How Artificial Intelligence Is Shaping Us
The real question isn't what AI can do, but what it is doing to us.
My kids love magnets. They’re at that age where it still feels like magic. It’s understandable: they’re witnessing an invisible force move something (like a paperclip) across space.
I still think magnets are fascinating—but they’re also a helpful metaphor.
There are countless influences in our lives today. The closer a magnet gets, the stronger its influence and pull on certain objects. In the same way, the things closest to us—what we give our attention to, what we interact with, and what we depend on—are often the things that shape and move us the most. Sometimes, we don’t even realize that it’s happening.
Winston Churchill once remarked that we shape our buildings, and afterward our buildings shape us.
You probably don’t need me to tell you that this is true. A packed-out hockey arena is not a time for silent contemplation. Equally, you wouldn’t chant “let’s go Readers!” at full volume in a library. A cathedral evokes a reverential posture we recognize instinctively; a living room is a place of relaxation (unless you’re trying to stop your children from drawing on the walls).
Our buildings shape us, but only while we’re in them. They’re geographically fixed.
Technology’s influence, on the other hand, is altogether more powerful.
Whereas buildings influence us only when we inhabit them, some forms of technology are ubiquitous.
Consider the way in which cars reshaped how we move and organize our lives (particularly in the vast open spaces of North America), or how smartphones reshaped how we communicate, think, and even experience social connection. My family live 7,000kms away, and yet I can video-call them instantly. That profoundly changes how I live compared to how the settlers of yesteryear lived.
Social media reshaped how we present ourselves and engage with each other.
In all of these examples, we created the tools, but they’re not passive. We shape our technology, and our technology shapes us.
AI: The Intensifier
The influence of AI is even more notable, but markedly different.
Artificial intelligence doesn’t replace earlier technologies; it intensifies them. It blankets almost every domain of life, seeping into existing technologies and affecting how we write, learn, search, communicate, and create. That matters because it means AI’s influence is not confined to a single location (like buildings) or to a single activity (as with most technologies). It amplifies the power of myriad technologies on our often unsuspecting lives.
One of the most helpful ways to understand this is to recognize that AI functions as a medium intensifier. In previous posts, I’ve described it as The Great Exacerbater. Rather than introducing entirely new problems, it accelerates and magnifies the ones already present. Let me offer some examples:
If you’re already impatient, AI removes friction and reinforces that alluring expectation of immediacy. In time, such instantaneous answers intensify our inability to wait.
If you tend to avoid difficult and deep thinking, AI can churn out the answers and release your neurons from having to force inconvenient connections to get there. But diminished brain engagement makes it significantly more challenging to engage in difficult, deep thinking (see this early study from MIT).
If relationships feel complicated or costly, AI offers simpler forms of interaction. Why struggle with the pressure of reading social cues and awkward small talk when you could simply connect with a chatbot? If you prefer a curated version of yourself, AI makes it easier to construct and maintain one: visually, you can lean heavily on AI filters, and verbally, you can simply ask ChatGPT or Gemini to tell you what to say in a given situation. Eventually, the challenge of engaging with people in “real life” is intensified.
The list goes on. If you’re new here, I talk about some of these challenges in a little more detail in my book, The Church and AI: Seven Guidelines for Ministry on the Digital Frontiers.
But I think you get the idea.
The Cultural Influence of AI
These challenges are why I’ve spent the last few years shouting from the rooftops: I believe the most important question isn’t whether AI can be used for good purposes, or even whether Christians should use it at all. Those are necessary discussion points, for sure, but I just don’t think they are the most pressing.
The deeper question is this: what is AI doing to us as we use it?
What kinds of habits is it reinforcing?
What expectations is it creating?
What vision of the flourishing life is it quietly promoting?
How is AI’s influential, magnetic nature shaping our culture?
These are the sorts of questions that reach beyond ethics into spiritual formation. And formation doesn’t require obvious misuse—it’s more nuanced than that. You don’t have to engage in something clearly wrong for it to shape you in unhelpful ways.
It’s enough for a technology like AI to simply pull, prod, and shape us with an invisible force, making certain aspects of our lives easier and more appealing until they become instinctive. Over time, convenience becomes expectation; speed starts to equal “good”, and avoidance and apathy can feel totally normal.
Nowhere is this dynamic more visible than in our relationships.
Relationships Are Hard, But Irreplaceable
We are already living in a moment where communication is constant, yet genuine relationships often feel elusive. It’s a truism at this point: we’re more digitally connected and less socially connected than ever before.
We can maintain a steady online presence, exchange messages throughout the day, and still experience a deep sense of isolation, because something is missing. It’s increasingly possible to be seen without being known. Let’s be clear: that condition didn’t begin with artificial intelligence, but AI has the capacity to intensify it in meaningful ways.
The reason for this is not hard to understand: deep relationships are inherently demanding. They require time and patience; they often involve misunderstandings, miscommunication, and forgiveness; they almost always require vulnerability. They’re not easy, or efficient, and they’re not predictable.
In contrast, AI-intensified interaction is far more responsive, far more controlled, and the stakes are much lower. It doesn’t interrupt you in the way “real people” might, and it doesn’t require us to navigate the complexity and unpredictability of other human beings. It offers something that feels like engagement without many of the costs that make relationships meaningful in the first place. This is precisely why it is so appealing, but over time, the easier option often becomes the default one, and when that happens, the habits required for a real relationship can weaken.
For Christians, this is an important cultural concern. How we address a culture with a growing relational deficit is one of the great issues of our generation.
However, it’s more than just a cultural concern; it’s a theological one.
The Bible presents human beings as fundamentally relational. We are created by a relational God for relationship, both with Him and with other people.
Our relational nature isn’t an incidental feature of human life; it’s central to what it means to be human.
That’s why God declares that it is not good for man to be alone in the opening pages of the Bible. It’s also why the story of God’s Word is ultimately about the restoration of broken relationship. Sin is more than just a matter of personal wrongdoing; it’s a rupture in communion with our Heavenly Father. Similarly, Jesus didn’t condescend to us simply to bless us with some moral guidelines. He lived, died, and rose again to bring people back into right relationship with the Father and to form a community of followers marked by love, forgiveness, and shared life.
For this reason, Christ-followers must wrestle with the rise of AI and the deeper questions it raises about discipleship. If the flourishing life that Jesus calls us to is bound up with real presence, genuine vulnerability, and embodied community (Heb. 10:25; 1 Thess. 2:8; Jam. 5:16; 1 John 1:7; Gal. 5:6), then any force that consistently pulls us away from those realities deserves careful attention. AI is not inherently opposed to those things, but without careful consideration, it can make alternatives seem more attractive. It already is. Without prudence, AI can provide functional substitutes for practices that are meant to be relational, offering conversation without friendship, insight without wisdom, and connection without presence. And when our preferences shift, formation follows.
In other words, we shape AI, and it shapes us back.
A similar concern applies to how we relate to truth. AI makes it easier than ever to produce content that is coherent, persuasive, and immediate. But there is a difference between accessing answers and becoming wise.
Wisdom requires time, attention, and a willingness to engage deeply with both Scripture and real experience.
It means ensuring that our relationship with God and with people is the primary influential force in our lives. It means deep thinking, discernment and prayer with the Scriptures as our plumbline.
None of this requires rejecting AI. Indeed, with much care, it can be a great intensifier of all that is good. But it does call for a reordering of priorities. If the principle is true that the things closest to us shape us most, then we need to be intentional about what we keep at the center of our lives. To reiterate, that begins with relationships—real, embodied, genuine relationships where people are known, challenged, and loved.
It also involves resisting the quiet drift toward outsourcing our thinking, choosing instead to remain mentally and spiritually engaged and attentive. Above all, it requires keeping God at the center, recognizing that the ultimate question isn’t just what shapes us, but who shapes us.
When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, his answer was both simple and comprehensive: love God and love your neighbour (Matt. 22:37-39). Two thousand years later, as we wrestle with a world of cars, planes, cell phones, social media, and artificial intelligence, this advice is as pertinent as ever.
At present, it seems as though artificial intelligence will continue to move closer to us, embedding itself more deeply into the structures of everyday life and increasing its influence. Yes, it will likely become more useful, more intuitive, and more difficult to avoid. However, the critical question for you, Christian, is this:
To what extent will we allow artificial intelligence to shape us?
Because the principle remains: the closer something is to us, the stronger its influence. And if we are not deliberate about what we keep closest, we may find ourselves shaped more by our tools than we realize.
If you found this article helpful, consider reading my book “The Church and AI: Seven Guidelines for Ministry on the Digital Frontiers,” out now! If you’ve read it already, thank you! Feel free to leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads!