I ran across this piece at Mere Orthodoxy today. As far as “AI Coming” for transmission of information, I’m sure he’s right. He’s also right that there needs to be more to pastoral education than transmission of information. But our current reduction of education – any kind of education – to transmission of information – is a deep mistake. Information is not separable from the people, the embodied voices that bear it.

If ordinary American Christians know anything about Phillips Brooks today, they know him as the author of the words to the Christmas hymn O Little Town of Bethlehem.

In my very first preaching class, taught by Dr. Don Demaray, I learned of Brooks’ claim that preaching is “truth through personality.” That claim has stuck with me ever since. The truth we deal with as preachers is a not abstract, mere information. It is a truth embodied in the preachers and teachers called and equipped by God through the ages.

You may have noticed that I snuck in the word “teachers” there. I’m taking the claim beyond Phillips Brooks’ maxim. My first formal teaching experience (I’m not counting teaching children’s Sunday school – though I could!) was as an adjunct at Azusa Pacific University. Over the years I’ve taught both in person and online. Some of the classes I’ve taught dealt with matters Brooks would have considered “truth;” but others haven’t. In each and every case, however, my teaching, like my preaching, has been in the context of a personal relationship. The content – the “truth” – matters to me. Producing understanding and uptake in my students matters just as much. I care what my students – me people – learn and that they learn. It’s never been just a job for me.

I use AI. AI is useful, we can use it for many things. I’m sure we can even have these Large Language Models that can “converse” with learners in such a way that the learners come away with increased knowledge.

Will learners be able to see what the truth looks like in the life of the AI teacher? AI is not alive – it doesn’t have a life, so no, that won’t happen. Will AI care about student learning – about uptake of the content? I have no experience of AI caring about anything. It may be a faithful servant, but it doesn’t care about anything.

Delivering information via AI surely looks to be cheaper than by using humans. I’m not convinced that going that direction is overvaluing cheapness at the cost of living interaction with and appropriation of truth.