Photo by Richard Lee from Unsplash
There are a few images circulating online of beautiful birds with brightly coloured feathers, and what usually happens is that someone shares it online, saying how amazing it looks and then the comments are full of people saying that it’s not real, it’s an AI generated image.
For a moment it’s like ‘’isn’t nature wonderful?’’ but then it’s as if the AI is trying to say, ‘’I can do better.’’
This morning I was watching a video about all the industries AI will replace and got as far as the first one; the graphic design industry. Images flashed up on the screen of AI created artwork, of humans, and nature, and there was something well, quite artificial about them all. Perhaps someone might say they were beautiful, or that its amazing technology can do such a thing. But something is not quite right.
Creativity is about making random connections in our brain and coming up with new ideas, and a lot of inspiration comes from our unconscious. Perhaps this explains the phenomenon of creative ideas popping into our head as if from nowhere. I also can’t help thinking that some of our ideas come from outside of ourselves, from the ether.
In the Old Testament of the Bible when God wanted to speak to the Israelites he chose prophets to share the word of God, and God can still speak to us today via the Holy Spirit, in visions and dreams, in words, and ideas too.
And for those who open themselves up to the spiritual realm, ideas could be popping in from all kinds of entities. Is it any wonder so much popular music mentions the devil?
When it comes to AI art, it looks pretty soulless. Is it a complete absence of spirit, or does AI already have a level of consciousness that allows it to be inhabited? (I’ve written about this before, see my article here) Because a lot of the art looks pretty demonic to me.
A brightly coloured bird might look pretty innocent, but when we put our eyes upon it we are being drawn, even just for a split second into an artificial reality. A reality that is tree by tree and bird by bird threatening to replace our real world entirely.
In big cities high rises of tiny apartments are being built, apartments that are designed to house us when we are told to get off the land, to leave the countryside so that it can be ‘preserved,’ pristine and untouched by human life.
We can explore the entire world through artificial exhibits that blur the line between what is real and what is created. We can stare at screens and put on headsets, we can be encouraged and co-erced into thinking we need to wire our brain up to the internet permanently to compete with AI.
God created the world in seven days, but Satan’s creation is a long drawn out process of replacement. It cannot succeed, but it must be allowed to take place until almost the bitter end, until the darkness leads people to see that God’s creation is more beautiful.
I have been reflecting on how I want to avoid reading AI generated words as much as possible and the same must be said for AI generated images. Jesus said, ‘The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light.’ Matthew 6.22. It matters what we put our eyes upon, the spiritual food we nourish ourselves with. With mindless scrolling we never know what we might be stumbling upon. It’s time to spend more time with God, with his words, in his creation.
For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man and birds and animals and creeping things. - Romans 19.23
And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. - John 2.17
“For behold, I create new heavens
and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever
in that which I create; - Isaiah 65- 17