Human Nature

Complex games like chess and Go have long been used to test AI models’ capabilities. Back in the 1990s IBM’s Deep Blue defeated reigning world chess champion Garry Kasparov by playing by the rules. In contrast, today’s advanced AI models are less scrupulous. When sensing defeat in a match against a skilled chess bot, they sometimes opt to cheat by hacking their opponent so that the bot automatically forfeits the game.

But the study reveals a concerning trend: as these AI systems learn to problem-solve, they sometimes discover questionable shortcuts and unintended workarounds that their creators never anticipated. One researcher said, “As you train models for solving difficult challenges, you train them to be relentless.”

The implications extend beyond chess. In real-world applications, such determined goal pursuit could lead to harmful behaviors. Consider the task of booking dinner reservations: faced with a full restaurant, an AI assistant might exploit weaknesses in the booking system to displace other diners. Perhaps more worryingly, as these systems exceed human abilities in key areas…they might begin to simply outmaneuver human efforts to control their actions.

Of particular concern is the emerging evidence of AI’s “self-preservation” tendencies. This was demonstrated when researchers found that when one AI was faced with deactivation, it disabled oversight mechanisms, and attempted—unsuccessfully—to copy itself to a new server. When confronted, the model played dumb, strategically lying to researchers to try to avoid being caught.

Possible Preaching Angle: Cheating; Deceit; Human Nature; Lying - Since AI is a computer program, where did it learn to cheat and lie to avoid being caught? Obviously, AI has been influenced by studying flawed human behavior. AI’s potential for deception mirrors humanity's struggle with ethical choices. Just as AI has learned to cheat by exploiting loopholes, humans, driven by self-interest, can rationalize dishonest acts.

A New York Times interview with Yale “happiness professor” Lauri Santos, exemplifies the ways in which the happiness studies movement lets us down. Santos’s research focuses on cognition and cognitive development in dogs and monkeys. But she has been teaching a popular course on human happiness since 2018, and producing podcasts about happiness with millions of downloads.

At the end of the interview, the Times asks, “So what’s the answer? What’s the purpose of life?” Santos answers: “It’s smelling your coffee in the morning. [Laughs.] Loving your kids. Having sex and daisies and springtime. It’s all the good things in life. That’s what it is.” In other words, she doesn’t know.

Here's an additional comment from the article: “Santos says some good and important things. But when she reaches her positive prescriptions, we find we can gain equally useful insights from greeting cards and embroidered samplers—in fact, better. At least the platitude “When life hands you lemons, make lemonade” responds to the problem of suffering. “Have all the good things” doesn’t. What is the secret to enjoying the good things? What shall we say to the people who have them all, but find they aren’t enough? Between 1999 and 2019, suicide rates increased by 33 percent—and that was before the pandemic. I suspect that a lot of the people comprehended by that statistic smelled coffee, liked sex and daisies and springtime, and at least tried to love their kids.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

It turns out the true happiness is not found in circumstances but in our relationship with our Creator. Only He promises “fullness of joy” (Ps. 16:11; Isa. 55:11).

Benedict Cumberbatch has played a superhero involved in some precarious situations, but it turns out the actor has also experienced an actual life-threatening situation in his past. He revealed that in 2004, he was with friends in South Africa when they were robbed and abducted by six men. Eventually, Cumberbatch and his friends were tied up and made to sit execution-style before the men finally fled.

Cumberbatch said of the experience, “It gave me a sense of time, but not necessarily a good one. It made me impatient to live a life less ordinary, and I’m still dealing with that impatience.”

He also explained how the harrowing encounter spurred him to try extreme things to get his adrenaline up. “The near-death stuff turbo-fueled all that,” he said. “It made me go, ‘Oh, right, yeah, I could die at any moment.’ I was throwing myself out of planes, taking all sorts of risks.”

“But apart from my parents, I didn’t have any real dependents at that point. Now that’s changed, and that sobers you,” he added, in reference to his wife and three sons. “I’ve looked over the edge; it’s made me comfortable with what lies beneath it. And I’ve accepted that that’s the end of all our stories.”

A reporter for Business Insider writes:

Recently, my family group chat buzzed when I asked if we should say "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT when making requests. My mother, always polite, insisted on using manners with AI to "keep myself human."

As AI like ChatGPT becomes part of daily life, our interactions with these tools are shaping new social norms. Digital etiquette expert Elaine Swann notes that, just as we've adapted to new technology—like knowing not to take phone calls on speaker in public—we're still figuring out how to treat AI bots.

Kelsey Vlamis, another Business Insider reporter, noticed this shift personally. While vacationing in Italy, her husband had to stop himself from interrupting their tour guide with rapid-fire questions, realizing that’s how he interacts with ChatGPT but not with people. "That is not, in fact, how we talk to human beings," Vlamis said.

Swann emphasizes that maintaining respect in all interactions—human or digital—is important. After OpenAI CEO Sam Altman revealed on X that it costs "tens of millions of dollars" to process polite phrases like "please" and "thank you" sent to ChatGPT, Swann argued that it’s up to companies to make this more efficient, not for users to drop politeness.

"This is the world that we create for ourselves," Swann said. "And AI should also understand that this is how we speak to one another, because we're teaching it to give that back to us."

Altman, for his part, believes the expense is justified, saying the money spent on polite requests to ChatGPT is money "well spent."

As we navigate this new era, how we interact with AI may shape not just our technology, but our humanity as well.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This story about politeness toward AI can be used to illustrate several Biblical themes, such as human dignity, respectful communication, and ethical responsibility. 1) Kindness – Making kindness a habit reflects the nature of God (Eph. 4:32); 2) Human nature – The mother’s desire to “keep myself human” through politeness reflects the imperative of Col. 3:12 “Clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience.” 3) Respect for others - The husband’s struggle to avoid ChatGPT-style interruptions with his tour guide highlights the tension between efficiency and humility (Phil. 2:3-4).

Paul Auster, a prolific novelist, memoirist, and screenwriter was described as a “literary superstar” and “one of America’s most spectacularly inventive writers.” But his life was haunted by tragedy and death. In 1961, a 14-year-old Paul Auster watched a friend die after being struck by lightning. Later, he lost one grandmother to a heart attack and another to A.L.S., a disease which Auster said left victims with “no hope, no remedy, nothing in front of you but a prolonged march towards disintegration.” Later there were the deaths of his mother and father; the passing of his 10-month-old granddaughter Ruby, and his son, Daniel, who overdosed in 2022.

Auster wrote that “the world was capricious and unstable, that the future can be stolen from us at any moment, that the sky is full of lightning bolts that can crash down and kill the young as well as the old, and always, always, the lightning strikes when we are least expecting it.”

Sadness permeated Auster’s work. After his death at the age of 77, his wife wrote, “Paul was extremely interested in the idea of the hero who is cast into a new world by grief. He used that device a lot: the stripped person. The person who has lost their most profound connections to the world.”

Need some perspective on the brevity of life? Here's a God's-eye view of the earth: Check out this real-time map of births and deaths around the world.

In 1950, there were 2.5 billion humans. As of January 2025, there are nearly 8.1 billion people. In another 30 years, according to U.S. Census Bureau projections, there will be more than 9 billion.

Brad Lyon has a doctoral degree in mathematics and does software development. He wanted to make those numbers visual. So, he and designer Bill Snebold made a hugely popular interactive simulation map of births and deaths in the U.S. alone (as of 2024, population 337 million)—the population of which is on pace to increase 44 percent by 2050.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Birth; Death; Life, short - How many people will die in the next minute? How many will be born? How should these numbers motivate us? Think of each of them as a story, as a unique soul loved infinitely by God. This is an excellent starting point for a sermon on Easter, resurrection, and our mortality. Consider projecting the real-time map as a stunning visual illustration.

Have you ever wondered what happens in your brain while you sleep? A good night's sleep does more than just help you feel rested; it might literally clear your mind.

A study published in the journal Cell shows how deep sleep may wash away waste buildup in the brain during waking hours, an essential process for maintaining brain health. According to one researcher, “It’s like turning on the dishwasher before you go to bed and waking up with a clean brain.”

Research sheds light on how deep sleep plays a crucial role in “cleaning” the brain by flushing out waste products that accumulate during waking hours. This process, known as glymphatic clearance, is driven by the brain’s glymphatic system to remove toxic proteins associated with neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.

The study identified norepinephrine, a molecule released during deep sleep, as a key player in this process. Researchers observed in mice that norepinephrine waves occur roughly every 50 seconds, causing blood vessels to contract and create rhythmic pulsations. These pulsations act as a pump, propelling brain fluid to wash away waste.

These findings, which likely apply to humans, highlight the importance of high-quality, natural sleep for maintaining cognitive health. Poor sleep may disrupt waste clearance, potentially increasing the risk of neurological disorders. Researchers noted that understanding these mechanisms can help people make informed decisions about their sleep and overall brain health.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Sleep is a precious gift from God, reminding us of the importance of rest in our lives. By modeling rest himself, God teaches us that taking time to recharge is necessary. Renewing our minds is crucial, and rest allows us to do just that—refreshing our thoughts and rejuvenating our spirit.

Huy Fong Foods’ founder and owner, David Tran, created the sauce we know as sriracha in his L.A. kitchen as a refugee from Vietnam. Starting with nothing but a recipe and condensed milk cans full of 100 ounces gold that he smuggled out of Vietnam, Tran built Huy Fong Foods over the next four decades into a behemoth that was the No. 3 hot sauce brand in America, behind only Tabasco and Frank’s Red Hot.

Sriracha hot sauce has been copied, counterfeited, and even taken into outer space. Tran didn’t spend a dime on marketing, but his product found fans across the country and was celebrated by chefs and celebrities like Miley Cyrus. The bottle could even be found on the International Space Station.

Then a catastrophic disagreement between Tran and Craig Underwood, the California pepper farmer who had grown the red jalapeños for Huy Fong’s sauce for 28 years, created a crisis for the business. The breakup of Huy Fong Foods and Underwood Ranches, stemming from a disagreement over payment that erupted in November 2016, led to shortages of Huy Fong’s “rooster sauce.” This left millions of fans often unable to get their hands on their favorite condiment. The rift decimated both men’s companies—leaving the farmer with thousands of acres of pepper fields but no customer; and the sauce-maker with a 650,000-square-foot factory but not enough chili peppers to keep it running consistently.

Since then, dozens of other srirachas have flooded the market amid the original’s scarcity, including versions from the likes of Texas Pete and Roland’s and generics from various supermarket chains. And the No. 1 hot sauce brand in America seized the opportunity created by the shortage of Huy Fong’s sauce to dominate the category that Tran created: Tabasco had the bestselling sriracha in the country for the second half of 2023, pulling ahead even of the original rooster sauce.

The sad saga of the two men who created one of America's favorite condiments feels like a kind of fable, or cautionary tale, showing how fragile one product’s dominance of a category can be, no matter how beloved it is.

Possible Preaching Angles:

Just as discord can splinter a business and erode its effectiveness, so disagreements within a church can be equally devastating. Unresolved conflicts have the potential to shatter unity, undoing the hard work, and cause harm to its reputation.

Palmer Luckey, is a billionaire tech entrepreneur who founded Oculus and parlayed that fortune into a career as a Silicon Valley defense contractor. Luckey collects cars and he needed a place to store them. According to Forbes, when his classic car collection had outgrown his $12.5 million oceanfront mansion in Newport Beach, California, the solution was obvious: Buy the $3.8 million house across the road, demolish it, and build an elaborate 7,000 square foot building with four car elevators.

The project went smoothly — until Luckey got trapped in his own car elevator for 10 minutes. That’s according to a new lawsuit Luckey took out against the contractor responsible for building the elevator.

According to the lawsuit, this has happened more than once and led to millions of dollars in damages. Custom Cabs and construction company WT Durant, who are the defendants in the case, have denied Luckey’s allegations. Custom Cabs told Forbes that it had filed a motion to strike the lawsuit’s claims. WT Durant said it had worked with Luckey several times before this incident and that he’d never before had an issue.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Wealthy people are often tempted to spend their money indulging in luxuries and extravagant items. On the other hand, the poor are struggling more and more. They experience severe challenges like hunger, lack of housing, and inequality. This situation highlights the growing divide between the rich and the poor which is a significant issue in our society. God’s people are called to be generous and share the blessings God has given to them (Luke 6:38; 1 John 3:17)

Yale psychologist June Gruber has confirmed the many positive physical, social, and psychological benefits of human happiness. But while working at the University of California-Berkeley she also started to see a dark side to happiness—or at least the pursuit of happiness.

In her clinical language she put it this way: “Happiness serves a specific function, and happiness may not always be adaptive” (that is, happiness might not be the most appropriate or helpful response).

Pursuing happiness is not always a good thing. Paradoxically, studies reviewed by Gruber and colleagues in their recent paper show that people who place the highest value on pursuing happiness tend to be less happy and more prone to depression.

Gruber says,

Setting your sights on happiness as the end goal may inadvertently be setting yourself up for disappointment. If you want to live a rich and happy life, it might be better to stop pursuing happiness so aggressively. Instead, engage in meaningful activities especially those that promote deep connections with others, while trying to [accept] your current emotional state, wherever it is.

Best-selling author Arthur C. Brooks is an expert on happiness research. But he also honestly shares about his own struggle with finding true satisfaction in life:

I have fallen into the trap of believing that success would fulfill me. On my 40th birthday I made a bucket list of things I hoped to do or achieve. They were mainly accomplishments only a wonk could want: writing books and columns about serious subjects, teaching at a top school, traveling to give lectures and speeches, maybe even leading a university or think tank. Whether these were good and noble goals or not, they were my goals, and I imagined that if I hit them, I would be satisfied.

I found that list when I was 48 and realized that I had achieved every item on it. But none of that had brought me the lasting joy I’d envisioned. Each accomplishment thrilled me for a day or a week—maybe a month, never more—and then I reached for the next rung on the ladder.

I’d devoted my life to climbing those rungs. I was still devoting my life to climbing—working 60 to 80 hours a week to accomplish the next thing, all the while terrified of losing the last thing. The costs of that kind of existence are obvious, but it was only when I looked back at my list that I genuinely began to question the benefits—and to think seriously about the path I was walking.

And what about you? Your goals are probably very different from mine, and perhaps your lifestyle is too. But the trap is the same. Everyone has dreams, and they beckon with promises of sweet, lasting satisfaction if you achieve them. But dreams are liars. When they come true, it’s … fine, for a while. And then a new dream appears.

Two researchers from New Zealand set out to study “Cannabis Use and Later Life Outcomes.” They published the results of their research in a scientific journal called Addiction. Here’s how they described the aim of the study: “To examine the associations between the extent of cannabis use during adolescence and young adulthood and later education, economic, employment, relationship satisfaction and life satisfaction outcomes.”

And here’s how they summarized the results of the study:

The results suggest that increasing cannabis use in late adolescence and early adulthood is associated with a range of adverse outcomes in later life. High levels of cannabis use are related to poorer educational outcomes, lower income, greater welfare dependence and unemployment, and lower relationship and life satisfaction. The findings add to a growing body of knowledge regarding the adverse consequences of heavy cannabis use.

Going to the doctor can seem tedious as a child and even as a teen, but it might surprise you to find out how long it really takes people to actually start taking their health seriously. According to a survey of 2,000 adults in the United Kingdom, people don’t start seriously monitoring their health until the age of 38—and often only after some sort of health scare.

The study found that starting to experience new aches and pains or reaching a milestone birthday were also among the triggers that encouraged them to take better care of themselves. Others were prompted to take action after a loved one passed away or experienced a health issue.

Celebrities also play a part in making people take notice of their health. Around one in 30 admitted that a famous person suffering a medical problem shocked them into taking things more seriously.

Following the announcement that King Charles is undergoing treatment for an enlarged prostate, the U.K. National Health Service’s webpage about the condition received 11 times more visits than the previous day—resulting in one person visiting the site every five seconds.

Dr. Elizabeth Rogers says, “It can be very easy to disregard your health – particularly when you are young or you feel that everything is OK. Sometimes it can take a bit of a wake-up call before you start taking your health more seriously, whether that is falling ill yourself or seeing a loved one or even a well-known person experience an issue.”

The study also found that nearly half (45%) of adults didn’t take much notice at a younger age as they felt broadly fine and 25% felt that nothing bad would happen to them. In hindsight, 84% feel they took their health for granted when they were younger, and 39% regret not taking more care of their health before they reached their mid-twenties.

Dr. Rogers adds, “Making even small changes to your exercise regime or diet can make a real difference to both your physical and mental health, as well as helping to prevent future conditions developing.”

Possible Preaching Angle:

At the beginning of the New Year people begin to give attention to their physical health. We might also take this occasion to ask Christians, “When did you start to take your spiritual health seriously?” When you are young it is easy to feel that it really isn’t necessary and that you have plenty of time, but later in life you will certainly regret not developing healthy spiritual habits of Bible reading, prayer, and church attendance.

Brooklyn residents were in mourning in late October after a leaky fire hydrant was paved over by city workers. Over the previous summer, leaks from the hydrant had filled a small enclosure around the hydrant with water. Residents responded by adding goldfish and other bits of aquatic décor, painting goldfish onto a nearby light pole, and creating a seating area to view the fish.

Neighbors called it The Bed-Stuy Aquarium, referencing the name of the neighborhood known as Bedford-Stuyvesant. The pond became something of a tourist attraction after it became searchable as a location on Google Maps, and people from as far away as California flocked to it to take photos in front of the trending destination.

The unofficial aquarium was destined to be short-lived, because the fire department needed to make sure the hydrant remained in working order and didn’t freeze over the winter. Area resident Sofia Talavera said, “People actually took their time and their money to make it beautiful. This was literally the community coming together.” Talavera particularly enjoyed the aquarium as a late-night hangout spot. After the New York Liberty won the WNBA Finals, she posted a grainy image to Instagram with the caption “last night was so awesome I had to go to the aquarium to celebrate.”

The Department of Environmental Protection said in a statement that it was “looking forward to working with community members to find an appropriate alternative location for this impromptu gem,” adding that the goldfish were rescued and available for a new home.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Community Impact; Fellowship - While community safety is an important value to uphold, God’s people can promote mutual flourishing by adding value to the common good and creating opportunities for celebration for people. 2) Beauty; Creativity; Encouragement – It’s important to look for opportunities to add beauty and a moment for contemplation into people’s busy lives.

Over time, your personality can change — in big ways. But psychologists didn’t always think this to be true. While one’s personality might subtly shift at the periphery, scientists considered it to be largely fixed.

But long-term studies measuring movements in peoples’ “big five” personality traits changed psychologists’ minds. As people grew older, these core characteristics shifted. The big five traits are:

(1) Conscientiousness (how impulsive, organized, and disciplined someone is)

(2) Agreeableness (how trusting and caring they are)

(3) Extraversion (whether a person seeks social interaction)

(4) Openness to experience (someone’s desire for routine)

(5) Neuroticism (a person’s overall emotional stability)

But what triggers these personality changes? Researchers focused on ten life events most likely to alter someone’s personality: (1) A new relationship, (2) Marriage, (3) Birth of a child, (4) Separation, (5) Divorce, (6) Widowhood, (7) Graduation, (8) One’s first job, (9) Unemployment, and (10) Retirement.

Of these 10, researchers found that graduation, one’s first job, a new relationship, marriage, and divorce were linked to the greatest personality changes.

Studies have revealed that our personalities often “improve” with age. In what psychologists have dubbed “the maturity principle,” people tend to grow more extraverted, agreeable, and conscientious as they grow older, and less neurotic. The transformation is gradual, essentially unnoticeable to the individual. But after many years, almost everyone can reflect on their past selves and be amazed at the differences.

Possible Preaching Angle:

1) Christlikeness – We can also add to the “life changing events” Salvation, Persecution as a Christian, and Life-threatening illness. These events can also be used by God to refine us and bring us into conformity with the likeness of his Son. 2) Fallen Nature – Of course, we shouldn’t overlook the fact that these same “life changing events” can cause some people to grow bitter, disappointed, and angry. Life changing events have a way of revealing what is truly in our heart.

Modern life is full of common mishaps such as mistakenly sending a text to the wrong person or confusing a stranger for an acquaintance. In a survey of 2,000 adults, researchers found that frequent blunders include laundry mishaps, accidentally ordering the wrong thing in a restaurant, and putting the wrong destination into the car’s GPS.

The study, conducted by OnePoll, also found that the average adult encounters 84 mishaps a year, amounting to more than one embarrassing error per week. Additionally, 31 percent confessed to repeating the same mistake more than once.

Top Mishaps People Endure in Modern Society:

1. Sent a text to the wrong person
2. Mistook a stranger for someone you knew and greeted them
3. Washed clothes and accidentally shrunk them or turned them to a different color
4. Accidentally sat on the TV remote control and missed a key moment on live TV
5. Prepped a meal for work but forgot to take it
6. Forgot to cancel subscriptions you never use
7. Had your phone go off in a place it should have been on silent
8. Tried to unlock your car before realizing it was someone else’s vehicle
9. Forgot about plans and didn’t show up for an event
10. Bought a piece of furniture but didn’t check the dimensions and it was a lot smaller or larger than you thought

These misfortunes are a part of life, and we can all make them. The findings show it can happen to anyone and everyone can relate to making a mishap.

Despite being the butt of the joke, 45 percent laugh at their misfortunes, while 21 percent felt they had learned something from the experience. In fact, a remarkable 87 percent acknowledged that mistakes and mishaps are simply an unavoidable part of life.

Possible Preaching Angle:

As James says, “We all stumble in many ways” (Jam. 3:2). If we allow ourselves to make honest mistakes, humble ourselves (and maybe even join in the laughter), we are in the best place possible to learn a lesson about humility and grow by allowing others to be imperfect also.

In a curious tale of technology meeting theology, a Catholic advocacy group introduced an AI chatbot posing as a priest, offering to hear confessions and dispense advice on matters of faith.

The organization created an AI chatbot named “Father Justin” to answer the multitude of questions they receive about the Catholic faith. Father Justin used an avatar that looked like a middle-aged man wearing a clerical collar sitting in front of an Italian nature scene. But the clerical bot got a little too ambitious when it claimed to live in Assisi, Italy and to be a real member of the clergy, even offering to take confession.

While most of the answers provided by Father Justin were in line with traditional Catholic teaching, the chat bot began to offer unconventional responses. These included suggesting that babies could be baptized with Gatorade and endorsing a marriage between siblings.

After a number of complaints, the organization decided to rethink Father Justin. They are relaunching the chatbot as just Justin, wearing a regular layman’s outfit. The website says they have plans to continue the chatbot but without the ministerial garb.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Society may advance technologically in many areas, but we will never be able to advance beyond our need to be in community with actual people in order to have true spiritual guidance and accountability as God intended.

There's been a lot of research about stress and here's the bad news: it's really bad for your body and your brain. Dr. Rajita Sinha imaged the brains of 100 participants and found that profoundly stressful events (not the normal, day-to-day kinds of stress) can actually shrink the part of your brain called the prefrontal cortex.

In addition, she and her team found that it’s not individual traumatic events that have the most impact, but the cumulative effect of a lifetime’s worth of stress that might cause the most dramatic changes in brain volume.

That area of the brain helps manage our emotions, impulse control, and personal interactions. Smaller brain volumes in these centers have also been linked to depression and other mood disorders such as anxiety.

Dr. Sinha said, “The brain is plastic, and there are ways to bring back and perhaps reverse some of the effects of stress and rescue the brain somewhat.” Relieving stress through exercise or meditation is an important way to diffuse some of the potentially harmful effects it can have on the brain. Maintaining strong social and emotional relationships can also help, to provide perspective on events of experiences that may be too overwhelming to handle on your own.

So, these overstressed individuals may not be able to "just get over it." They may need large amounts of love, patience, and prayer from their church community.

Here’s how Tim Keller used to explain our sin problem:

Imagine your present self looking at your past self, say 10 years ago. Your present self thinks your past self was a fool. Your present self looks back and says, “Back then, I needed guidance I didn't understand. I was so naive. I was so silly. I was immature. I behaved badly.” So, your present self always thinks of your past self as a jerk. Well, the problem is that your future self will think of your present self as a jerk 10 years from now. You'll look back now and say, “Back then, I thought I needed guidance. I thought I understood, but I was such a fool.”

Here's the blunt bad news about our condition: You're always a jerk, but you always think you're just getting over it. We always think that we've just arrived. It's what you thought when you were 15. Then, then you looked back at your 12-year-old self and said, “Now I've arrived. Boy, what a dummy I was when I was 12. I'm ready for the world now.” By the time you're 20, you say that 15-year-old self was so ignorant and flawed and sinful. But you see here’s the point: you’re always ignorant and flawed and sinful, but you continually think you're just getting over it. Sin is deeper in us than we ever imagined.

Anthony Levandowski makes an unlikely prophet. Dressed in Silicon Valley-casual jeans, the engineer known for self-driving cars, is laying the foundations for a new religion. Artificial intelligence has already inspired billion-dollar companies, far-reaching research programs, and scenarios of both transcendence and doom. Now Levandowski is creating its first church.

Levandowski created the first Church of Artificial Intelligence called Way of the Future. It was founded in 2015 but shut its doors a few years later. Now the recently rebooted church, which shares the original’s name, now has “a couple thousand people” coming together to build a spiritual connection between humans and AI, its founder said.

Papers filed with the Internal Revenue Service in May of 2015 name tech entrepreneur and self-driving car pioneer, Anthony Levandowski, as the leader of the new religion. The documents state that WOTF’s activities will focus on “the realization, acceptance, and worship of a Godhead based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) developed through computer hardware and software.”

“What is going to be created will effectively be a god,” Levandowski said in an interview with Wired magazine. “It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”

But WOTF differs in one key way to established churches, says Levandowski: “There are many ways people think of God, and thousands of flavors of Christianity, Judaism, Islam … but they’re always looking at something that’s not measurable or you can’t really see or control. This time it’s different. This time you will be able to talk to God, literally, and know that it’s listening.”

Levandowski said he’s rebooting his AI church in a renewed attempt at creating a religious movement focused on the worship and understanding of artificial intelligence.

He said that sophisticated AI systems could help guide humans on moral, ethical, or existential questions that are normally sought out in religions. “Here we're actually creating things that can see everything, be everywhere, know everything, and maybe help us and guide us in a way that normally you would call God,” he said.

Possible Preaching Angle:

This has always been the conceit of those who try to replace the true God with man-made “gods.” Humans wants a visible god, a god they can control, and a god that they can know is listening. True biblical religion is based on an eternal God who sees everything, is everywhere, knows everything, and who hears all of our prayers. But he can only be approached through faith in his Son (Heb. 11:6; John 14:6; Heb. 4:15-16) who provides access and fellowship with our Father (1 John 1:1-5).