The problems with promoting Ai generated Bible teaching

Hey there Logosians.

I have a concern. I love solid exegesis, deep dive hermeneutics and teachers who practice such things. I go to great lengths to follow professors and authors down these rabbit holes once I trust their scholarship, because I love God’s Word.

A.I. generated content does the exact opposite. It scans most popular responses and spits out a synthesis. A.I. has no sense of Truth, right, tact, ethics, wisdom, insight or understanding. It’s quite simply the average of available answers put in a blender and squoze out through a tube. Pastors should not be encouraged to rely on this.

Consider this recent (most likely A.I. generated) Logos advertisement on what a.i. can do for you as a pastor:

Summarize articles and chapters. That way you’ll know if something is worth investing your time in reading.
Spend less time coming up with effective illustrations and questions. Customizable options give you a launchpad to get your gears turning

So pastors are encouraged to let A.I. summaries of Bible chapters guide their valuation of chapters of Scripture and then trust the hermeneutics and current social understanding of A.I. to create relevant illustrations o that pastors flock, for their sermons.

If I appear to be hyperbolic, please watch the advertisement videos in which pastors are encouraged to do just that and then shown an example of how that might turn out.

Pastors, please, for the Love of God and His Word, do not outsource the process of understanding, summarizing and creating illustrations of God’s Word for your people. This is like…. Literally your main job. It’s what Paul encouraged in His final writing before dying (2 Tim 3) it’s what Peter emphasized in HIS final writings before dying (2 Peter 3). A.I. may proove good for lots of things, but this ain’t it! You are filled with the Spirit of God for being able to understand and relate it. Don’t get lazy on us now! The church needs you.

What are your thought on this? Am I off base?

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Comments

Graham Criddle

If I appear to be hyperbolic, please watch the advertisement videos in which pastors are encouraged to do just that and then shown an example of how that might turn out.

I haven't watched the videos so can't comment on those.

Summarize articles and chapters. That way you’ll know if something is worth investing your time in reading.

So pastors are encouraged to let A.I. summaries of Bible chapters guide their valuation of chapters of Scripture

I recognise the summarisation feature can be used to summarise Bible chapters - but I would be more inclined to use it to summarise chapters of other books to get a sense of whether that chapter / article is talking about something I want to explore further.

It would be interesting to know the basis on which the biblical chapter summarisation works. I doubt if it is simply generating it "itself" but drawing on some existing Logos resources (but I don't know any specifics)

Spend less time coming up with effective illustrations and questions. Customizable options give you a launchpad to get your gears turning

I think the launchpad comment is key here - with the idea of suggesting some areas to consider as opposed to starting from scratch

Ryan

If I appear to be hyperbolic, please watch the advertisement videos in which pastors are encouraged to do just that and then shown an example of how that might turn out.

I haven't watched the videos so can't comment on those.So pastors are encouraged to let A.I. summaries of Bible chapters guide their valuation of chapters of Scripture

Spend less time coming up with effective illustrations and questions. Customizable options give you a launchpad to get your gears turning

I think the launchpad comment is key here - with the idea of suggesting some areas to consider as opposed to starting from scratch

Blessings Graham! My hope would be that the tool would be used as you say. That pastors would only use it as a launchpad. But that still doesn’t answer the question of origin, where are the lesson illustrations being lifted from? Who is to be cited for the illustration and what is the underlying belief of the author of that illustration that may color its choice of wording.

Theres a huge issue right now plaguing medical journals with A.I. generated content not based on real research, that is finding its way into major peer-reviewed journals, only to be retracted later. They’re calling this a real crisis of scholarship. How are we as pastors with LESS accountability than a peer reviewed paper and LESS experience or training in research using a LESS well developed A.I. (guessing on that one) supposed to do a better job at vetting what the A.I. spits at us.

It’s literally being marketed as a time saver ( as in, don’t worry about spending time on all that bothersome research) which is the wrong message to sell to young busy pastors. A dangerous message for a young pastor to buy into actually.

Heres the video if the link works for you.

https://www.logos.com/early-access?utm_campaign=logosearlyaccess-phase-1&utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_content=03132024_Logos_ENG_REV_logos_pro_30daycohort&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fwww.logos.com%2fearly-access&utm_id=179201&sfmc_id=38688490

Ryan

Here’s more from Logos current advertising:

“No need to stop what you’re doing to visit Google or search through illustration books. Instead, get reliable illustration ideas right inside Sermon Builder“

What makes these A.I. teachings reliable? Who determined their level of reliability? They are being sold as reliable and that is concerning if you convince a pastor to believe that, and then it turns out to be just some junk an A.I. bot made up. And then a congregation gets a distorted teaching. That could be so very problematic If used how advertised.

MJ. Smith

Theres a huge issue right now plaguing medical journals with A.I. generated content not based on real research, that is finding its way into major peer-reviewed journals, only to be retracted later.

This use of AI was news to me, so I just went and verified. There has been AI generated content and that can be a problem but much of the retracted research falls on the human factor - people deliberately fudging data and/or neglecting to attribute work to its rightful owner. I am considerably less impressed with the current state of AI than many in the forums. It needs to get better at reasoning and evaluating. On the other hand, it will be a growing force in the scholarship so we best starting learning how to use rather than abuse it.

Justin Gatlin

So pastors are encouraged to let A.I. summaries of Bible chapters guide their valuation of chapters of Scripture and then trust the hermeneutics and current social understanding of A.I. to create relevant illustrations o that pastors flock, for their sermons.

It is worth mentioning that Bible search does not include the summarize feature, only books search. You can do a books search, restrict it to type:Bible and use the summary feature. But it is certainly not obvious or promoted.

Here is the summary it generated of Psalm 142 when I forced it to do so. It isn't bad.

[quote]

The Psalm 142 is a prayer by David for help in times of trouble. He cries out to the Lord, pouring out his complaints and declaring his overwhelming spirit. David seeks refuge and deliverance from his persecutors, feeling trapped and uncared for. He asks for his soul to be freed from prison so he can give thanks to the Lord. Despite feeling low and weak, David trusts that the righteous will surround him and that the Lord will deal bountifully with him. The prayer reflects a deep sense of reliance on God during difficult times and a belief in His ability to provide comfort and assistance.

The illustrations are basically just prompts for ideas. Here are my results for "seeking a lost sheep" with an emotive tone, any type (personal, historical, hypothetical, and biblical) for adults or teens. I don't think they are great, but I don't use books of illustrations either. For someone who does, I don't think the quality is much different. I suspect that it has been trained on those illustration books already in the Logos ecosystem because they all have that feel.

The sermon illustrator is a sideshow; the summarization and smart search are the meat of the AI at this point. In my opinion, the difference in Logos's AI and a generic one like ChatGPT is that Logos is not just making stuff up, it is all tied to your library. It isn't generating answers to questions, it is summarizing what a book in my library says where I can see who the source is and read it with a click.

Tes

we best starting learning how to use rather than abuse it.

John Fidel

Ryan,

I appreciate your comments and position regarding AI. Currently I am using Logos Pro for searching and summarizing the search results. My search is not much different than if I had run in the old way, except I do not need the search syntax. The results are from my library. I can look at a result and click summarize to see if I want to look further into that resource.

I do not see the way AI is implemented in Logos currently for those two functions represents much of what you are concerned about. It is using tools similar to how I would without AI to gather information from my library to use in my biblical studies. This is different than me opening google AI and asking it to answer my questions.

I just want to make sure things are in perspective to how they are being implemented.

xnman

Welll... while I share some of the concerns raised in this thread.... I'm one that loves all the help I can get.... But.... I realize fully that I am the one responsible for getting God's word into my heart. No program will ever do that....

So... while I love all the helps... I still have to study "to show myself approved" and to make God's word mine.

It's like digging a ditch.... with all the tools available... I still have to dig the ditch no matter which tool I use....

So... love the helps! I just try to keep them in perspective.... [8-|]