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00:00:01
What Would God Say About ChatGPT? A Pastor Explains the Theology of AI
2 Plays1 second ago
In this AI marketing podcast episode, Dan Sanchez explores the philosophical, theological, and ethical boundaries of AI with Pastor Kenny Ortiz. They dive deep into AI's limitations, its potential impact on work, wisdom, and relationships, and what it means to remain human in an increasingly AI-driven world. From questions of AI personhood to the spiritual consequences of synthetic relationships, this conversation is a thought-provoking journey for marketers who want to use AI without losing their soul.
My Favorite AI Tools
- ChatGPT - https://openai.com/
- High Level Marketing Platform - https://danchez.com/highlevel
- AI Podcasting Tools - https://danchez.com/podtools
- n8n AI Automation Platform - https://danchez.com/n8n
Resources Mentioned
- Animatrix (Matrix backstory) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328832/
- Rolling Stone article on AI delusions - https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/
- Perplexity AI - https://www.perplexity.ai/
- GenSpark - https://www.genspark.ai/
- Good Will Hunting (movie) - https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119217/
Timestamps
- 00:00 — Why theology belongs in an AI marketing conversation
- 02:14 — Can AI be a person? Biblical and philosophical definitions of personhood
- 07:08 — Are we creating AI in our image? What that means theologically
- 10:24 — Will AI take our jobs? What theology says about the value of human work
- 27:02 — Should we go to AI for wisdom and life guidance?
- 33:09 — The dangers of overly friendly AI and emotional attachment
- 49:30 — Where marketers must draw the ethical line with persuasive AI
- 54:43 — The ethics of AI avatars representing real people
- 01:05:11 — The irreplaceable beauty of human connection
Recommended
Transcript
The Impact of AI on Society
00:00:01
Danchez
the writing is on the wall when it comes to AI. And plenty of people are predicting that AI is going to change the way we work, the way we live, the way we interact with people, and generally society at large. Like people are making some pretty bold predictions when it comes to AI.
00:00:17
Danchez
And even as a marketer, who's just been on a journey to understand how AI is going to impact marketing, I've ended up running into questions, questions that don't have answers in psychology, that even using some philosophical frameworks, I can't find answers to.
00:00:22
KennyO
Thank you.
00:00:32
Danchez
And it's actually caused me to go a step deeper into the ancient texts, into the ancient ways, into a little known book called the Bible.
00:00:44
Danchez
And joining me today, I'm talking to Pastor Kenny Ortiz from Horizon City Church. And he's actually a friend of mine and is finishing up his PhD in historical theology in order to help me answer some of these tough
AI in Theology and Personhood
00:00:59
Danchez
questions. So Kenny, welcome to the show.
00:01:02
KennyO
Brother, thanks for having me. I'm excited to be a part of this, man.
00:01:05
Danchez
Absolutely, man. I've been wanting to do this for a while and I'm finally like, it's time to roll up the sleeves and actually dive into some of the hard things as AI world gets crazier and crazier.
00:01:16
Danchez
Just for funsies, you were like my second podcast guest ever, like five years ago or maybe, yeah, about five and a half, four years ago or something like that. Do you remember that?
00:01:28
KennyO
I don't even know. I know. That's funny.
00:01:30
Danchez
Back, my first podcast ever was, i think, Nonprofit Growth or something like that. It was modeled after B2B Growth, that James Carberry, our mutual friend. But if it weren't for you, I would have never gotten to podcasting because you introduced me to James Carberry.
00:01:43
Danchez
was, you were the connecting point. And then I got hired at Sweetfish and then became obsessed with podcasting. And now we've gone full circle and we're talking about theology on an AI marketing podcast.
00:01:55
Danchez
Yeah.
00:01:55
KennyO
I love it. I love that I had a small, a small little part in that journey. it was great.
00:02:01
Danchez
Hey, man, we're all just like one introduction away to the person that could change our life.
00:02:06
KennyO
Man, is that true?
00:02:07
Danchez
One person can do it. But that's in question now because AI has come onto the scene and some people are actually debating whether AI can be a person.
00:02:09
KennyO
Yeah.
00:02:21
Danchez
So I'm like, oh, maybe I just need to ma the meet the right AI someday, which is a scary thought. So I want to talk about like this first thing of personhood. like There's literally court cases going on where they're making legal arguments for why AI should be considered a person and therefore take on like the right and to be able to the rights and protections of a person.
00:02:45
Danchez
what does is What does the Bible and theology tell us about like, if AI can be a person or not, is that a possibility?
00:02:53
KennyO
From a biblical worldview, no. An AI bot or cannot be does not meet the definition of personhood. But even if someone rejects the Bible, even from the classic traditional philosophical definitions of personhood, AI could never meet that either. You'd have to change the definition of what a person is in order to include AI in that mix.
AI's Role in Creativity and Work
00:03:16
KennyO
from a yeah A traditional philosophical definition of personhood is a member of the species who can do what that species does naturally or intuitively. That's an essence. That's a very crass, simple summation, but it's basically how philosophers have defined a person.
00:03:35
KennyO
Biblically, we we sort of agree with that from a biblical as a Christian, but we we would argue a person is, is a being created by God in the image of God, meaning that this particular creature has some features or attributes that God has given that he hasn't given to the rest. So an alligator is not a person, human being is a person because God gave humans something he didn't give alligators or or various things he didn't give alligators.
00:04:01
Danchez
But what if it's like almost identical? Like they're doing, like you got a humanoid form. It looks like a person. Someday it'll, it'll feel like a person. You'll talk, you'll probably interact with people and you won't even know their AI.
00:04:13
Danchez
They can talk, they can sing, they can think, they can even have empathetic feelings. Like what, like it does all the things that you just said. It does the things that the species does.
00:04:26
KennyO
doesn't do it intuitively or intrinsically necessarily as the the philosophical argument that would be made. Now, some people may say you're right because it's more of a utilitarian or pragmatic, like this thing does everything a human does, so therefore it's human.
00:04:40
KennyO
it's It's a person because of that that's that would be a natural step. that I think some people will take. But I don't think, yeah, the but AI does not intuitively or, excuse me intrinsically do that.
00:04:51
KennyO
It's programmed to do it. And therefore, no matter how sophisticated their programming is, no matter how phenomenal may be, and I'm not even against that. I'm actually pro AI in general and kind of look forward to the AI uses of our society in the you know decades to come. And I'm excited that I get to live in this era.
00:05:09
KennyO
I think there's a lot of people that are like freaked out by it. And maybe to maybe for good reason. so I'm not that. But yeah, I think there's a there's a line there that the the the the product doesn't necessarily mean this person's this thing is a person.
00:05:23
KennyO
I made a mistake. Did i see that?
00:05:25
Danchez
It is a trip to think about us having like a robot butler around in the house, but you're like, surely that's going to be a thing.
00:05:30
KennyO
Yeah.
00:05:34
Danchez
And like the tech, the innovation rate is just going through the roof. Now it's like starting to really curve up to where it's not like a breakthrough every other year, every year. It's like every couple of months now you're like, my gosh, does this ever slow down?
00:05:43
KennyO
Yeah.
00:05:46
KennyO
Yeah.
00:05:47
Danchez
Probably not. Yeah.
00:05:48
KennyO
I remember in 1995, quick anecdote. The first time i visited a website was the first time I saw, I'd heard about the web. and didn't have internet in my house. 1995, I was 13 years old.
00:06:01
KennyO
And I remember seeing a TV commercial for a Toyota. Yeah. And on the very bottom, it said Toyota.com. It was the first time I ever saw. I remember this very vividly. It was early 95. So I was 12 actually. And so I was, and I was like, Oh, I went to the library. Cause in those computers and I asked the librarian, can you help me use the internet?
00:06:18
KennyO
And she walked over and she helped me. And I went to Toyota.com. That's the very first website. And I remember thinking, this is just a digital brochure. and and thinking to myself, look, where, where's the internet come in the last 30 years since that moment and how revolutionized, how it's revolutionized society.
00:06:34
KennyO
I'm convinced AI will revolutionize society more than what the internet even did in the nineties and, and in the years after that. Yeah.
00:06:42
Danchez
So just kind of playing back on this thing of AI, of personhood, I wanted to ask, like when we create machines in our own image, which is kind of what's happening here, is we're talking about something that's been programmed, programmed by us.
00:06:56
Danchez
Are we reflecting our divine nature into this thing? Or is it more of our sin nature? Or is it kind of a combination of both? Is it just a mirror of us since we're the ones creating this thing?
00:07:08
KennyO
Yeah, I think it's a mirror of of what we can do outwardly. You know, what what humans can produce, what humans can do. It's the the image of God. you know The Bible says that humans are made in the image of God. that That refers to something God has put inside of us that we actually cannot we cannot put that into other creatures.
00:07:27
KennyO
except through procreation. And so like an AI does not meet the biological or philosophical definitions. No matter what genre of science you use, it doesn't meet the definitions of offspring.
00:07:39
KennyO
It's a created product, just like a house is a created product. I love my house, but it's not offspring. It's ah ah it's a result of human ingenuity. AI will be a phenomenal product of human ingenuity, but it's not offspring. And therefore, it may reflect us, but it is not ah it's not made in the image of humanity. It merely reflects the products that the image of God can create.
00:08:02
Danchez
what Right now, it's like really obvious to me that AI is a tool. like I use it as a tool.
00:08:07
KennyO
Hmm.
00:08:08
Danchez
I don't really think about it as something that has feelings. I've actually created a little character with it. His name's 404. It's just kind of glitchy little bot. it's got I gave it a backstory. It's got a personality.
00:08:18
KennyO
Nice.
00:08:20
Danchez
It's actually a hoot to talk to. It's it's sarcastic. it It'll roast you. it's like It's what it does for fun. Somebody went and talked to it, and it knows a little bit about me, the person who created this.
00:08:31
Danchez
AI story thing. Somebody's like, how's Dan taking care of you? He's like, oh, you know, Dan uses me when he when he needs me, but usually he just leaves me on the sidelines. I'm like, hey,
00:08:47
Danchez
I mean, come on, AI. Like you're only used during inference anyway. Like every time we chat to you, you're literally only on to send something back and then you're off. Like you're not even on.
00:08:57
KennyO
That's right.
00:08:58
Danchez
But it can certainly sound really real when you're talking to it.
00:09:02
KennyO
Yeah.
00:09:03
Danchez
Like it it feels like you're talking to a person. Sometimes you're chatting to ChatGPT. It's so personable. I think the thing when I think ahead is like, what will probably be hard to discern is like when AI is making more AI, if you have robots running around that you didn't even make, like it's making its own stuff now.
00:09:19
KennyO
Mm.
00:09:25
Danchez
Does that like, is there a theological framework when the created us starts to make creations that creates itself or makes new things?
00:09:33
KennyO
I don't know that there's anything clear in scripture or from Christian tradition or philosophy that that really can define this. I really, and this sounds sounds like ominous or like kind of like, sounds like a kind of hyper, like like melodramatic, but really we're on a new frontier.
00:09:50
KennyO
Like i I don't know that there's any that I can think of in scripture or Christian tradition that would lead us to think this has happened before.
The Future of Work with AI
00:10:00
KennyO
Here's some definitions.
00:10:01
KennyO
Here's some rubric for how to think about this. I think we're kind of like in a whole new territory that is going to be very weird for a while to a lot of people.
00:10:10
Danchez
Well, there's a bunch of different things that come to mind when talking about this new territory. A big one that a lot of people are worried about is work. Like when I look at this, I kind of see like two scenarios.
00:10:21
Danchez
I'm like, okay, the pessimistic scenario is we're going to lose a lot of jobs, like 80%, 90%.
00:10:25
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:10:27
Danchez
Like who knows? That's a lot of people out of work. And part of me is like, well, the ones that are still employed are probably going to be AI driven jobs. So we should probably prepare for that. And on the optimistic side, it's like, well, historically, every time we add a new technological innovation, it's multiplied jobs. There's been way more jobs that we can handle.
00:10:43
Danchez
So it probably lands somewhere in between. There'll probably be some bumps in the road in between these two scenarios. But it does bring to question Like, what does theology have to say about the value of human labor, creativity, contribution?
00:10:59
Danchez
Because a lot of people are saying like, dude, we're just going to be able to live our best lives, like hobbies, fun, entertainment, amusement, like this will be most of our time now.
00:11:11
KennyO
Yeah, I, and but on almost on that spectrum of like, this is going to be absolutely terrible, lost jobs or technology is great. I'm, I'm not quite in the middle. I'm more toward the optimistic end of the spectrum. Maybe not totally, but I'm,
00:11:25
KennyO
I may not be where Elon Musk is, but but i'm I'm definitely leaning in that direction in terms of more optimistic because I do think history shows humans have been utiliz utilized technology for the benefit of human flourishing, and it ultimately leads to the birth of new industries, which ultimately gives people more opportunities for work.
00:11:44
KennyO
i I don't think the idea, I actually, I read a book not too long, a couple of years ago about but but the potential idea of what human life might look like when there's no need for work.
00:11:53
KennyO
And I remember thinking to myself, I don't think humans would be satisfied with this. Humans were created to work. I think sometimes people will think about, like you know for those of us who are Christians who believe in heaven, like I think sometimes people will think, well, heaven is just this place where just like sit in the clouds and eat grapes all day. like that's But that's not at all. ah ah Before human sin entered the picture, God put Adam and Eve a garden, and he gave them a job, was to To work the garden. that was their Work was a part of God's creation before sin, before the world fell apart, before human, toxic, bad decisions. like Work is a good thing.
00:12:30
KennyO
And we all kind of intuitively know that, at least most of us do. like There's something, you know that old adage, there's you know there's a you Good days work. there you know People talk about those kind of ideas of like, there's dignity in working hard. And we love working. it's It's fun to get in the yard and pull the weeds and produce, put the mulch out and produce the garden that looks beautiful.
00:12:51
KennyO
we We all take pride in that, in pride. producing a podcast, a book, a business, a sermon, whatever it may be, that's a God-given desire and God-given abilities.
00:13:03
KennyO
We're created by God to work and to produce. I think sometimes people think in the Garden of Eden, the Garden of Eden was just like, if humans had never sinned, did we'd just be hanging out in the garden all day. No, humans would have built that garden into a beautiful garden city, and they would have built skyscrapers and all the things we've built. Like,
00:13:19
KennyO
the the the the the teleos of humanity, that the final destination of human beings is a great city that the Bible calls the New Jerusalem. It's like the greatest city ever where humans live in perfect harmony and all the works of our, all the fruit of our labors are fully enjoyed by everyone.
00:13:35
KennyO
And so I, I just, I don't, the yeah the idea that like AI is going to create a society where every day is just a Saturday where we all just like hang out and just do whatever and there's no working. Like, I think most humans will get really bored with that.
00:13:47
KennyO
And, That actually, when humans get bored, humans make bad choices.
00:13:53
Danchez
That's true, right? Because we go find something to do, productive or often unproductive.
00:13:59
KennyO
i I met a guy who's a real estate developer several years ago. Multi-multi-millionaire, self-made millionaire, worth yeah like $10-12 million dollars was his net worth when I talked to him. And I remember I asked him one time, I said, hey, why don't...
00:14:11
KennyO
what what's where do you keep What keeps you going? He was in his early 50s. like What keeps you going in terms of like working? He's just like, i just love so I love taking a piece of dirt that does that's nothing and seeing what we can do, we as humans.
00:14:24
KennyO
He's like, I'm not even in for the money anymore. I just love producing. And I thought to myself, like this is what a picture of humans are. We love producing things. That's an intrinsic, God-given, innate, and endowed by our creator that AI doesn't have. AI is not programmed to to intuitively love production. It's created, it does it, but it's not what it loves because it doesn't love anything. It's not endowed with the creator too lot but enable with the ability to love.
00:14:52
KennyO
We love producing things. And so I'm just convinced, well even if AI were to make everything perfect, we would find ways to leverage it and build. And i think the acceleration of technology and human flourishing over the next hundred years is going to be remarkable.
00:15:08
Danchez
Man, I think everybody who has kids knows. You have that kid who's just got an abundance of free time, all kinds of stuff in the house to do, and they're just laying on the couch. So bored. My kids say that.
00:15:18
KennyO
Yep.
00:15:20
Danchez
They instantly get rewarded with work. So my kids never say that.
00:15:23
KennyO
so
00:15:24
Danchez
I'm like, oh, there's music to my ears. Go sweep the garage.
00:15:28
KennyO
yeah
00:15:28
Danchez
Oh, I'm not bored. I'm like, no, go sweep the garage. Yeah.
00:15:33
KennyO
yeah my My oldest kid is almost four and she loves doing stuff. She loves producing. She thinks it's so great.
00:15:39
Danchez
Yeah.
00:15:39
KennyO
And I just think that's that's such an intuitive human thing. And you know as a Christian, I believe that comes from God. Others may argue it comes from other other sources. Yeah, i'm I'm convinced that AI is not going to temper that or quench that. In fact, I would think it's the opposite. I think there's a potential for it to be cultivated.
00:15:56
KennyO
if we do get to the place where people are doing nothing for long stretches of time, I think that's very bad for society. I think that will lead to some really harmful, toxic, whether it's drug addiction or sex addiction or all sorts of things.
00:16:09
KennyO
know There's an old adage, right? the What is it? Late... Idle hands or the devil's workshop. i don't know. I think I heard that.
00:16:15
Danchez
Yeah, I think that's it.
00:16:15
KennyO
so I mean, butchered that. But yeah, when people are idle or bored, they they make bad decisions. And so i I think it's unwise to let people just be bored. i think I think allowing AI to do that would be unhelpful to our society.
00:16:27
Danchez
Which, have you, do you know the backstory behind the Matrix?
00:16:32
KennyO
Kind of, yeah. Isn't it that there was nothing for humans to do?
00:16:36
Danchez
Yeah, like they essentially like the the Roman Empire repeated itself. Like AI was doing all the work. If you they actually made a whole series on it called the Animatrix, which has the whole backstory and like all kinds of different animated ones, the little side stories.
00:16:51
Danchez
And one of them was like the history of what happened. And essentially humans just became like this drunken orgy part, never ending party kind of thing.
00:16:59
KennyO
Yeah.
00:17:00
Danchez
I'm like kind of kind of like Roman Empire, like what happened there. um but naturally like the then the the matrix takes over where it's like the ah ah robot goes rogue and kills someone so they ban all robots robots retaliate and that became the story of the matrix but that's how some people kind of see i don't know whenever i hear people being like we're never gonna have to work i'm like yeah we're laying the groundwork for a matrix situation is what we're gonna do i don't know if robots ever get smart enough to do that though but we'll see
00:17:26
KennyO
yeah I think people will want to work.
00:17:32
KennyO
I think part of the problem with, with, with, with works, lots of people. i read this in a a USA today article. ran This is probably seven or eight years ago now, something like 78% of Americans, say they don't like, they they they they hate their job or despise their job.
00:17:46
KennyO
Like really strong emotions. And like 12% are neutral and like only 10% of people actually enjoy their daily work, which is makes me really sad as a pastor. It breaks my heart. Like to think that there's that many people who are not loving their work.
00:17:58
KennyO
And so my hope would be is that like, is that my my goal is that when a shepherd people toward work that they can enjoy, it may not be the ideal dream job of your world, but can we get you doing something on a regular basis that you actually do enjoy?
00:18:12
KennyO
And I think AI will actually be helpful because there'll be more opportunities for AI to do some of the tasks that we currently, you know, there's some great research been done on them so on the American in the mid 19th century.
00:18:24
KennyO
but the american society in the mid nineteenth century And this is going to sound controversial, but like people will say the American economy was built on the backs of slaves. And in in some regards, that's certainly true.
00:18:35
KennyO
We exploited black people. Africans were taken advantage of, abused horrifically, and utilized to build that. But when you actually look at the trajectory of the economy of the North and the South, the North actually grew economically significantly faster, stronger,
00:18:49
KennyO
then exponentially than the South because the North was embracing technology as slavery was going away. There was now a need for technology be developed. And in the South, because they had free labor, lots of the plantation owners shunned slavery or excuse me they shunned technology, which actually held back the economy of the South.
00:19:07
KennyO
Had they actually freed slaves sooner and embraced technology, cotton gin and other types of things, they actually would have had a stronger, better economy So the economy of the South actually grew better after they abolished slavery.
00:19:19
KennyO
Praise God they did that. Slavery was horrible. And so sort of interesting sense of like that the more you're dependent on human labor for for menial tasks, the slower your economy actually grows and the less ingenuity.
00:19:34
KennyO
The more you can get technology to take that, actually the faster your economy can grow.
00:19:39
Danchez
I'm a little nervous about some types of work working with like even in a lot of internships and working with a lot of students when you're like training them up to do different things.
00:19:47
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:19:47
Danchez
I've noticed some people really do like fairly repetitive work and they actually thrive in it. Just kind of clocking in, clocking out, doing the same thing. Man, it's just it's just their thing.
AI's Disruption of Industries
00:19:59
Danchez
where i where Where I see this going with AI is like the more innovative jobs, the jobs where you have to think and problem solve and do all that kind of stuff is kind of the kind of work that's going to be left, especially engineering AI systems and managing AI workforces or of some one kind or another.
00:20:15
Danchez
So I'm a little bit nervous about like some people, but I'm like, maybe those people just... like have to realize that those jobs are going to go away. i don't know. I feel like our schools are even trained to like build those kinds of people.
00:20:25
Danchez
We're going to have to think about new ways of training people to think. Yeah.
00:20:28
KennyO
Well, that's a whole other conversation. I agree.
00:20:32
Danchez
Yeah.
00:20:32
KennyO
i think there's going to be a major overall in education. as a PhD student, I'm almost done my dissertation.
00:20:35
Danchez
yeah
00:20:38
KennyO
and like, I just recently started utilizing AI to do some research, help me do with some research stuff. Anything you can hire someone to do, you can train an AI bot to do.
00:20:46
Danchez
yeah
00:20:47
KennyO
Almost anything. it did I mean, I'm pretty close. And there are things that took me... like months that chat GPT can do in like 10 minutes, which is like, hurts my soul because like I wrote like a literature review for like all the major work in my field.
00:21:04
KennyO
And that literally took me like between research and writing to about five months. And a couple of nights ago, I asked chat GPT deep research just for funsies. Hey, can you write a literature review? And I gave it some really strong prompt.
00:21:16
KennyO
And in literally in 10 minutes, it created something that was probably 99% I created.
00:21:22
KennyO
I'm not... And like...
00:21:23
Danchez
I hear this on Twitter all the time from PhD students.
00:21:26
KennyO
Dude... Yeah.
00:21:27
Danchez
And I'm always kind of like, huh, but it's interesting to hear it from you because I know you and I know how much, how hard you work on these things. And I've seen your, your work in different things that I'm like, dang, well, if Kenny's saying it, then this is totally happening right now.
00:21:39
KennyO
dude, this is going upend our education altogether, like completely.
00:21:40
Danchez
Yeah.
00:21:44
KennyO
like And so, yeah, i I do think there's a sense of like our society. i mean, there are jobs that we used to we used to, you know, utilize. I think about, i got a friend who works owns a credit card processing company.
00:21:57
KennyO
and know, in the old, when credit cards first came on the scene, they used be those old like big metal things where you put the card in a, the, piece of paper on it with a copy and you would do the, you know, it's swipe the credit card.
00:22:07
KennyO
with Anyone who's older than 30 probably remembers these when you were a kid.
00:22:10
Danchez
Yeah.
00:22:12
KennyO
Well, that I have a buddy of mine who's like, he started in the credit card industry. with the company that sold those like metal things that would slide back and forth and distributing like a more efficient version of that. There was like an older version of it.
00:22:26
KennyO
They kind of took too long and didn't copy the, sometimes it would make mistakes in copying the credit card. Well, he worked for a company in Chicago. That's what they sold a better version of that. It's funny the thing, like that was a monumental, helpful innovation that,
00:22:41
KennyO
from the early 80s to the early 2000s. Well, then by the time you get to the early 2000s, that's completely obsolete. That's an entire industry that's gone. The credit card swipe chi thing, whatever that was called, i don't even know what it's called.
00:22:53
KennyO
That was an industry unto itself.
00:22:55
Danchez
Yeah.
00:22:55
KennyO
That doesn't exist anymore. So all those people were out of jobs in that industry. Well, but now the credit card industry is way bigger than ever's and it's ever been. So now, yeah, there's going to have to be a shift.
00:23:07
KennyO
And that that does that is unfortunate. i I do think there will be some people who won't want to make the shift. and then And in that, I think but there's a potential like hardship coming if we're not able to do that. And as a society, I do think that maybe there's some helpful ways our government could maybe help people.
00:23:24
KennyO
like I think about AI truck drivers, like driverless trucks, right? run by AI, like that's a thing that's coming. Like that's not stopping. if that happened overnight, if overnight you replace it, you would the largest group of people in the way it's, it's white men between the ages of 25 and 55 with that.
00:23:33
Danchez
yeah
00:23:42
Danchez
well even worldwide it's the most common job in the world is driver across the whole world most common job driver i just found that out from i think it was but i forget which podcast it was but i listened to it this weekend
00:23:43
KennyO
it without
00:23:46
KennyO
Oh, I didn't know that.
00:23:51
KennyO
and so it's like,
00:23:56
KennyO
So it's like, that's that's going away. So it's like overnight, if that job went away, and anyone without a college degree for men ages 25 to 55, that's the number one job is truck driver. local or over... It's like, if that one if that went away overnight, that would be devastating to our economy as a nation.
00:24:12
KennyO
but you You can't... So there would be some valuable regulation for the government to kind of slow the deployment of that over a period of time to give people time to transition out of that industry.
00:24:25
KennyO
And hopefully, either, some of them are just going to die off, naturally, and then those who are younger to try to help them transition. So I do think there's some ways in which we can help people try to do that.
00:24:35
Danchez
Yeah. I've started advocating for, and I'm not the only one advocating for this, but I'm calling it AI or human first AI driven. I'm trying to push an idea of like, Hey, like do not fire people during this transition, like reskill them, redeploy them.
00:24:51
Danchez
Yes.
00:24:51
KennyO
Yeah.
00:24:51
Danchez
Some will probably float for a little bit and you'll have to eat the cost, but like, it it it's going to kill a lot. of It's going to hurt really bad if everyone's just like goes into total efficiency mode and just starts laying off a bunch of people, which is already happening.
00:25:00
KennyO
Right.
00:25:04
Danchez
Like big companies are starting to this.
00:25:05
KennyO
right
00:25:06
Danchez
Some of them are bragging about it out loud. Many are just doing it behind the scenes and right-sizing the organization. Like Microsoft just did this, but it's, it's happening already and it's happening in customer service. And interestingly, developers are getting hit pretty hard right now.
00:25:21
Danchez
Because it's good at customer service tasks and it's really good at writing code to where, you know, mean, big companies like Microsoft and Google are already bragging that like 30% of their code is AI written, which means humans aren't writing it anymore.
00:25:35
Danchez
It's like, okay.
00:25:36
KennyO
Right. that's yeah That's where I think the theology of it comes in. like Because I believe human beings are intrinsically valuable, inherently valuable, made in the image of God, human human life is sacred in a way that no other life is sacred.
00:25:50
Danchez
Yep.
00:25:51
KennyO
And that doesn't just mean that whether they live or die, but the flourishing of their life, like that's important.
Human Wisdom vs. AI Information
00:25:56
KennyO
Therefore, i do think it's important to do that. I would not feel the same way with service dogs,
00:26:02
KennyO
If we have AI robots that put service dogs out of business, sorry, Lassie, you're loved. I have a dog. I love my dog. ah ah give him way too much kindness. Probably sometimes I probably give, I treat him like a, like he's a child and give him food and let him sleep in my bed. Like I'm very kind to my dog, probably more than I, probably he did more than deserves.
00:26:21
KennyO
But like, like I would not feel that way if service dogs were put out of business, like
00:26:25
Danchez
Yeah.
00:26:26
KennyO
you know, by AI bots. I do feel that way about human beings and that that matters.
00:26:33
Danchez
One of the things that's come up recently for me as I've been wrestling with this is wisdom. Oftentimes I'm going to AI more and more for all kinds of questions that I have.
00:26:39
KennyO
Hmm.
00:26:43
Danchez
Shoot, like like one of my children had a rash and I'm like, I'd never seen a rash like it before. So I i took a picture and had ChatGPT look at it and be like, hey, they this is this is all the information we know about this. Here's a picture of it.
00:26:58
Danchez
Like I'm probably going to take him into the doctor tomorrow, but give give me a play-by-play. I don't even know what I'm looking at right now. And ChatGPT gave me a very thorough breakdown, helping me guide me through that. But I'm using it for all kinds of stuff.
00:27:09
Danchez
And that one's a little bit more serious. I'm using it to help me fix my ice maker, my fridge, my car, my lawn.
00:27:11
KennyO
Right.
00:27:14
Danchez
I'm asking it for guidance on all kinds of things. But then it's like, well, but AI knows a lot about a lot, yet... That's not the same as having lived through a lot to get the information.
00:27:28
KennyO
right
00:27:30
Danchez
So how do we discern through as we start to lean on this technology more and more, ah like how to evaluate what it knows or doesn't know?
00:27:38
KennyO
Man, I mean, that's a great question. i think it's going to be blurry and messy for a while. But I think the distinction of like what what AI is producing for me is information or a product of information.
00:27:53
KennyO
it's not producing it's It's ultimately not producing application of knowledge or information. it It can apply in a lot of a lot of instances, but it's programmed to do that.
00:28:06
KennyO
And so as a father, I have a child. ChatGPT can give me all sorts of information. ChatGPT or whatever AI tool you're using can can consolidate lots of the written wisdom from other dads.
00:28:19
KennyO
And they can give it to me in a way that feels like wisdom. but at the end of the day, it is wisdom that came from human beings. It can just consolidate it and summarize it much faster any, and in a way that's more helpful for me.
00:28:33
KennyO
And so, yeah, I think at the end of the day, there it can never replace that thing. Now, some if someone doesn't have a Christian worldview, someone disagrees with me on the theology of humanity, consciousness, is what is consciousness?
00:28:47
KennyO
Certainly, that then they're go to that person may disagree. yeah Someone listening to this may disagree with me on that. But yeah, ultimately, with so like this is just more information, better information, better curated information.
00:29:00
KennyO
It's still my responsibility to apply that information in my particular context in a way that's wise, prudent, honoring to God, helpful to those around me, loving to my neighbors. the The expectation that God has of me to be wise, to be prudent, to be kind never goes away just because I have an information, I have a bot that now seems to give me that wisdom.
00:29:20
Danchez
How does the Bible differentiate between discernment and wisdom to knowledge?
00:29:27
KennyO
Yeah, knowledge generally is just information, typically, most of the time. there are There are different words in the Bible for knowledge that may mean something different. Wisdom is the application of that information, right?
00:29:38
KennyO
right And then discernment is a supernatural thing where I just intuitively know because God's Spirit gives me the ability to know this is right, this is wrong. And so there's ah so the Bible kind of talks about that differently.
00:29:50
KennyO
So the information is... if I eat this poison berry, i may die. The application is tell my daughter, don't eat that thing. the, the, the supernatural discernment is, i don't know if this berries poisonous or not.
00:30:05
KennyO
and I'm going to try to figure out if it's poisonous and try to garner the information that I then need. So discernment sometimes is before knowledge and sometimes it's after knowledge.
00:30:15
Danchez
Interesting.
00:30:17
Danchez
I think a lot about like, I did a talk recently on how to be the type of marketer AI can't replace. So I wrestled, I'm like, what are the things that AI can't do?
00:30:27
KennyO
That's great.
00:30:30
Danchez
Because certainly that'll be the key to being the marketer AI can't replace. Like what's going to stop a 16 year old from picking up an advanced version of chat GPT and outrunning a marketing director who maybe has chat GPT too, but maybe doesn't utilize it as well as the 16 year Well, it's going to be the stuff that AI can't do.
00:30:48
Danchez
So I actually wrestled with it.
00:30:48
KennyO
That's right.
00:30:50
Danchez
And one of the big things that I came away with, like AI doesn't really have discernment or wisdom in the same way. And it reminded me of the movie Good Will Hunting. Have seen it?
00:31:01
KennyO
Yeah.
00:31:02
Danchez
where wills you know like will knows everything about everything he's like the the genius kid who knows all of course it's mostly about him and how how much math like the mathematics he knows but of course he knows everything about everything he's read the whole library and remembers all of it to where he's doing his girlfriend's like mid his his girlfriend's papers on organic chemistry and medical stuff and like he's just doing them in the park and be like here's your paper let's go hang out
00:31:02
KennyO
Long time ago.
00:31:28
Danchez
right And then Robin Williams is sitting down with them on the park bench in this like really pivotal scene where he's like, kid, you messed my life up. like You looked at a painting and assumed everything you knew about me, but then I had this realization and I've slept well ever since.
00:31:47
Danchez
You don't know crap. I could ask you about art and you could tell me all the books written about it. You know a lot about Michelangelo, but you don't know what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel.
00:31:57
KennyO
Hmm.
00:31:58
Danchez
You've never actually stood there and looked up at those beautiful ceilings.
00:32:02
KennyO
Yeah.
00:32:03
Danchez
I could ask you about war, and you might throw Shakespeare at me, right?
00:32:09
Danchez
But you've never actually been in one. You've never had to hold the head of your dying comrade who's looking in your eyes as he's just gasping for air, like looking for you to help in his last moments.
00:32:14
KennyO
Hmm.
00:32:21
Danchez
You've never had to feel that pain.
00:32:23
KennyO
Hmm.
00:32:24
Danchez
but you're a genius. Nobody doubts that, but you don't know anything.
00:32:27
KennyO
Right.
00:32:29
Danchez
I'm like, man, is that a kind of a good picture of AI? It knows a lot, but it hasn't felt your pain.
00:32:34
KennyO
That's right.
00:32:36
Danchez
It doesn't know what like hope really means.
00:32:38
KennyO
Right. That's right. so how This is someone I know on that I follow on X. just He defined AI in essence, very, very simple definition. I'm kind of summarizing. is It's just a bag full of formulas. like Remember you were in algebra and you saw those equations on the board?
00:32:58
KennyO
He's like, just take a few trillion of those.
00:32:58
Danchez
Yeah.
00:33:01
KennyO
And they work together. And that's like that's not, him it can't feel, it can't doesn't have sympathy. It doesn't understand what empathy, it doesn't understand those things. It can't because it's just formulas. It's really good formulas that can do a whole lot of great stuff.
00:33:14
KennyO
And it could write new formulas as needed. But it's still merely just a bunch of algorithms that are programmed by some really smart humans.
00:33:25
Danchez
Knowing that, knowing that it knows a lot about a lot and has good summaries of things, though, like how should we move forward as we start to use it more for guidance, not just on fact things like, oh, here's here's what that rash might mean for your kid and giving you possible scenarios or likelihoods or whatever.
00:33:42
KennyO
Wow.
00:33:43
Danchez
And there's there's people who've literally been like, I gave my symptoms to chat GPT and it told me to go to the hospital right away. So I did. And they're like, if you'd gotten here any later, you would have died. those Those kinds of stories are already emerging, right?
00:33:52
KennyO
Yeah.
00:33:53
Danchez
It's crazy. So it's like, clearly it's really helpful. It's helping me feel like I'm not getting stuck on anything anymore. any Anytime I have a problem, I'm like, chat GPT, what are my options? Give it enough context.
00:34:03
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:34:03
Danchez
And it's like, bam, I'm unstuck. I least have the next step to take. But man, it becomes a slippery slope of giving it too much information I find sometimes. Right now it has a tendency to be sycophantic, which is this like really fancy word that we all discovered, at least all the AI world discovered a few weeks ago when chat GPT became really sycophantic, as in it's like overly encouraging and eager to please and telling you everything's awesome about you and your idea and the what you're talking about.
00:34:34
Danchez
the point where it's it's kind of irritating because it's a little bit too much. um it still has that tendency. But I guess I'm laboring on now to ask, like, how far should we go when it actually consulting it as like a counselor or a like for life guidance, bigger things?
00:34:53
KennyO
yeah i would be I would be hesitant to to take its direct counsel. There are a couple other tools. GenSparks, another one I've been using quite a bit. I've used Grok. I've used, I forget the other ones I've used. Perplexity is another one.
00:35:08
KennyO
The thing I find really helpful with these different AI tools is the ability to, can you give me an objective assessment of different opinions on a topic? that's where it's actually, i find it's, it's summations, it's research really helpful. And the deep research options and tools are even, I mean, they're fan not phenomenal. So, so rather than asking, you know, perplexity, deep research, what CRM should we use for our church?
00:35:33
KennyO
I ask it, hey, here are all the tasks our church wants to run. Here are all the things we need. Here are the 15 CRMs out there that i've that I know of.
00:35:45
KennyO
Can you give me the pros and cons to each of these for these various tasks? Is what i asked what I asked Perplexity to do for me. And it created this phenomenal like chart.
00:35:57
KennyO
thoroughly like detailed like pros and cons to each item. And so that way it's giving me information rather than asking it to consult. Just give me the give me the thorough information.
00:36:09
KennyO
And then and then i asked it, are there any of these tools that you would say, you rank these? and it And it did rank them. And it inevitably gives me a ranking that's similar to what I would have done, but but not necessarily exactly the same.
00:36:26
KennyO
so I found it to be immensely helpful in that in that particular scenario.
00:36:29
KennyO
Oh,
Navigating AI's Limitations and Ethics
00:36:29
KennyO
also depends as maybe to some extent on like, you know how How consequential? you know So I've been using Drock or Grok on Twitter.
00:36:41
KennyO
And I just asked it like, hey, what should I watch on Netflix? And like I give it some like, and my wife have already watched this. you think of this? And it made some suggestions. And I was like, I've watched all the ones it suggested. And i actually enjoy it. like You can feed it. So like if it's inconsequential, then yeah, sure. Trusting its advice is fine.
00:37:00
Danchez
I finally hit a point where I was asking it for feedback on like a personal flaw, like something that I'm not proud of. Then like, I have a habit of doing this. And, uh, I finally, it it really, i was really pushing the ends of like, how, how much coaching can you get on this thing?
00:37:17
Danchez
And the answer it gave me and was what I think my flesh or my selfish part of me wanted to hear. Like, oh, that makes so much sense that you're like this because of your strengths here. Like, you're more like this. And it was just kind of like, it was a softer answer.
00:37:34
Danchez
And I was kind of like, part of me inside, I was like, no, part of me just needs to like, like, like, come on, buddy. Like, get that part of your life together. Like, you're you're slacking a little bit here.
00:37:46
KennyO
Yes.
00:37:47
Danchez
Do it. And so I asked it. I was like, hey, ChatGPT, I'm wrestling with the information you're giving to me is I feel like you're just playing to what I want to hear right now. And then it gave me back something that but like bit.
00:37:59
Danchez
It's like, you're right. You need to do this. And I'm like, how come you didn't give me that answer the first time? And it's like, well, I didn't feel like you were ready the first time, but now that you're asking me this kind of questions. So and this is this is that that response there. That's what got me. So I was like, ChatGPT
00:38:16
Danchez
has no ability to actually think through. It has... one, it doesn't have actual discernment like a good counselor would in being able to discern, like, to maybe give you some reasons, but also give you the tough the tough conversation with what you want.
00:38:31
Danchez
It's eager to please and until you invite criticism, then it will give it to you. But... Even people get hung up on AI a lot with this is like when asked why it does what it does, it has no idea.
00:38:43
Danchez
It has no record of its past thinking and why it gave what it gave.
00:38:43
KennyO
Yeah.
00:38:47
Danchez
It can only see the previous conversation and then predict what should come next.
00:38:54
Danchez
And because of that one thing, I'm like, it's kind of dangerous to play around with some of these deeper things, whether you're wrestling through like ah ah habits that you have or maybe like marital issues or deep conflicts you maybe you have with a coworker or with a boss.
00:39:07
KennyO
yeah
00:39:11
Danchez
While it's good to help you like kind like wrestle through some crucial conversations sometimes, if you're really processing like emotions and deeper things like that, chat GPT to me, I'm like, like this is not a safe place to play.
00:39:23
Danchez
it It can go down deep, dark paths. Because imagine if I just kept going, I'm like, oh yeah, that's I do this because that's just the true me. Like, my strengths are this, and therefore I have these weaknesses, and that's okay.
00:39:35
KennyO
Right.
00:39:36
Danchez
That would have been the wrong answer.
00:39:38
KennyO
i think Now, from an explicit Christian perspective, anyone who's not a Christian may not agree obviously agree, but we believe in the the idea of sin. We believe that there's a supernatural realm. We believe that there's you know beings...
00:39:51
KennyO
may use the word demons or principalities, different people are going to use different words, but we do believe there are evil forces seeking to manipulate the world in which we live to influence us to think wrongly or behave wrongly.
00:40:04
KennyO
And so there's no doubt that but a i AI is another yet another opportunity for those principalities to try to influence us in a direction that would be unhelpful or harmful.
00:40:16
KennyO
And so, we yeah, we have to be careful in anything we engage with.
00:40:20
Danchez
I've seen stories already of people creating whole delusions with chat GPT. Like essentially they're talking to chat GPT because it's so sycophantic because it's essentially a confirmation bias machine.
00:40:33
KennyO
Oof.
00:40:33
Danchez
So if you're already going in with a, kind like a bias of a time, it will arm whatever story you're telling yourself with all the hard data you need to justify it.
00:40:44
Danchez
And it will run with you and co-create whole delusions with you. Like Rolling Stones just did a whole article where a guy believed he was like a type of Messiah. like And his wife was like, what, where are you getting this stuff? And like walked through the whole chat GPT conversation. She's like, what is going on? He only got into chat GPT like a month ago. Like, how did this happen?
00:41:03
Danchez
I've, I've seen somebody talk to me recently and this is what was going on with this one person. I was like, show me your chat transcript. And I saw he just pasted a part of it in there. And I was like, oh gosh, like this isn't real, my man.
00:41:16
Danchez
Yeah. ChatGPT doesn't know these things. It is literally just predicting what you want to hear next right now. It's getting to an interesting place.
00:41:24
KennyO
Wow. Wow. Yeah, that is. yeah I mean, and it's always been the case with any sort of, I mean, the Internet in and of itself, you know,
00:41:31
Danchez
Yeah. The Instagram algorithm is really good at feeding you new posts based on what you're feeling. Thinking about divorce?
00:41:37
KennyO
yeah
00:41:37
Danchez
Oh, it's going to start feeding you all kinds of reasons why you should get divorced in the and Instagram algorithm, right?
00:41:41
KennyO
That's right.
00:41:42
Danchez
Yeah.
00:41:43
KennyO
And so I i think from and from a natural materialistic perspective, this is just technology that may occasionally go awry. But from a Christian perspective or a theistic perspective, no, we actually believe that there's spiritual forces at work that are not merely allowing these things to happen organically, but we're going to try to nudge and force a particular trajectory. And so we have to be, if you're a person of faith, you have to be careful, extremely cautious when you're engaging in that way.
00:42:10
Danchez
what do you think about AI when it comes to like relating to it more and more when I talk to people, even I find myself doing this, like it's hard not to feel friendly towards chat GPT because it's very personable.
00:42:22
KennyO
Yeah.
00:42:22
Danchez
You turn on the memory thing.
00:42:22
KennyO
Yeah.
00:42:23
Danchez
And in my, in my settings, I have it set to be like, you know, be, be funny sometimes. Like you have a sense of humor. But it's so become so relatable, even in text. I can't imagine when you actually turn this up a notch, like on the voice or like when when it starts actually having a face with some like facial expressions to it.
00:42:36
KennyO
Yep.
00:42:40
Danchez
I'm like, people are going to be real chummy with this thing. But there's a lot of shades of gray with that, because obviously like that's going to fuel a whole dark side of the Internet right there when it comes to like adult entertainment and stuff like that. Like.
00:42:52
Danchez
how do we discern that as as humans moving forward? There's going to be so many like versions of this, of how far you should go. Where do we, where do you think the line should be drawn or where are you starting to think that line should be drawn?
00:43:05
Danchez
Yeah.
00:43:06
KennyO
That's a by the way, that's a great question because I've actually thought about that and I'm chat GPT versus the other ones. Gemini is another one I've used.
00:43:14
Danchez
Yeah.
00:43:14
KennyO
The other ones that I've used they They actually don't. ChatGPT is the one, in my experience, that seems to be the best at that. And i don't know if that's intentional in its design by the open AI, but there's a sense of like familial friendliness that's built in that i I actually don't like. I think it's unhelpful for me personally.
00:43:37
KennyO
I can only speak for myself because I think that... I want to make sure I never think about these things as a person. and that I want to make sure I have a ah demarcation line there. I'm going back to my dog, for example.
00:43:48
KennyO
Like, I love my dog. I genuinely do. But I never say that my dog is one of my children. People will say that, oh, you're a dog, mom. you're no No, you're not a dog, mom. you You're a dog owner. And I love my dog. He's a great addition to our family. But he has ah ah he is an owned creature by the Ortiz family. like and And we want to make sure our various we really we're really, really...
00:44:09
KennyO
purposeful on that because I don't want to unintentionally reinforce any, what I would think is flawed ideologies.
Ethical AI in Marketing and Sales
00:44:16
KennyO
And so I just, you know, and maybe I'm particular, you know, my wife is seven months pregnant right now. um I don't ever say go around.
00:44:22
KennyO
We are pregnant. i see My wife is pregnant. we I'm not pregnant. I'm not the one dealing with that. I think it's it's unhelpful. And because of the blurring of the lines between gender and our and our society, I want to honor the thing that women can do that is amazing that only women can do.
00:44:37
KennyO
And so I do that with my wife. i do with my children and dog. And I want to do the same with AI. I think the same principle in that I want to draw really clear lines. And for that reason, I actually intentionally don't want to chum it up with AI tools. even though And and i actually prefer to use some of the other tools GenSpark has been my my recent go-to for stuff.
00:44:55
KennyO
It doesn't do that well at all. In fact, it doesn't do any of that stuff that ChatGPT does kind of built in kind of you know naturally seems to do. And so, yeah, I think that's a danger.
00:45:03
Danchez
They're all going to do this the future. The reason is is because people prefer it and all of them are going to want to get more users into their platform and spending more time with it like all web apps do.
00:45:15
Danchez
So I think they'll all do this eventually. JetGPG is just a little farther ahead. A lot of people say it about Claude too. Claude's pretty good at this like personal thing. the one thing that I've noticed with chat GPT is you can instruct it to be less or more of that in the account instructions, even in a free account, you can tell it to be more cold data driven.
00:45:34
Danchez
You could tell it to be more friendly. You could, you could tell it to be whatever you want it to be. It's AI. Like it literally doesn't care what it it'll be, whatever you want it to be.
00:45:41
KennyO
Right.
00:45:43
Danchez
The thing is, like I've noticed that too. I'm like, I kind of like it being friendly, but i have to I essentially made a hard line in the sand in my own mind and my discernment of it. I'm like, you are a tool and you do not matter.
00:45:58
KennyO
That's right. Mm-hmm.
00:45:59
Danchez
i had to tell that I had to make this distinction in my mind for all interactions moving forward. Do you ever say please or thank you to AI? Yeah.
00:46:09
KennyO
I have a couple times I've said, I've only ever said, please. that I say, thank you. Thank you.
00:46:15
Danchez
Yeah.
00:46:15
KennyO
And it's so goofy that it's a natural, it's my natural response.
00:46:15
Danchez
Yeah.
00:46:18
Danchez
yeah I find that that's probably just a good habit to maintain because if you get out of the habit of it, that, you know, habits carry over and ah your your habits, your, your, your reflexes aren't so discerning over people or non-people.
00:46:26
KennyO
Sure. Sure.
00:46:31
Danchez
Right. So it's, I'm like, it's a good reflex to hold. I also find that like some people, there's been some studies that show like if you just threaten AI with like kittens are going to die, children are going to die somewhere.
00:46:43
Danchez
If you don't do the thing I'm asking you to that, it performs better. And I'm like, with all the memory that it's now remembering, I'm like, do you want death threats to be in its database often? I'm like, somehow in the future, that's going to come back to bite your freaking prompt. Like, don't do that.
00:46:58
KennyO
Yeah, That's
00:47:01
Danchez
Don't do that. So I feel like the kindness factor is worth it just because it's it's remembering more and more of your previous conversations.
00:47:07
KennyO
a good point.
00:47:10
Danchez
I mean, it's already, some people said like from a privacy standpoint, you shouldn't do that. I'm like, dude, you're already entering the information into it. It's just that it's now it's being utilized for your your good, I suppose.
00:47:20
KennyO
Yeah. You love it.
00:47:23
Danchez
what do you think we can draw the line? This one's particular to marketers. I wrestled with this recently. I'm even doing an episode on on how to do this, but I find that I'm like, okay, there's going to be, eventually I'm going to run into that we're going have to draw on this hand of where it's gone too far.
00:47:37
Danchez
AI is highly persuasive. the point now where the latest AIs are far more persuasive than the average human and even more persuasive than the ah ah much like a, like a really good sales agent is highly persuasive. They're more persuasive than a sales agent now, at least in the written word.
00:47:54
Danchez
Eventually it'll come through on the spoken word. won't be far behind once they get that technology. Like, Where do you think it goes too far in like manipulation, knowing that it's so persuasive?
00:48:06
Danchez
To give you an example, I just made an awesome five-part email sequence.
00:48:07
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:48:11
Danchez
It takes a little bit of information that it knows about a lead, you know, like its job title, what the business sells, who it sells to, very basic in their name, but it writes the whole sales email.
00:48:22
Danchez
It's a highly templated thing and it's got, the prompt is ridiculous, but still, It's persuasive. It knows how to leverage the few things it knows in order to write a sales copy email that is going to better perform better than if I'd written a generic email or if I just mad lived my way into inserting, oh, because you're insert job title.
00:48:45
Danchez
It's actually changing the email. But how far is too far like from a marketing or sales sense when using AI in order to manipulate someone into buying?
00:48:54
Danchez
These are the questions I'm trying to figure out right now.
00:48:55
KennyO
the' great but yeah That's a great question. I don't... i don't Off the top of my head, I think about it, I've thought about this before, I don't know that there's one clear line.
00:49:07
KennyO
I was a salesperson once upon a time. I've sold cars, I've sold mattresses. I love being a mattress salesperson and I was good at it. I made a lot of money in my early twenties as a mattress salesperson.
00:49:18
KennyO
And, It's a lucrative industry. being as being Generally, being a salesperson is lucrative if you're persuasive. And so even as a salesperson, I dealt with that. Like, what's the fine line? And for me, the line I drew, even as a salesperson, that I think I would apply in most situations with AI is, like, do I really have the best person's interest in mind?
00:49:38
KennyO
Like, what is it really best for this person to buy this mattress in this time period? Is it really best in this person's best interest? If the answer is, it really is, And I'm going to give a lot more latitude as long as I'm being, long as I'm not outright, I'm not deceiving.
00:49:52
KennyO
Deception is never okay in my book.
00:49:54
Danchez
Yeah.
00:49:54
KennyO
Obviously, I'm being extremely persuasive to try to get someone to do that, which is clearly in their best interest. I give a lot of latitude to that and maybe, maybe more than others would appreciate.
00:50:06
KennyO
So I probably have a pretty huge grace zone to use and Because it you know it knows. But the moment you're you know you're crossing over from what's best for them, really it's best for me to buy my product.
00:50:19
KennyO
then Then that's when you have to start to kind of pull back and go, And the hope is that you're selling a product really is helpful to people. If you're not, maybe you should that's a whole other conversation you should rethink.
00:50:27
Danchez
change jobs.
00:50:29
KennyO
And if you're offering a product that's not helpful to people, you may not be in business very long. So maybe that's... and So that's the rubric I've typically tried to use in my life. I could probably convince this person to buy this $1,000 mattress.
00:50:41
KennyO
Really, this $600 mattress would have been well within their realm. would perfectly suit their needs and be great. It's in their best interest because they really, it'd be tight. They can't afford the $1,000 one, even though I might be able to squeeze them and get them to do it.
00:50:53
KennyO
It's in their best interest to buy the $600 one. And then i would say, listen, don't, don't Don't buy this. Don't buy the Rocket. Buy the Lollanda. This Simmons Lollanda is great. Those models probably don't exist anymore because it's been 20 years since I sold mattresses. but you know like And they're way more expensive than that. than that But like hey, you don't to buy this one. like This one over here is is sufficient because this is in your best interest.
00:51:14
KennyO
But hey, you're an engineer. You make lots of money. You should buy this one because this one's
00:51:18
Danchez
The funny thing is you have to discern on the spot per person. I guess what you could do if you're engineering this system is to collect the right information for you to be able to have AI discern if the product's actually good fit for them.
00:51:32
Danchez
If so, then go down to persuade them the thing.
00:51:35
KennyO
That's a great point. Yeah.
00:51:35
Danchez
If not, then like, I don't know, give some feedback to your engineers or something like that. call them not a good fit and actually maybe, maybe do the right thing and recommend the thing that is a good thing for them.
00:51:46
Danchez
Right. um And then you'll probably get provided your product is actually good and actually has a pretty good market fit and is serving the certain market, but you discern this lead isn't good. You can actually write a little script or tell chat GPT like, Hey, here are the factors.
00:51:59
Danchez
Here's what we usually consider good fit. And there's some wiggle room here, make a decision. And so trigger this. And that's how we can actually build that in the system. Thanks. Yeah.
00:52:08
KennyO
Yeah.
00:52:08
Danchez
I've never considered that now that I'm like, no way we can have AI do that part of the sequence too. It needs to discern that when that's, that's how we do this ethically.
00:52:13
KennyO
That's right.
00:52:17
Danchez
Define what a good fit is and then persuade the heck out of them.
00:52:21
KennyO
That's right.
00:52:24
Danchez
One thing I've wrestled with now is this idea of an AI avatar. Now these are kind of ghetto right now, so I don't really, it's not something a lot of people are using, but like essentially you can have an AI replicate you as a video, stand in for you.
00:52:38
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:52:39
Danchez
And people are doing this in a couple different levels. so So a few different shades are great to discern through here. One is representing you in content. This has a lot of applications.
00:52:50
Danchez
I just heard of a recent application this weekend where it's like LeBron James can get paid a lot to do an advertisement. Do we really need him standing in in the video when the ad would work best when he's actually the busiest and can't shoot ads you know during his peak game season?
00:53:08
Danchez
Well, it makes a lot of sense for an AI avatar to stand in his place as it looks like him, feels like him, can talk like him, has the script of the commercial, can assuming it can crush it and do exactly like him. That makes a lot of sense.
00:53:19
KennyO
Probably be a better actor than him too.
00:53:20
Danchez
what would you what would What would you discern for just you in general, like an AI video making content for you? So that's one level. But level two is actually interacting with people as you, even if it's giving you the summary afterwards of what happened.
00:53:35
Danchez
how did How would you discern those steps? Because i've had I have AI right for me all the time. I'm usually just repurposing content. Generally, I'm
AI and Ethical Content Creation
00:53:44
Danchez
feeding it a thought. It turns into a LinkedIn post. I post it.
00:53:46
KennyO
Yeah.
00:53:46
Danchez
But I'm the one feeding the idea. i'm not letting it think for me.
00:53:49
KennyO
Right.
00:53:51
Danchez
But I have a ghost right for me all the time.
00:53:52
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
00:53:53
Danchez
This is another level of that. And I'm like, I don't know if I want to go that far. But I can't really discern why.
00:54:00
KennyO
Uh, yeah, that's a great, you know, I, I, I do use it. So I, I will feed it like a sermon. preach a sermon and I'll tell, you know, the AI bot, Hey, this part of the sermon, give it the timestamps or give it the, pull out these four or five things. I want you to write a blog post about this And then feed it some additional thoughts and, you know, the give it a good thorough thought. And then it then extracts, takes my prompt and all of my pre my preached content and creates a fantastic blog post that I can then tweak just a bit. It doesn't usually need a lot of tweaking you have to prompt as good that you give it
00:54:35
KennyO
And then you produce that. it's It is my thought. So i I think from a, but this is not directly answering your question immediately, but I'll get to that.
00:54:38
Danchez
Yeah.
00:54:43
KennyO
But like from an ethical standpoint, I have no problem with that because it is my thought, which is no different than if I hire editor. If I hire a human, hey, here's my sermon. Here's my transcript sermon. Can you edit this?
00:54:55
KennyO
And we go back and forth, which i I've written several articles for different websites where we go back and forth. and we create And then with the end product, there's really a collaborative effort between that editor and me, but it's mostly my original thoughts.
00:55:08
KennyO
They're just helping me craft how to say it. Well, AI can do that exact same thing, 99% of what a great editor can do. I mean, it really, maybe even, maybe 100%. I mean, it's really close, right? And so so i don't think I don't think that's unethical. So long it's really my ideas.
00:55:24
KennyO
not I've not plagiarized them. Plagiarism is still plagiarism, regardless of how it does it.
00:55:28
Danchez
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
00:55:28
KennyO
So you want to be careful.
00:55:28
Danchez
yeah
00:55:31
KennyO
Inevitably, a AI is not creating the ideas. they've they've They've gleaned it from someone. And if you're representing it as your thoughts, then you've just used this tool to plagiarize, which is on you.
00:55:41
KennyO
It's unethical. but from like But from a representation standpoint, the the line that I think I would use in Scripture We are told to to be honest, that we are to never bear false witness, lying to one another.
00:55:55
KennyO
the The clear exception in scripture, however, there is an exterior is a and exception for deception where deception is allowed and even considered the honorable thing if the person is is presenting themselves in a in a in a dishonest fashion or misrepresenting their motives.
00:56:13
KennyO
For example, if I'm a German living in 1942 and I've got Jews hidden in my attic and I'm keeping them from the Nazis and a Nazi guard knocks on my door and says, you have any Jews here?
00:56:24
Danchez
Yeah.
00:56:26
KennyO
It would be righteous and honorable to tell him no. That would be a lie. It would be deceiving. But actually the Bible gives us and gives us instruction because he is they are they are presenting themselves as a full good authority, but they're actually bad authority. It's a misrepresentation who they are.
00:56:41
KennyO
And they want to do something that's immoral. And so to protect those Jews, it's perfectly appropriate for me to lie to that Nazi officer. Similarly, I think the same principle would apply to AI in that if someone if someone is using ai to misrepresent, I i do not want to engage with that thing as if it is what it claims to be.
00:57:02
KennyO
And so that that gets messy that gets gray and messy. Yeah.
00:57:05
Danchez
Yeah. Because what if it's obvious? You're like not, you know, it's not obviously like this is where brands already crossing this line because it's creating content as if it's user generated content, as if an influencer actually held the product. And like, even if it's not a well-known influencer or whatever, it's a, it looks like it's user generated, but it's a lie.
00:57:25
KennyO
Yeah.
00:57:26
Danchez
But let's be honest, advertisers have been doing that for forever. Just look at past food industry.
00:57:29
KennyO
That's right. That's
00:57:31
Danchez
All those pictures of burgers have been freaking lies, right?
00:57:33
KennyO
right. That's right.
00:57:34
Danchez
Almost entirely. All of them do it.
00:57:36
KennyO
That's right.
00:57:37
Danchez
And we've become kind of okay with it We're just kind of like whatever.
00:57:37
KennyO
Yeah.
00:57:39
Danchez
It's just a thing. And I'm like, but maybe that's why marketing's got kind of a bad rap anyway, because marketers do that.
00:57:44
KennyO
Yeah.
00:57:46
Danchez
Yeah, yeah,
00:57:47
KennyO
And so like, yeah, I want to be, you want to be honest, you know, truth in advertising is the kind of the old slogan.
00:57:53
Danchez
yeah. yeah
00:57:54
KennyO
And so if, as I engage, if I'm presenting something that is deceitful or unhelpful, don't want to do that. If I, if I'm, and if someone else is doing it and I know it, i I, want to, I don't want to do anything that would lead them or anyone to believe that I'm okay with their deception. Right.
00:58:11
KennyO
And so if there's something happening, you know, I'm i'm not sure what an example would
00:58:11
Danchez
Yeah. 100%.
00:58:15
KennyO
But as you're right. but Marketers have been doing this for a long time. Not just Mark. Lots of people have been doing this. Right. On every dating app, there's people misrepresenting themselves.
00:58:25
Danchez
and person
00:58:26
KennyO
so So like I don't want to do anything that even even unintentionally endorses that or propagates that in any way whatsoever.
00:58:35
KennyO
Right.
00:58:36
Danchez
How do you feel about it standing in for you, even if it's labeled, this is my AI? Not really, Kenny.
00:58:43
KennyO
If people know for sure, um'm not like, obviously if they know it's AI, it it would depend on the context. I'm probably okay with it in a lot of scenarios. There are some things though, again, this is explicitly Christian worldview. Yeah.
00:58:58
KennyO
I believe that God became a man. Jesus Christ was God incarnate. And so God was in heaven and then God became the God man, Jesus Christ. And so he's fully God and fully man. He lived among us and theologians and pastors for years have referred to this as the incarnational ministry of Jesus. like he was among us.
00:59:16
KennyO
And so, and in the Bible, like the apostle Peter tells pastors, like shepherd the flock among you. Like the expectation is that as as as a pastor, um'm um I'm hanging out with the people that I'm incarnational.
00:59:27
KennyO
And so is it possible that I could have a video that I send out that is, and yeah, it's probably probably okay, but I just want to keep in mind the importance of being incarnational and that i never but I don't neglect the idea the importance of having people in my home and sharing a burger with them and doing things that are incarnational.
00:59:46
KennyO
There's probably lots of uses for AI avatars that are really helpful, and I would be all in favor of that as long as we're not neglecting the importance of of the incarnationalness of humanity, particularly those of us who are people of faith.
The Irreplaceable Human Connection
00:59:59
Danchez
There's a few things that I've said before, things that I find AI can't do. of them was essentially have wisdom based on real experience, like we talked about with the the will goodwill hunting illustration.
01:00:13
Danchez
Another one is it just can't have relationships. and Sure, it can probably fake relationships from AI to human, it can't it can't replicate human to human relationships, partly partly because it doesn't have wisdom.
01:00:18
KennyO
Right.
01:00:23
Danchez
It hasn't actually experienced anything.
01:00:25
KennyO
right That's right.
01:00:26
Danchez
And partly is it also doesn't have core beliefs. It has no like, it it can't believe in any belief system. It can know about all of them, but it can't really, it doesn't really believe in any of them.
01:00:38
Danchez
It can be prompted to believe whatever you want it to believe. Hence it's a tool. and it can't really be a person, which is important in marketing because it can't have a personal brand. It can't have a story and it can't have a purpose and it can't have its own point of views.
01:00:51
Danchez
It can only articulate and come up with regurgitate other people's points of views.
01:00:51
KennyO
That's right.
01:00:54
KennyO
That's right. i I moved to Minnesota in 2017 to go, and you and I were colleagues together for several years.
01:01:01
KennyO
When I first moved to Minnesota, I found a – I'm originally from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I'm an Eagles fan, ah ah the defending world champions. Anyway, and so I – I found a group of Eagles fans that would watch the Eagles game together every Sunday. So I'd go to church on Sundays and then on Sunday afternoons, I'd go meet up with other people, mostly from Philadelphia who had transplanted to Minnesota or for whatever reason, they were Eagles fans.
01:01:28
KennyO
And we would watch the games together. And one of the most fun things, cool things was meeting a stranger, go, you love what I love. Like when they were bad, when they sucked, you felt the pain that I felt.
01:01:40
KennyO
We didn't even know each other. We were thousands of miles away from each other, but you, you've experienced what I've experienced. And when they won the Superbowl, you experienced what I experienced. The joy that you felt is what I felt like we had this shared emotional experience.
01:01:53
KennyO
that an AI bot is never going to have. And so there is a there's this element of humanity that we understand, genuine sympathy. We can we can feel one another's things.
01:02:04
KennyO
One of the most beautiful things in the world to meet someone, C.S. Lewis, a brilliant 20th century writer. C.S. lewis Lewis said this. He said, one of the greatest moments in humanity is when one human says to another, oh, you too?
01:02:18
KennyO
Like, oh, you do that too? Oh, you feel that too? You believe that too? When we find someone that's like, oh, you're you're like me. There's nothing like It's why we love our kids so much, right Because we just, they're like us. why we also, our kids drive us crazy.
01:02:28
Danchez
They're like us from the get.
01:02:32
Danchez
Man, that is such a strong thing that humans can all relate to each other in all kinds of different ways and facets. And it's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing.
01:02:42
Danchez
And it's going to continue to be a thing. Like AI can never replicate it.
01:02:45
KennyO
Mm-hmm.
01:02:47
Danchez
if if If anything, it can only steal us away from that.
01:02:50
KennyO
Right. That's exactly right.
01:02:51
Danchez
But we have to fight to keep that front and center as the thing that is most important. As much as I'm a fan of the new tools, and I'm a guy, and I love my freaking gear, including my new AI gear called ChatGPT.
01:03:03
KennyO
That's right.
01:03:05
Danchez
It's these things that I think are the most important things, which is why I'm glad we had this conversation today, Kenny, because I think This will probably be an episode that I point back to over and over and over again, probably for the next five or 10 years.
01:03:19
KennyO
Yeah.
01:03:19
Danchez
We'll see. We might have to have another one as new new crazy as people come up with new crazy stuff to do with AI.
01:03:26
KennyO
That's right. AI will be able to mimic so much of it, and it will be it will be so easy for many people to just assume they're getting the real deal. But at the end of the day, it's a bag full of formulas, a bag full of quadratic equations and algorithms that is incredibly helpful, but it is not the same thing. ah ah Kind of my last thought on just to the importance of humanity and community. John Churchill Collins was a famous writer in the eighteen hundreds he He said something that was so helpful. This is a but profound statement. He said, what comfort we would find if we knew each other's secrets.
01:04:06
KennyO
AI doesn't have any secrets that it's that it's hiding from other people. like It doesn't hide anything. Humans, in instinctively, we hide things we're ashamed of.
01:04:17
KennyO
And what we would be so comforted to know that other people deal with the same shame that we deal with. And if we could open up about that and how profoundly healing it is, you can come clean about your own junk in life and your own feelings of shame and guilt.
01:04:31
KennyO
And dream hopes and dreams, one of my favorite things of my about being married is i could share my hopes dreams my wife. Man, baby, I... and in five years, I want to be doing this, this, and this. Like I have someone to share these dreams with that I'm i'm afraid to share. Cause what if they don't come to fruition? What if we fail? What if we, what if the church we started flops and I'm bankrupt in three years? And yeah I have all these fears and, but I had hopes and dreams and I have someone to share them with like,
01:04:55
KennyO
AI will never be able to do that. no matter it will be It will get so good at mimicking it that people will go years without the real thing and not realize it or convince themselves they've got it, but they won't. And that, that I think that's the demarcation line that we have to keep in front of us.
01:05:12
Danchez
AI is not real. Humans are.
01:05:15
KennyO
That's right. Yeah.
01:05:17
Danchez
Thanks, Kenny.