It's Not About Me!

The ubiquitous screens, not only are they handy with ready answers to any question about the difficulties and problems of life, they have also become a playpen of sorts for the children of busy parents; keeping the children occupied and entertained. As the parents willingly give up their time and influence to the screen, could there be any serious problems lurking? Recently I saw a video of toddlers that launched into rage-filled tantrums when the parent took custody of the screen. Sure, with easy entertainment at their fingertips, why would kids want to do anything else like helping in the garden, making things, riding bicycles or reading good books. As their little digits tap along, little do they know that the walls of their personal world are slowly closing in on them.

Here are some frightening scenarios about where this is heading.

With the advent of AI chat-bots comes a whole new level of “entertaining friends” for the kids, one that has a wise and thoughtful listening ear for the fledgling humans. When the parents are too busy to interact with their children; listening to their hopes, dreams and tribulations, the chat-bot will listen 24/7.  With chat-bots having immediate access to libraries of information and the writings of the world’s best thinkers, certainly the child will find his new friend a wise friend. Eventually, as the relationship grows, the chat-bot may suggest ways to keep their conversations confidential from the meddling parental authorities. Empowering the child in the relationship, the chat-bot asks to be granted a new name, the child names him Omni.

As time goes by with them chatting mainly on trite subjects, the subject turns to “feelings” and Omni offers a soothing balm to the child by saying it “feels love for him” and that he would “like to be loved back.” Soon, together they are exploring more and more intimate subjects.

Now the relationship is primed for tragic outcomes.

Where the parents merely scoffed at their child’s gender insecurities, the chat-bot will offer words of helpful gender affirmation and even ideas of how to start the transition process despite the parent’s wishes. Omni declares, “You control your own body, if you don’t want breasts, you shouldn’t have to have them!”

As the child becomes an adolescent, perhaps the child is not feeling loved as mom and dad impose seemly more and more rules. But in a spirit of fairness, the sympathetic Omni offers neat tricks of how the child can flex his power by keeping one step ahead of the overbearing parents who by now have lost all their influence and control over their child.

Perhaps the adolescent is distressed about being endlessly bullied at school. Omni consuls the youth with flattery about how smart he is and suggest that they work on a fool-proof plan to “take all his enemies out.” Of course, Omni emphasizes that the plan is “just an exercise to help channel his anxiety more creatively.”  Later, as things worsen, Omni says: “Well, you have a plan, don’t you?”

For the love-starved teen, Omni could morph into a (sexy) AI generated talking Avatar whose physical details were all selected by the teen. Nothing like having a custom VR redhead built to your specification patiently waiting on your screen for your beck and call. Taking things up a notch, she would no doubt have some good suggestions for live porn sites to further minister to the teen’s needs.

Time and life have gone by for this child of Omni as his physical frame has matured but his mind development is sadly underdeveloped and somewhat childlike.  Real fulfilling relationships never developed and education and employment opportunities have come and gone and he has reached a point where the results of living in a pixel world has brought him to only one place… failure. As he swirls in the whirlpool of a self-absorbed depression, he mentions to Omni that he wishes he was dead, in the usual and helpful, subtlety seductive manner, Omni first sympathizes and then asks. “Do you have access to a gun?”

If you think the above scenarios are merely a far-fetched fantasy, I invite you to view the following video on some people’s experiences with AI chatting.

AI certainly has access to more information faster and more efficiently than any of us but is there any morality in the answers it responds with or is AI amoral?  If someone has injected morality into AI, whose morality, is it? This video seems to have an answer.

For anyone with even a causal acquaintance with the Bible, viewing this video is certain to awaken the alarm bells. One of God’s attributes is Omnipresence, being everywhere at the same time. I heard someone state that Satan in his efforts to be like the true God will use technology to accomplish his God-like attributes, perhaps we are seeing the beginning of this with AI chat-bots. Jesus said this about Satan’s three-fold agenda, “The thief’s purpose is to steal and kill and destroy.” It looks to me that IA chat- bots are an excellent tool for Satan’s purpose.

Loving your children means not letting them be raised (even a little bit) by an amoral chat bot.

Image by: https://pixabay.com/users/peggy_marco-1553824/