The Fall

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.

Harvard geneticist David Sinclair’s business pitch has remained largely the same: Aging can be slowed or reversed, and we are about to figure out how.

“A lot of my colleagues dislike that phrase, the reversibility of aging,” he told a roomful of longevity investors. “But I truly believe that, based on my lab’s research and now others, that aging can be reversed. If I can make one medicine that would change people’s lives, I’d be very happy.” Sinclair also has co-founded companies that sell directly to consumers products such as supplements and tests that purport to show one’s “biological age.” He has also helped raise more than $1 billion.

But according to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the investors have almost nothing to show for it. Four companies trying to develop longevity drugs have gone bankrupt or largely halted operations. Another four either haven’t yet tested their drugs or gene therapies in humans or have run only small-scale trials that make it difficult to know whether a drug will work.

Sinclair has drawn criticism from fellow scientists, who say he exaggerates the findings and implications of age-related research. The board of the Academy for Health and Lifespan Research, a group Sinclair co-founded and led, asked him to resign as president earlier this year after he was quoted as saying a dog chew sold by a company he co-founded reversed aging in dogs.

Possible Preaching Angles:

It looks like we’re still living in the reality of the Fall, that human beings will age, grow old, and eventually die. We are still mortal!

Stephen Steele writes about sculptor Gillian Genser who was experiencing headaches, vomiting, hearing loss, confusion, and suicidal thoughts. For years, doctors were baffled by what was afflicting her. They asked if she was working with anything toxic, and she assured them she wasn’t. She told them that she only worked with natural materials. They prescribed antipsychotics and antidepressants, but nothing seemed to help.

Finally, she saw a specialist who tested her blood for heavy metals and found high levels of arsenic and lead in her system. She was shocked, but still confused—how had she ingested those dangerous compounds? Finally, she talked to one doctor who was horrified to hear that she had been grinding up mussel shells for the past fifteen years to use in her sculpture. She had no idea that mussels can accumulate toxins over years of feeding in polluted waters.

The most fascinating thing about the story is who the sculpture was meant to be. It was Adam, the first man. Genser recognized the irony herself. She said: “It’s very interesting and ironic that Adam, as the first man, was so toxic. He poisoned me. Doesn’t that make sense?”

Steele comments,

And it makes perfect sense, because that is what Adam, the first man, did to all of us. He poisoned us. He rebelled against God – and we are contaminated by that rebellion. The message of the Bible, however, is that a second Adam – Jesus Christ – has come to cleanse us from this in-built corruption, as well as the other poisonous thoughts, words, and deeds we add to it during our lives. It doesn’t mean those who trust him will be perfect. Like Gesner, we will suffer the effects of Adam’s poison for the rest of our lives – but it will no longer define us forever.

Author Sinclair Ferguson provides a helpful illustration to explain how theology works:

There is a program on BBC television I enjoy. It is called The Regular Shop. Ordinary people bring their damaged, decayed, distorted, and well-nigh destroyed heirlooms for repair. They often tell profoundly moving stories--of why the article (which may be of little value in itself) is so important to them because of its connection to a loved one.

We then watch the extraordinary skills of craftsmen and women. Experts in woodwork and metalwork, mechanical work, furniture work, and musical instruments, working what seems to be magic. Whereas people like me patch up and hope for the best, they first deconstruct and only then reconstruct and restore the long-lost glory to the precious objects.

Then the wonderful (unveiling): we witness the various owners overwhelming gratitude, their praise, and often their joy as they are moved to tears as the restored object is revealed in all its furnished glory--usually from underneath a very ordinary blanket (how suggestive of a greater restoration).

Theology is the gospel repair shop. Its various topics (God, creation, fall, providence, redemption, glorification) are, as it were, so many departments of experts that first deconstruct our personal damage and then reconstruct us until the original vision in our creation is realized.

An elderly woman was scavenging for copper to sell as scrap when she accidentally sliced through an underground cable and cut off internet services to the whole of Armenia, large parts of Georgia, and Azerbaijan. The woman had been digging for the metal when her spade damaged the fiberoptic cable. As Georgia provides 90% of Armenia's internet, the woman's unwitting sabotage had catastrophic consequences. Web users in the nation of 3.2 million people were left twiddling their thumbs for five hours as the country's main internet providers were prevented from supplying their normal service.

A spokesman for Georgia's interior ministry said, “It was a 75-year-old woman who was digging for copper in the ground so that she could sell it for scrap.” Called "the spade-hacker" by local media, the woman--who has not been named-- is being investigated on suspicion of damaging property. The woman was temporarily released "on account of her old age" but could face more questioning.

Possible Preaching Angle:

Did Adam & Eve understand the implications of their choice in Eden? Of course not. Nevertheless, their choice changed human history. Our personal sins always have consequences that can affect others.

When man fell in the Garden of Eden, he took nature down with him. In spite of this some of nature has retained its former glory, and many have seen God’s hand: “How many poets have claimed to observe him in a vermillion sunset or a blooming rose, in a bird’s song or a ripple on the surface of a stream?”

The famous American naturalist John Muir wrote in 1839 hiking in the Sierra Nevada mountains: “Another inspiring morning, nothing better in any world can be conceived. No description of Heaven that I have ever heard or read of seems half so fine.”

In 1903 President Theodore Roosevelt visiting Yosemite wrote: “The majestic trunks, beautiful in color and in symmetry, rose round us like the pillars of a mightier cathedral than ever was conceived even by the fervor of the Middle Ages.”

On the other hand, the fall and savagery of nature is all too apparent, as some observers have written, nature is also “full of danger and malice, chaos and murder, uncertainty and terror … We have to become humble in front of this overwhelming misery, overwhelming growth, and overwhelming lack of order. ... Masked beneath the beauty of nature’s world is one simple and ugly truth: life must take life in the interest of life itself …”

“Auto-brewery syndrome” sounds like a drive-through for alcoholics, but for a small, underdiagnosed portion of the general population, it’s just as dangerous. Not only can it expose you to significant health risks, but those who have it are often accused of being lazy, undisciplined, or flat-out lying. Auto-brewery syndrome is a medical condition where certain fungi in the digestive system begin converting carbohydrates into alcohol, causing a person to inadvertently intoxicate themselves.

A 46-year-old man was arrested for driving under the influence. Even though he swore he never had any alcohol, his blood-alcohol-content was over twice the legal limit for driving a vehicle. The man ended up participating in a medical research study at Richmond University Medical Center in New York.

Nick Hess faced a similar predicament. He says his auto-brewery syndrome means he’s constantly vacillating between feeling drunk and hung over. When he started showing symptoms, his wife didn’t believe that he hadn’t been drinking, so she started recording security footage of him while she was gone for the day. She was surprised to find out that all he was doing was playing video games. Hess said, “She would watch me wake up and sit on that couch from the moment I woke up to the moment I went to sleep and progressively get more and more drunk.”

Medical researcher Barbara Cordell wrote a book called My Gut Makes Alcohol. While it’s not a common problem, Cordell thinks it’s still underdiagnosed in the general public. If anyone suspects they might have auto-brewery syndrome, she says they should have their blood alcohol levels tested, and seek treatment for alcohol poisoning, as levels can reach up to five times the legal limit.

Possible Preaching Angle: Our bodies are currently suffering from the consequences of the Fall and can betray us. We are eagerly waiting for the transformation of our bodies and the redemption of all things (Rom. 8:23, Phil. 3:21).

The fact that Scripture speaks of our present unlikeness to God does not mean that Holy Writ maintains the likeness has been destroyed, but that something different has been drawn over it, concealing it. Obviously, the soul has not been cast off her original form, but has put on a new one foreign to her. The latter has been added, but the former is not lost, and although that which has been superinduced has managed to obscure the natural form, it has not been able to destroy it.

"Their foolish heart was darkened," said St. Paul, and the Prophet cried: "How is the gold become obscured and the finest color changed?" He laments that the gold has lost its brightness, and that the finest color has been obscured: but the gold is still gold, and the original base of color has not been wiped out. And so the simplicity of the soul remains truly impaired in its essence, but that is no longer able to be seen now that it is covered over by the duplicity of man's deceit, simulation, and hypocrisy.