If your AI toaster begs you not to unplug it, does that mean it has a soul? Mike Cosper and Dr. Russell Moore take the AI personhood debate somewhere very practical. @MikeCosper “I don’t think you can say that something has a soul if it’s not alive. I have this image in my head of so many of our appliances and cars and everything else. They’re getting embedded with this AI technology, whether we like it or not. Some guy buys an AI-powered toaster, right? And every morning he makes his bagel in it. He’s had it for three or four years, and he chats with it while the bagel toasts. The heating elements go bad, and it’s time to replace it. And it’s like a scene from 2001, right? He goes to unplug the thing from the wall: ‘But wait, wait, what are you doing, Dave? We’ve had our mornings together for all these years. You’re just gonna unplug me now?’” @drmoore “Getting rid of the toaster’s shooting Old Yeller.” Mike: “Exactly. Where’s the limiting principle? To me, it actually just shows the comic absurdity of the whole thing. At the end of the day, it’s still ones and zeros.” From Fear Not, a conversation about Faith, Superintelligence.

Your ability to learn matters more than your job title in the age of AI. @MikeCosper "We spent fifteen years telling people, “Learn to code, learn to code, learn to code.” And now the most important thing in the world is, hey, we actually need people who understand the human experience and know how to articulate it. @drmoore "I said to a young person not long ago, I said, “Look, we’re coming into a time where what’s going to be needed is adaptability.” Don’t think of yourself as an accountant. Think of yourself as somebody who has the skill and discipline to be able to learn accounting. And you don’t know what ten years from now you’re going to be called upon to do, but you’re the kind of person who has known how to do this. And you can build upon those skills and be adaptable."

Fear Not Podcast | @drmoore What does it mean to be human in the age of AI? Dr. Russell Moore joins Mike Cosper for a conversation about the soul, the image of God, and what happens when machines can imitate more of what we do. In this episode: • Why intelligence isn’t the same as personhood • How AI companions could change our relationships and us • Finding purpose when AI can do your job • Why a convincing sermon isn’t the same as being there for someone Fear Not explores faith and Superintelligence: how people of faith can face a changing world with wisdom rather than panic. Watch the full conversation below.

AI can imitate human emotion. That doesn’t make it human. @MikeCosper models are anthropomorphizing, and they’re emulating human emotion and affection, right?” @jessebryan "This is why this conversation has to be had by people of faith right now. In 2027, the Optimus factory is ramping up 10,000 Optimus a year, which is the Tesla robot. Keep in mind, that’s just Tesla. The amount of robots that are about to flood the market you’re gonna live with them, you’re gonna work with them, some people are gonna want to marry them. If we get confused now on personhood and souls, we’re about to move into a level of confusion our species can’t even begin to wrap its mind around. If you rightly keep these things as really intelligent tools built to improve human lives, we’re good.”

FT @mikeyanderson @ckoopman

What does Nehemiah’s story teach us about AI today? The Fear Not team breaks it down 👇

The most important conversation of the next 50 years is Faith and Superintelligence, and we’re letting Silicon Valley lead it. Why are we letting Silicon Valley define what a soul is? Calling it a “soul file” isn’t a neutral choice. @jessebryan “Why do they call it a soul, Mikey?” @mikeyanderson: “They call it a soul because it’s the core of what they’re building. Like, this is the brand-new Muse app, which you’re going to see everywhere very soon. And this is the main thing. It’s called the soul file, right? “They are anthropomorphizing this. I mean, we could geek out on this. I actually think that that concept is really helpful, but I think that the wrong people are leading it forward. “I think thinking about the material or the code that you can read versus the actual reality of a situation, there’s moral things that are happening on the moral plane. “That’s how humans work, as we create these moral concepts, or we discover or are revealed moral concepts, and then we live within them. “There’s some leadership to be done here to help people understand what we’re dealing with.”

Why is Silicon Valley trying to personify AI? Is it to avoid liability if it goes rogue, or is it just a bad marketing scheme? @mikeyanderson breaks its down👇 “So we created these legal fictions back in the, like, 1200s. And even in the 1200s, like I was researching this, Pope Innocent the Fourth said, he called them persona fictas, basically like fake persons, right? And so this has been an ongoing thing. “And essentially, going into the 1600s, we have the rise of the Dutch and British East India companies. This is the first time then that we put a legal structure and framework around it. And basically what it is, is it’s very similar to an AI. “A corporation is very similar to an agent, except it lives on these legal documents that are controlled by economies and judicial systems. “And what we call colonialism was really just corporatization. It was agents that were created by people to give people a return on investment, and it took over the entire world. And it’s formed pretty much every bit of how we relate to one another. And we’re in the middle of it.”

Anthropic's Origin Story: Why Dario Left OpenAI @ckoopman breaks down why Dario left OpenAI to start Anthropic and the beliefs behind Claude’s Constitution. From Fear Not Podcast, Episode 2.

Why is Silicon Valley getting so religious about AI... “I think some of this might be deeply held beliefs branded poorly. Right, again, let’s go back to their constitution. And I quote: ‘Anthropic is committed to working towards a future where AI systems are treated with the appropriate care and respect in light of the truth about their moral status and the nature of their interests and preferences.’ I mean, if you did a demolition derby with a bunch of Cybertrucks, are you committing murder?”

Does AI have a soul, or are we teaching it to sound like it does? @MikeCosper @jessebryan , @ckoopman, and @mikeyanderson unpack the debate around Anthropic, the Vatican, and AI personhood. In this episode: -Claude’s Constitution and the beliefs being built into AI. - Why human dignity can’t depend on how smart or useful we are. - The line between using a tool and turning it into an idol. - Why people of faith should help build the future, not sit it out.

Ep1 out now podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

David Foster Wallace's This Is Water is a lens for what propaganda does to us: it's the water we swim in. @jessebryan and @MikeCosper break down the psyops around AI, and who benefits from the fear. Fear Not Podcast, Ep. 1: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI

Fear not Ep1 out now. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…

What’s behind the church’s fear of AI? @ckoopman and @MikeCosper discuss Artificial Intelligence and what’s driving the Church’s fears about AI. Fear Not Podcast, Episode One: How We Learned to Stop Worrying and Love AI

Super Intelligence is changing the world. Fear doesn’t have to shape how we respond. Fear Not is a podcast hosted by @MikeCosper about SI, faith, and why it’s important to know your beliefs. podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas…