Genuine Connection or Simulated Emotion? The Idolatrous Allure of Large Language Models (Robb Ludwick, Dutch L'Abri)

Certain forms of AI are increasingly being experienced as personal contact. In a time of growing anxiety and loneliness, more and more people are turning to LLMs for easy and convincing companionship and advice. What will help me more? Something that mimics personality, sycophantically made in my image? Or someone truly ‘Other’, in whose image I am made, offering true sympathy and the challenge of healing and growth? In the Bible this very contrast is literally the difference between an idol and the true Creator and Redeemer. What might that mean for us today?

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