The Week the Book was Finished
The Week the Book was Finished
A quick update with a new excerpt
Dear readers,
It’s been a busy few weeks. For those of you who don’t know me personally, my life is generally filled with being a husband to a pregnant wife, a parent to two wonderful toddlers, a full-time church pastor and a part-time academic advisor at a Bible college. What little free time I’ve had—a lot of uncomfortably early mornings and late nights—has been dedicated to completing my first book: The Church and AI.
I’m currently in what feels like a very positive discussion with a publisher, and it’s looking as though I will finish the first draft tomorrow. Then, it enters the editing phase, which, frankly, is terrifying. More details to follow.
In the next few weeks, I have the privilege of heading back to the UK for a conference and some speaking engagements. Perhaps the most unusual (for me) was the request to speak to a secular leadership development group about AI and its potential impact. I’m always fascinated by how God leads us out of our comfort zones!
All of this to say: I must apologize that I haven’t written as much as I would have liked here recently. I hope that will change in the next few weeks, but in the meantime, I’ve shared an introduction to one of the chapters of The Church and AI below. I hope you enjoy it! Please accept my sincerest thanks for your continual encouragement and support. It is very much appreciated, indeed.
Blessings,
Dave Betts
The Church and AI
The Starship Avalon powers through the suffocating void at approximately half of light speed. Its cargo—258 crew and 5,000 guests—fill seemingly endless rows of hibernation chambers in total stasis as they embark on a 120-year voyage to their new home: Homestead II, the fourth planet in the Bhakti system. A new life awaits.
Three decades after embarking on their intrepid voyage from Earth, the Avalon encounters a dangerous field of space debris. The ship diverts power to the main shield as it collides with innumerable meteorites, but it begins to rattle under the enormous strain of the barrage. Despite the AI pilot’s valiant efforts to steer the Avalon through these celestial minefields, the Homestead Company’s “premier interstellar star-liner” could not escape unscathed. POD 1498 malfunctions, and with a sharp intake of breath, James “Jim” Preston wakes from hibernation. Only it’s ninety years, three weeks, and one day too early.
This is the premise of the 2016 movie Passengers. When Jim (played by Chris Pratt) realizes what has happened, he frantically scours the ship for other people…but finds none. Apart from him, every organic life form is in a century-long stasis, and as it stands, he won’t live to interact with them. 390 long, quiet days pass, and Jim has no one to keep him company aside from the host of AI devices like Arthur, a red-blazered android who waits patiently for visitors from behind his bar. Jim’s loneliness becomes unbearable. So acute is his desperation for human connection that he almost jettisons himself into the vast nothingness of space and the instant death that awaited, free from his very own prison of solitude. Like Jacob’s wrestle with the Lord, Jim wrestles his conscience, but sheer desperation for human connection leads him to a dark end. He forces passenger 1456’s hibernation pod to malfunction.
Aurora Lane (played by Jennifer Lawrence) wakes. He is no longer alone.
Ethical challenges notwithstanding, Passengers is an excellent illustration of a fundamental truth: artificial intelligence cannot replace human connection.
While AI may very well be one day capable of holding us in hibernation, steering us through interstellar travel, and protecting us from the celestial chunks that hurtle into the ship’s hull, it will never be able to meaningfully replicate genuine friendship, real love, or heartfelt care. Ultimately, AI’s facts don’t care about your feelings.
This is a vital truth in the Church’s analysis of artificial intelligence. Perhaps more than ever in our history, we must remind ourselves that relationships matter.