Living feels impossible. The world is changing faster than we can gain a stable footing. Some people think that the greatest crisis of AI is the existential crisis of whether we humans are special or have this special quality and dignity that defines us as human. These people will debate on whether humans should complete the evolutionary step of replacing humans (or all carbon lifeforms) with robots, bodies of steel and silicon, or any other form of information. But we need not go so far.

Artificial intelligence in the shape of LLMs are scary to most people not because computers (or any form of automata) can now seemingly replace humans, which it has been doing so since the 1940s, but because we know what we as individual humans will do with it: We will use it to stand on the right side of the wall in the labor market that divides further between masters and slaves, people who use tools and other people, and people who are only used. We are scared of it because it is another wave that will remind us of the true reality of the world as a fallen world, in which ethics and legislation is always in a race with technology, in which technology is used both as a way to help improve our lives, but is also used to modify the material relations between one another in a silent war to gain an advantage over others. If Anthropic’s Claude was only “good,” and ideally only delivers on the company’s promise of effective altruism, then we would not feel threatened in any way. But it does not deliver on that promise: a lot of actual effective altruism is being done by those who sacrifice their livelihoods (most likely unwillingly) to those who can benefit the most from the existing economy. We are afraid of becoming that sacrifice: we are afraid of either losing our jobs or losing an entire section of the job market.

We or others will manage to turn AI into a tool against everyone else. And we cannot just sit in our chairs pop-philosophizing that the people who managed to be able to achieve that are oppressors (if we happened to be the automatically righteous “oppressed” on the wrong side of the wall), or that the people who did not manage to achieve that are losers (if we happened to be on the right side). There is a reason why we will continually see “oppressors” appear out of nowhere: They are not successful humans, but successful sinners. There is also a reason why we will continually see “losers”: because we as successful sinners manage to view any group of people as not worthy of the same dignity and love and care as ourselves. Just as we, through our sin, managed to turn God’s wonderful justice and law against ourselves. We should repent and continually seek to love one another.

Now I know that going theological is not “practical.” What good is there lamenting the state of mankind? Why not just tell us to keep improving ourselves so that we can get better jobs or not go jobless, or give us other suggestions to help improve ourselves and the world? On one hand, I could do that. I could tell you to look into trade schools or ride the freelancer trend, and you could buy food until the day you die. But changing the technology or human capability will not fundamentally change the way people see each other, but will merely rotate the structure of oppression (or rather, of sinning and being unloving) into a new direction. On the other, if you are a Christian, you will realize that I am now doing just that. But improving yourself spiritually will change the way people see each other, and “buy you food” after you die.

Rev. 3:17 For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. 18 I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see.

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