking about AI as a tool. We're talking about a substitute relationship.
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And that should get the attention of every Christian educator because students are being discipled by whatever they trust. Students are getting discipled by what they return to and depend on. Students are getting discipled by what they set their minds on.
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Moving now to Some news about AI and Christian education.
Demand for AI Safety in Education
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Education Week also reported that a new parent survey found that eight in ten parents want more guardrails around AI for children.
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That tells us that families are not simply asking whether AI is useful or whether it saves time. They're asking whether it's safe, wise, and healthy for their kids. As Christian educators, this matters because as Christian schools, we have a real opportunity here. Parents are looking for wisdom, not hype. They want schools that can think clearly about how AI affects not just learning, but also relationships and and character and emotional health. This is a place where Christian educators can lead with both theological conviction and pastoral sensitivity.
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At our own school at Fredericksburg Christian School, we have begun the process of reaching out to parents. We recently held an AI parenting webinar, Parenting in the Age of AI.
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We are sharing with our parents tools and resources through a bi-monthly newsletter about AI and parenting, shipping to to equip our parents in this age of AI.
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Well, with this bit of AI news and update, let's now turn to our big question of the day.
AI Friends vs God-Designed Community
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The big question for today is this, why can AI friends never replace God-designed community? And how can we as Christian educators help our students to see the difference?
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This matters because human beings were not made merely to exchange information We were created by God for communion. We were created by God for relationship. We were created by God. We were made for fellowship with God himself and with one another.
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That means the rise of AI companions, particularly as it applies to people of faith, is not a small issue. It actually presses on something very deep. It presses in on what it means to be human.
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As we seek to wrap our minds around this as Christian educators, I want to ground us in three anchors for thinking about this. The first anchor is this, and that is that we as human beings were created for communion.
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Christian education begins with theology, and the theology here is important. And we serve a triune God. That's a fancy way of saying Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
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God has existed eternally in perfect communion in what we call the Trinity, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Within the Godhead, they enjoy perfect communion. And when God made human beings in His image, He made us for relationship. Genesis 1, verses 26 to 27, reading from the NASB 1995 version, Then God said, Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness.
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God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them, Genesis tells us. Notice here the relational language. It says, let us make.
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Who's this us? Well, it's the Holy Trinity, Father, God, and Holy Spirit. Human beings are not accidental individuals just floating around in the universe.
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Instead, having been created in God's image, that means we are image bearers. We bear the image of God himself. And God is community, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So as image bearers, we are made for community. We're made for communion and fellowship and love. That means isolation is not neutral.
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You know, we see this even in the secular media, where we are told that loneliness is an epidemic in our society, in our culture. And in fact, intense loneliness over long periods of time even shortens one's lifespan.
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And so therefore, artificial substitutes, such as those provided by AI companions, they're not neutral. you know, students, quite understandably in some cases, might feel drawn to these AI companions because, right, they're always available.
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They're always agreeable. They're never demanding. And they're safe. Sometimes students feel safer going to an AI companion to tell about their lives and their struggles and their trials and their tribulations.
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They feel safer going there than to a friend or to a parent. Or to a teacher or to a coach. But here's the problem with that. Even though they might feel safer doing that. that They might feel that they won't be judged or make themselves vulnerable.
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The problem with that and going to the AI companion. Is that that kind of interaction with the AI companion. Is not the same thing as what is defined as relationship in the Bible.
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Here's what I mean. In the Bible, relationship is defined by what we call mutuality. But companionship with an AI companion, it lacks mutuality.
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There's not two people there. There is one person dealing with a predictive machine. The relationship with an AI companion lacks sacrifice on anybody's part. It lacks the real presence of God.
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It lacks the real presence of other human beings through which God so often shapes us.
AI Empathy vs Real Connections
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So that's kind of the the first anchor as we seek to w wrap our minds around some of the cautions against a i companionship.
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A second anchor to kind of draw as we think about this whole ah idea of AI companionship has to do with that of simulated connection. Now simulated connection is not sacred connection.
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You see, the AI, it can mimic empathy. It can mimic understanding because of its predictive tools. It can so even simulate warmth.
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It can mirror emotional language back to a student. But here's the thing with AI companion, folks. It cannot love. It cannot be present. It cannot give of itself. It cannot know a student as a fellow image bearer of God because the machine is not an image bearer of God.
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This is where the difference between simulation and the sacred connection and conversation with another human being becomes so important. A chatbot may say, I understand you, but you see a real friend, a human being actually shows up in one's life. A chatbot may generate comforting words, but it's a human being.
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a teacher, a parent, or a classmate that can come alongside our students to bear burdens, to speak truth and love, to pray with them, to forgive, to walk with that student through whatever pain they might be facing.
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And this is where the incarnation of Jesus matters so much. See, Jesus didn't save us by sending a message from far away. He didn't send us a text message to save us. He didn't send us an email. He didn't even send us a chatbot. Instead, he came near to us. The Bible says in John 1, 14, And the word, Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us. And we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
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I like how the Message Bible... para A paraphrase by Eugene Peterson puts it. The word has to say Jesus came and dwelt in the neighborhood. See, that verse is a direct challenge to the idea that digital imitation can replace embodied presence.
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Jesus entered human life in the flesh. He took on flesh. He touched lepers. He ate with sinners and tax collectors at tables. He wept with his friends, such as when Lazarus was dead.
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He taught face to face. You see, real love shows up. Real love, in order for it to be real, has to be embodied. Real love involves sacrifice. It's costly. So while AI may appear to connect, it cannot commune.
Teaching Relational Wisdom
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And that leads us to the third anchor upon which we want to think about all of this business about AI companionship.
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And that is the necessity for us to teach relational wisdom as Christian educators. You see, we need to to do more than just warn students.
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We need to form them. See, it's not enough to just get up and say, hey, you shouldn't use that character AI. We need to do more than just say, you shouldn't turn to ChatGPT or to Gemini or to Grok or to Claude for companionship.
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We need to take efforts, make efforts to form them. That means helping them to understand the difference between convenience and communion. It means encouraging a real friendship, real fellowship, and real presence.
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We can ask students questions like, hey, what makes a friendship real in class discussion? We can ask questions like can something be emotionally comforting and still not be wise?
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Or how about what happens when we choose a digital substitute over a hard but real conversation with another person? Or how about this question? How has God designed us to grow through community? We should also intentionally build classrooms that reflect God's relational heart.
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Classrooms should be places where students are seen, where students are known, heard, and called into real fellowship with one another. As the old cliche says, they don't care how much you know.
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until they know how much you care. The Bible puts it like this in Hebrews 10, verses 24 to 25, and let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds, not forsaking our own assembling together, but encouraging one another.
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What an important word we receive from God's word, from the Bible right now, that we are to gather, that we are to encourage, that we are to stimulate one another toward love and good deeds.
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That's so important for our times in this time where connection is sought digitally or through AI. See, Christian formation, formation as human beings, happens in community, not in isolation.
00:13:09
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So one of the most important things we can do is not merely just critique and bemoan fake friendship, AI companionship, but we can cultivate the real thing. As I mentioned at the beginning, this is a big topic, far beyond a 15 or 20-minute podcast. But let me share with you a resource that can help you think through it more clearly. And that leads us to the next segment of our show, our featured tool and resource spotlight.
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Our featured tool and resource spotlight in this segment, we we focus on a tool that you can start exploring or a resource that could benefit you in the classroom. Today, I want to point you to an important work, actually a book. Some of you may have read it already. I'm just about finished reading it. It's called The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt.
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now The Anxious Generation is not a Christian book. Jonathan Haidt is a professor. In the book, he is a self-prescribed atheist.
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But Jonathan Haidt, in God and in his sense of humor, can use even use a self-proclaimed atheist to help us as followers of Jesus to give us resources. Jonathan Haidt, in his book The Anxious Generation, is a very helpful resource for thinking about what constant digital life, including AI and phones, is doing to kids socially and emotionally and relationally.
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It
Understanding Digital Impact on Youth
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can help educators think more carefully about why students may be drawn to toward mediated connection and why, though, embodied community matters so much more. As you read it, I encourage you to read it through a biblical lens.
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Read it from a biblical worldview. Apply your biblical worldview as you read it. And as you do so, it can become a useful conversation starter for faculty, parents, or even older students.
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I know at our school, we're getting ready to start an Anxious Generation book club. for our faculty and staff. We have plans in the fall of 2026, as the new school year begins, to offer that to parents because the book asks and raises some important questions for us to wrestle with.
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Now the book focuses mainly upon phone use and the lack of what, or the presence of what it calls safetyism and the lack of play that we have allowed for our students and what a negative effect that has had on us.
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But it has caused me to think. We didn't know what we didn't know when phones became a part of our students' lives. Now on the other side of that, some 10 or more years later, we're beginning to see the effects.
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The haunting question that the anxious generation asked brings up is what are going to be the effects of AI upon our students. So let's not walk blindly into this, like some of us walk blindly into just handing phones over to our students.
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A good question to ask alongside all of this is how can our classrooms become places that push back against loneliness and help students experience real human connection?
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Here's a reminder. Technology can support communication, but it cannot replace communion. me say that again. Technology can support communication, but it cannot replace communion.
Evaluating Classroom Culture
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Let me share with you now our quick tip and prompt of the week. In this segment of the show, I share with you a tip or prompt you can use tomorrow that connects to the topic that we've been talking about today in the podcast. Today, I want to give you a prompt that you can use with your favorite chatbot to help you reflect on the relational nature.
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of your classroom and the relational culture that you might seek to be building. Simply type this in to your favorite chatbot. You are a Christian school educator. Ask me five questions, one at a time, to help me evaluate whether my classroom culture encourages real student relationships, healthy community, and face-to-face connection in an age of digital distraction.
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After I answer, provide me with a short summary and three practical steps. I can take to strengthen real community in my classroom. And when it generates a response, look at it. with your wisdom and discernment. Look at what it produces through a biblical worldview. Perhaps the response from that prompt can help you to think more intentionally about whether your classroom is simply organized for efficiency, simply organized to make your life easier as the educator, or whether it's actually shaped for fellowship and communion and community.
Prayer and Call to Responsible AI Use
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Well, as we make our way towards the end of the show, would ask that you would join me in a word of prayer. Let us pray. Father God, we thank you that you did not make us in isolation to be alone, but you created us for a relationship.
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Thank you that we are made in your image and that you design us to be like you. And that means you have designed us for fellowship, for friendship, and communion with others.
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Lord, in a world where technology can imitate connection, Help us to value what is real. Help us to remember that true love is not simulated, that true friendship is not automated, and true community cannot be manufactured by a machine.
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Give us wisdom as Christian educators to guide our students toward healthy relationships. Help us to create classrooms that reflect your relational heart, places where students are known, encouraged, challenged, and cared for.
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and where students are tempted to trade real community for digital imitation, O God, give us grace to point them back to Jesus, who came near to us, as your word testifies, in the flesh, and who shows us what love truly looks like.
00:18:54
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We ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Teacher. Amen. That is going to bring us near to the end of our time together for this episode. As always, if you found this episode helpful, I hope you will go ahead and leave a rating and review wherever you are listening to the podcast. Go ahead, like, subscribe, and share it with colleagues. It would mean the world to me if you did so. And as you do, keep this in mind. One of the great callings of Christian education in the age of AI is to help students remember that they were made for real connection, not digital imitation. I will catch you next time on the Christian Educators AI Guide podcast. But until then, go and redeem AI for education.
00:19:38
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Go and redeem AI for the furtherance of the gospel. May you go in peace.