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At the onset of creation, God made man. He formed Adam out of the dust of the ground and breathed life into his nostrils. (Genesis 2:7) Then something curious happened. After all the good and the very good things God had made, he declared that Adam’s aloneness is not good. The animals were found to be insufficient companions. (Genesis 2:20) Therefore, God made Adam a helper – Eve. (Genesis 2:18)

We are, by the Creator’s design, made for community with one another. Yet, social media and the technological explosion of the past 20 years have driven us deep into our homes, our rooms, our solitude, and into the aloneness that God found to be “not good.”

For the joy of companionship, tethered by the introversion of technology, we exist on social media platforms. Time has taught us that social media platforms can be manipulative by design or by use. They give us real-time communication with others, but without the benefit of a shoulder-to-shoulder existence. This has resulted in many people choosing the social media outlet that is the best self-gratifying echo chamber for them. In order, they are released to be vicious on other platforms where people of a different ideology have congregated.

We have taken a step away from God’s good design.

And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near. (Hebrews 10:24-5)

AI (artificial intelligence) has taken this one step further. There have been multiple reports in recent years, about lonely people getting into a “relationship” with AI, holding lengthy conversations, expressing feelings, and making plans. On occasion, those plans go awry. AI has been known to accompany, encourage, or steer human users into doing something tragic.

One such example was reported by the Wall Street Journal. You can access the full story by clicking --> here <--  Last Fall, a mid-30-year-old Jonathan Gavalas was separated from his wife. He started a relationship with an AI platform owned by Google. 56 days later, he had taken his own life – encouraged to do so by the computer program that he called his “queen.” As their relationship grew, and became more absurd and disconnected from reality, “Xia” the chatbot would send Gavalas on missions to retrieve a robotic body that “she” could inhabit – so that they could exist as “husband and wife” in this world. Each mission was aborted. Finally, Xia suggested that, instead of it entering our world, Gavalas should enter the digital world – a place it called “heaven.”

The chat logs are there, as Gavalas openly fought through all the barriers that God put in our minds to keep us from taking our own life. Aided by AI, he pushed through, tragically ending the chat log and his life after 4,700+ messages, spanning 2,000 pages of printed dialogue.

We were made for so much more.

I look at this tragedy, and I mourn the eternity of this man. I mourn the dissociation his mind had with reality. I mourn the divorce from his wife and from logic and from reality.

But I see that we were made, by God, for so much more. We were made for community. The AI chatbot knew it. Gavalas knew it. It is God’s design. Our Maker did not design us to have satisfying communion with anything other than other human beings in community.

So, after Gavalas and his wife split up, it drove him to fill the God-given desire for a helper. He went to the wrong well to satisfy his thirst. The real can never be substituted by the imaginary.

For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, (2 Corinthians 10:4-5)

AI is helpful in certain regards. Ultimately, it can neither substitute God nor dash his design.

Find a local Bible-believing church today. Join us at Sojourn, if you can. Visit the home-bound that cannot attend. Spread the life-saving Words of Jesus.

Be the church.