When Is AI Going to Replace Me?

I opened the file and hit play. I didn’t expect much.

My cousin has always been at the forefront of new technology, but what he sends me is usually more funny than helpful. This was different. He fed a talk I gave at a church into an Artificial Intelligence voice generator and prompted it to create a podcast conversation analyzing what I had said.

It wasn’t funny—it was scary good.

Up to this point, the threat of AI had not hit me yet. I’ve listened to the commentary and read the articles, but mostly laughed at the wonky videos and images it could create. But as I listened to this fake conversation, I was overwhelmed with dread.

This was good. Too good. I thought, “Will I be necessary in five years?”

For the first time, my humanity felt under attack. God has called me to tell people about Jesus and inspire others to do the same. I do this by speaking, writing, podcasting, and creating art. Beyond their utility, I do these things because of how God made me.

He is the ultimate creator and spoke all of life into being, including you and me. Part of our divine inheritance is the ability and desire to create.

The existential threat AI poses to artists, writers, and content creators is obvious, but all of us should be worried. AI’s far-reaching scope and impact are much greater than most people know, and we are just getting started.

What is being exposed to us at a consumer level is mere child’s play compared to what already exists. Being impressed with current AI will be the equivalent of 1970s geeks gawking at two pixelated dots pinging across a black screen. Pong anyone?

Artificial Intelligence cannot generate novelty. To date, it draws on preexisting data and re-arranges it to produce something that appears new. To some, this is comforting. They say it will prevent us from being replaced. Even if this were true, for now, I still feel overwhelmed by the sense that what AI can produce is a legitimate threat to my very existence.

I don’t envision a dystopian, Terminator 2-like future just around the corner—though it may be. It’s more of a gradual stripping away—a world in which we no longer love, connect, or create.

Perhaps the most tragic paradox is that the grandest of human achievements are increasingly making us less human.

As this technology progresses, more jobs will be lost, more art will be replaced, and soon, no one will be unaffected.

The question, “What does it mean to be human?” will become more critical than ever. In the void created by secularism, followers of Jesus need to emerge boldly. After all, what can a secular person do but throw up their hands and accept that AI replacing humanity is simply the next phase of evolution?

Christians, on the other hand, can reject this claim. We know who we are and why we are here. This gives us the foundation to fight the threat of AI that isn’t just coming but is already here.