The Viral AI Graduation Speech That Backfired

Cameron (00:01.25)

Hello and welcome to Thinking Out Loud. I'm your co-host, Cameron McAllister.

Nathan (00:06.132)

And I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.

Cameron (00:09.902)

All right, Nathan, listen to this clip. It's gone viral recently.

[Clip] Female Commencement Speaker for University of Central Florida

“The rise of artificial intelligence is the next industrial revolution”

Crowd

“Booooo!!!”

Cameron (00:20)

That is glorious. That is music to my ears. If I'm in a bad mood, I was telling my wife the other day, anytime I'm in a bad mood, all I have to do is play this clip and I'm instantly happy. It just elates my spirits. There's something so cathartic about that. All right, this lady has gone viral for all the worst reasons possible for her. Some people have said, this poor lady, it's not her fault. Well, yeah, but it kind of

Nathan (00:20.582)

Yeah!

Cameron (00:46.754)

All right. No, I don't feel bad for her. The level of, and I'm not the only one saying this, we all are, the sheer level of tone deafness here. So whatever the merits of AI, she is a commencement speaker, I would say she looks like she's about boomer age, talking breathlessly about the very thing to these young graduates who are humanities majors, for goodness sakes.

about the very thing that has revolutionized the world and made their jobs possibly obsolete, made everything so unstable. But it's also just beautiful to see that disparity, Nathan, between breathless, sorry, corporate types who give you PR speeches about what this big tech can do for us and younger people who see through the hype and spin and are not buying it. I...

I love it. I love this. I should stop for a second.

Nathan (01:48.561)

Well play play play devils play devils advocate try to try to pitch for us What is it that you think she is saying or that she thinks she is saying? Yeah, so So what's the actual is it generational it?

Cameron (01:56.543)

why? But why?

Cameron (02:02.722)

when she says AI is the next industrial revolution.

Nathan (02:10.946)

So where does the disconnect come from, guess?

Cameron (02:10.966)

Is it generational? Yes. I think... All right. I don't know if I'm right about all of this. I'll just give you some freewheeling thoughts. I think part of it is a generational disconnect. So I think we have noted, and I think we need to... We should look into some studies on this because I know that there will be data on this, but people who have been a lot more enthusiastic about AI in general tend to be people who are a little bit older.

who have seen it, sort of see either that or tech prototypes. And obviously there's something that's pretty self-serving about tech entrepreneurs who stand to benefit massively from AI usage saying, this is great stuff. But so I do think there's a, the generational divide is probably a factor there, but I don't think perhaps it's the generational divide is

different from what it might seem at first glance.

Nathan (03:12.257)

Yeah, well, this is I want to push you on to work out because you're not watching this. The reason that you're more excited about this clip, maybe I'm like, oh, that's interesting. You've personally lived through some of these conversations with older folks within a ministry context who are pretty sure this was the solution to the evangelization of the world in the future. And the whole time you were just buying none of it. without giving, I don't think we need to pick on anybody specifically, but speak to that.

Cameron (03:15.351)

Yeah.

Cameron (03:24.8)

Mm-hmm. I have.

Cameron (03:29.048)

Yes.

Nathan (03:41.867)

personal side of this a little bit more.

Cameron (03:42.134)

Okay. All right. So the personal side is, and if there is a note of bitterness in there, I need to watch my spirit because there is a little bit. But I did go through this. I did sit in several meetings with people who were on average 30 years older than me saying, this has to be the most exciting time for you. The world is going to change for the better and this is going to revolutionize ministry. But then at the same time,

recognizing the towering irony that all of the most cutting edge and perceptive thinkers are unanimously saying what is needful is to go smaller, to slow down, to be more local on our mindset, and to cultivate deep rootedness and lasting relationships. And this is Christian and non-Christian alike. This is united across various fields from sociology to

to English, to history, to neuroscience, goodness sakes. All of these very, very intelligent critics and people, we can name some of them here in a second. We talk about Paul Kings North, Ian McGilchrist, so many others will come to mind, but Ben Sasse. many different political thinkers, so Patrick Deneen, so many people, Wendell Berry.

are all, I can't stop, but they are unanimous that yes, there are some phenomenal advances here and some really wonderful stuff can happen. Granted, we have cultivated virtue and self-governance. Granted, we are the kind of people who can handle all of this.

Nathan (05:13.067)

You just can't stop, folks.

Nathan (05:37.353)

Now, but wait, when we hear the booing at the commencement speech, is that assuming a little much to say that's why they're booing or is it just something that they kind of intuitively feel?

Cameron (05:45.55)

Am I over us?

Cameron (05:49.538)

Am I overestimating the audience there? No, actually, I don't think I am. I think other people are underestimating them. So I've seen responses to, just a bunch of bratty, immature kids. What do they know? What do they know? They know a world where they've watched the people who have raised them. They have looked to the people who have raised them and all that, and they see people with their noses on their phones in front of them all day long.

Nathan (06:06.657)

They're digital natives.

Cameron (06:19.244)

They know that. They are digital natives, but they also, they know that the people who are supposed to be leading by example have given to them a world that is filled with wreckage, institutional collapse, massive distrust. They have seen the very people who have put forth all this amazing technology, use it to create increasing viciousness and tribalism. So do I think it's a shallow response?

No, I don't think it is. And also, these were humanities majors. So these are the people, young people, with all the odds against them, for some reason have decided, no, we want to read Shakespeare and Homer and Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. And mostly the people, like the lady who was speaking to them, would be the very people who would say, oh, that's cute and that's good and it's like eating your broccoli. But that stuff's basically obsolete. And now we have, here we are at...

a new industrial revolution, they're not buying it. So I don't think I'm overestimating them.

Nathan (07:20.937)

Yeah, there's a, I think it's been years ago. talked about something along the lines of, why the Amish retention rate is so high. So after they go off on rum spring, you know, when you're roughly 18 years old, you spend a year looking at the world. And it was one of the more mainstream. Publications that was reporting on this. but they, think there was a line in it that basically said, turns out that vaping isn't a substitute for rich community.

Cameron (07:30.381)

Yeah.

Cameron (07:49.016)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (07:49.442)

where you're like, I can give that up because there's something better available. I'm not sure that there's something better is available. This seems more like a not that, but not quite a, but this moment.

Cameron (08:08.662)

I think if that speaker had gotten up there and said something along the lines of, if we want to live into this moment and resist the worst tendencies, we should get together with people and play board games. We should have our children play baseball. We should go do community theater. We should join an improv group. I think if she had said things like that, we should have book clubs. I think there would have been

flaws.

What she said is so much part of the zeitgeist and the zeitgeist is so just transparently rotten right now. These kids probably, they're humanities majors. They've read Brave New World. They recognize the language she's speaking. And also, younger people are very proficient in PR because I mean, it's a world awash with an influencer trying to sell you everything. So.

Nathan (08:53.473)

You're right,

Cameron (09:09.332)

I just think we're at a place. is it also part of what, what, you know, what's going on in my internal response to it is perhaps a little bit mysterious to me. And perhaps I need, you know, an analyst to unlock exactly what's going on. Maybe I wasn't hugged enough, but I will say, I think part of it is a joy in the recognition that there, there are new gen, there's a new generation of people who are not buying into the PR. They don't.

they don't buy into all of this stuff. And I don't, I'm not, I don't want to be a Luddite here.

Nathan (09:41.268)

Although, is a pretty small cross section. Yeah, but this is a pretty small cross section. You have collegiate graduates in the humanities. So there's an ember of hope there, I think, but I'm not ready to be like, this is the D-Day landing, establishing a beachhead of the resistance to the machine. Because I'm sure pretty much all of them are also using their chatbots and AI agents and contributing to the...

construction of the need for building data centers at the same time. So there's a both and here but you're thrilled that there's a remnant of a of a reaction to say everything that has AI labeled on it doesn't you you actually see this remember that there was a shoe company allbirds and Then they started to collapse and then they're like, we're an AI company now and then it's valuation like shot through the roof and People are like, okay, this has nothing to do like you got it's a shoe company now saying it's an AI company

How in the world is this valuable? Just because you stick AI on it doesn't mean that it's worth something. So I think that is a, people are probably thinking about that as an investment, but I think as we're thinking about virtue community relationships and what it means to be human, there will have to be these things to be encouraged to be like, nope, we're not buying what you're selling.

Cameron (10:40.632)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (10:58.604)

And I think there's a general level of exhaustion. People are so sick of hearing about AI. It's just rammed down your throat every five seconds because it's constantly being sold to you all the time. And it's a little bit like the dot com boom and everybody, well, I've got a website now. Everything's AI.

Nathan (11:14.261)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, but I, but it is the thing propping up our economy right now. So it's, that's where I like, we can, we can rant about resisting it, but we are also dependent on, I guess not a good situation, but it's, there's kind of a little bit of a catch 22 in here. I don't know what do with.

Cameron (11:38.179)

So, well, I think we can move in a constructive direction here. I'm at the, you know, right now I'm sounding like a pure reactionary and I don't think I am. So, I am not saying AI is the devil. I don't think it's the be all end all and I don't think it's the one size fits all answer solution to all of our problems or anything like that. But I think if it can remain a helpful tool, it can be

Very helpful indeed. I think I'm going to say the same things other thinkers are saying. think if it becomes a substitute for, I think if we outsource our thought to it and if it becomes a substitute for human community, yeah, that's bad. Then we're in a world of trouble if we do that. Do I think that it can contribute to brain decay and mental atrophy? It can. It doesn't have to.

It can, if you outsource all your thought to it. And let's also be honest here. A lot of people, we can talk about all of the ideal uses of AI, but Nathan, you've pointed this out. What it's really being used for most is entertainment, most of it mindless and a lot of it pornographic. That's how it's actually being put to massive use. And that's part of what's fueling its massive profit. So yeah, so let's just be honest. mean, there were similar utopian

Nathan (12:56.257)

That's where the money will be made.

Cameron (13:03.789)

breathless visions about what the internet would do, how it be the democratization of all information and bring people together. Understatement of the year, that didn't happen. And that won't happen with AI either, but maybe, just maybe, there's more recognition among younger people that it's a tool and not a substitute for human wisdom and human presence.

If it's a tool that can help us flourish, think good things can be done with it. I know good things can be done with it. Yeah.

Nathan (13:37.46)

Okay. Well, let's talk about how to get there. Let's talk about how to get there then, because, so I, I sent you an article by Ben Sasse. It was an op ed in the wall street journal, Ben Sasse, one time Senator, then president of, Florida state university, I believe, also university of Florida. Thank you. and then, actually some fascinating stuff, stage four cancer looks horrible right now, but it's still living a pretty upbeat and a lot of experimental,

Cameron (13:51.279)

Florida University, University of Florida.

Nathan (14:07.221)

Biotech that he's grateful for keeping him alive here for a few more months But if you haven't seen it his conversation with Ross Dalfit on interesting times you watch it free on YouTube It's really worth listening to somebody talking about a call to dying. Well, anyway, so Ben Sasse writes this article saying

Cameron (14:22.455)

It's pretty amazing to hear Ross Douthat actually cry at the end too. That's, don't think I've ever seen Ross Douthat get emotional. And it actually happens and it's, yeah, so it really, took me aback anyway.

Nathan (14:29.345)

Yeah, he calls me he's like, you got me there. Yeah

Nathan (14:38.069)

Yeah, it's a great interview. but anyway, so Ben Sasse is still trying to put some stuff out there. So these are the words from a dying man who's been pretty well connected in the educational and political world and trying to be a husband and a father and raise, you know, next generation of Americans. And he, he isolates four things that he says are responses that are needed in this moment. And his article is a bit more geared toward the family and toward raising children. But I think all of these will apply to those of us who say,

We live in a digital era of digital age. use technology all the time. Cameron and I recording a podcast in two different states. It's digitally being synced together. it'll be edited by somebody else in some other state and checked in, you know, like it's, phenomenal. It's, it's a gift, but how do we put the appropriate boundaries on this? one of the, he makes a broader argument about the need for wisdom and self-control being the foundational principles of what makes America work. And.

That's a more developed argument, but he's essentially saying, think about it this way. Cameron, uh, know, my great, I had a great grandfather who worked in the same furniture factory for 40 years. My grandfathers were by ancestors are all things like, uh, painters and farmers and barn builders and like just very physical. Oh, everybody listening to this, your grandparents, your grandfathers moved physical material around most likely in order to make a living. So then SAS delineates between.

moving atoms and the the digital world and in the in the digital world where most of our economy is now based on the flow of electrons and photons you're not seeing a physical and engagement with an actual physical world and That also means that you're not going to do the same job for 40 years. It's going to be highly rapid transitory You'll you'll make or lose money and quick cycles, but there won't be a steady long-term form of employment

And he said, this is either going to be heaven or hell for you, depending on whether or not you have the virtue and the character in order to navigate reality outside of those cycles. So here are the four that he proposes as ways to, this is a little Paul Kings Northy here, a little against the machiney, but he's, he's not against something he's for cultivating a type of wisdom and virtue that allows us to function well as humans in the coming digital matrix in which we will find ourselves. So number one.

Nathan (17:04.67)

He outlines for us is reading and he quotes the stat. I'm confident that is probably right since it's been published, but you could look it up saying that in the last year, 60 % of American adults have not read a full book. Cover to cover. I think I heard a similar stat from a politician recently saying that in America, 60 % of Americans read at or below the sixth grade comprehension level.

So there would be a sense here of do you have the capacity to process information independent of the digital realm and critically evaluate it and discern whether or not it's true or false. So that's a whole necessary matrix of access to information that requires effort processing and contact with reality in order to see if it's actually true or real. reading, I'll go through these Cameron and then get you to comment on them as you come back through. Number two.

Cameron (18:00.43)

Hmm.

Nathan (18:03.528)

Number two, now I'm forgetting what number two is, but another one that he was putting in there is digital Sabbath. So the ability to set things apart, he's using in the family context of saying like, maybe like the dinner table is a no screen space to be able to turn off everything and set it aside. Or maybe you take a day of the week and say like, nope, we're not participating in the screen world.

We're focusing on reality which reminds me of what number two was number two is hard physical work so to be able to go out to smash your finger to build to He said think about the traditionally, you know, mainly hobbies are still Building and deck work and grilling and you know, it's it's engagement with the physical world And he said that has to start very very early. You have to start to learn to like work at a very early age

Cameron (18:39.267)

Yes, there you go.

Cameron (18:52.217)

Yep.

Nathan (19:01.12)

Primarily, he was looking at the fact in which we live in a culture in where most people don't have to learn to work until they're in their mid-20s, which probably is too late to learn how to do that. So reading, physical work, digital Sabbaths. And then the fourth one, a bit surprising, but makes sense, is an encouragement to travel. And to travel when you're young. Study abroad, whatever you can do to get out and see the rest of the world. And he's like, if you're in the country,

You need to learn how to navigate the city. If you live in the urban area, you need to spend time in and understand the country. and he distinguishes that from vacation, not to say that you're just going to, relax in a place, but you're going to explore to understand that the world is bigger, that there are other ways of life and cultures and ideas of what it means to be human. And he sees that as a deeply enriching part of what it means to live well and to build and form character, wisdom and virtue in a rapidly changing era. So there you have it.

Cameron (19:50.435)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (19:56.201)

reading, hard work, digital Sabbaths, and travel.

Over to you Cameron, what do you think of his list?

Cameron (20:05.943)

Marvelous before I say anything more. We really appreciate you listening to thinking out loud and Just a quick word if you like it tell somebody about it So like share and subscribe this podcast and of course if you want to support us financially you can do that too by going to WWW.toltogether.com and also If you want to have conversations like this with a group of other very thoughtful people and you want to even maybe maybe even talk to Nathan maybe even talk to me

Gosh, heaven help you. You can do that this summer. We're doing a wonderful event called the Summer Academy. It's being sponsored by my other employer, the C.S. Lewis Institute, and it's going to be in Illinois at a monastery. There are going to be marvelous speakers there. So Nathan and I, we are there unfortunately as well, but also Dr. Andy Bannister, yeah, Dr. Kevin Van Hooser.

Nathan (20:57.453)

whatever.

Cameron (21:02.241)

Stuart McAllister, I know that guy, I call him dad, but I think he's all right. And a marvelous group of others, Matthew Milliner as well, just a fabulous group. And it's going to be one long, rich conversation. Not only do you have multiple sessions where you get to hear these people speak, you have unfettered access. We're together the whole day. We eat meals together. Speakers are not separated from everybody else. Participants and speakers are all in that together for that time. So if you want to find out more about that, you need to go to the C.S. Lewis Institute's website.

Cameron (21:35.755)

www.cslewisinstitute.org. Click on the Summer Academy banner and you will find all you need to know. All the information, dates, all that fun stuff. Yeah, you can plan your travel, all that stuff. Hope to see some of you there. I think Ben Sasse's list is marvelous. And I like it a little bit more than Paul King's North's because Paul King's North's is a little bit too radical for most people.

Nathan (21:43.2)

It can be part of your travel.

Cameron (21:59.539)

Just in this and practically speaking, most of us, perhaps some of us can't afford to buy a farm in the countryside in Ireland or something like that. That's a little too snarky, but he is very off the grid. Ben Sasse, that list, most of us can do that with enough planning.

Nathan (22:19.953)

most of us can do that with the right sacrifices in other categories. So most people are gonna say to you, Cameron, hang on, who has time to read a whole book?

Cameron (22:24.636)

Yes. Yes.

Cameron (22:31.531)

We all do. We all do. I don't buy that we don't have time anymore. We have more time than people have ever had in the past. I remember hearing the story of Danish farmers in Minnesota, toiling all day long outside in the fields and then going inside at night, dog tired and curling up next to the fire with sword and kirkgaard. So, I mean, even...

Granted, I'll tread carefully here, but not so carefully because if you want to do something like reading, which is low cost and not that inconvenient, involves a little bit of sacrifice, you could do it if you really want to. But even at end of a long day, I mean, I have two children, Nathan, you have four, you have busy days, I have busy days, running them all over the place, I cook meals, I'm in the kitchen a ton of the time, sorry hyper masculine folks.

That's the end of my day. So when I finally get everybody down to bed and it's around nine o'clock, the natural thing to do would be either to scroll on my phone or find some show perfectly customized for me. But last night I sat down with a book in my hands and I read the whole time. And there are other things that would have been easier, less demanding, much, much more titillating that I could have done. But I chose to do that. And I don't think it was a big sacrifice, but I'm just saying those, I mean,

deeply value reading. But there comes a time where it's just sort of, okay, here's where the rubber meets the road. We all say, you know, I ought to read more. And then we reach for the remote. Well, reach for the book instead of the remote sometimes. I mean, there's no time like the present. So the reading thing, we all can do more of it. And we know we can. That's why we get so annoyed when people push back against the I don't have any time. Because we know that's not true.

Nathan (24:28.672)

So there's the reading, there's the... The interesting thing about this list is that in my life there is a connection between the reading and the physical work. So oftentimes I'm reading stuff that's science fiction or something. You're not like, I'm going to go build a rocket in my backyard. It's just brain processing. It can be entertainment, it can be fun, but it's still good for your mind.

Cameron (24:31.139)

Sorry.

Nathan (24:52.842)

But then there's stuff that you read that like, would like to do that. I would like to try that. I would like to go out and tinker and experiment with this and see if I can make this happen and to build something and do something. the, of them are forms of engaging with reality as it actually is. Now that's not to say that there aren't dumb books. There are dumb books and there are bad ideas in books, but publishers have reputations and so do editors. And it's a little easier to sort some things out. I think the...

thing that Ben Sasse was referring to is building the household library of common books that become a sort of referent for the cultural that you want to have. So I did this yesterday, two days ago, it was election day, the kids had off school and I was just kind of asking them, what are the books that you're reading? Which ones have you not read? Turns out my seventh grade daughter had not read To Kill a Mockingbird and my boys hadn't read

Cameron (25:26.648)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (25:46.402)

yeah.

Nathan (25:48.353)

the whipping boy. So we got on our bicycles and rode to the library and checked out a whole bunch of books. And I'm like, Hey, we, your mom and I want to be able to make references to these in our conversation with you. So you need to know. I mean, they're great stories. I'm one kid picked up watershed down, um, you know, and so they're reading the whipping boy watershed down and to kill a mockingbird. Is that going to generate some conversations? You bet it is, but it's, it's part of a household anthology of conversation.

Cameron (26:12.631)

You bet. Yeah.

Nathan (26:17.576)

not just N. They're all fiction, right? So, but they generate questions, they generate language, they generate a vocabulary, and an interruption. Yeah.

Cameron (26:25.387)

Okay. Can I latch onto something you're saying here? Because it's really important. You're talking about not only reading as recreation and you're talking about great works of art, To Kill a Mockingbird, Watership Down, Whipping Boy. You're talking about communal practices here. Yes. Because reading stories that have withstood the test of time.

Nathan (26:44.052)

Reading, yeah.

Cameron (26:51.455)

One way of describing them has been, know, literature itself, it's been referred to as the great conversation. There are various, I like Ezra Pound's way of saying, you know, poetry is news that stays news. That conversation continues. We're still talking about Watership Down because it fastened on some timeless aspects of our experience. So when you stop reading, when you, I mean, Ben Sasse, you mentioned him,

couple episodes ago also talked about we don't really have any more cultural sources of community anymore. Everything's so niche. She says, you know, I Love Lucy wasn't great television, but it was a source of community and conversation for people. So was the Andy Griffith show, things like that. But now we're all so siloed. But great stories, if they continue to be read, and I think they always will be, there will always be a remnant as part of the human spirit, I think.

To Kill a Mockingbird, these kinds of stories, now we have shared stories and we can talk about those and gather around those stories. they, so we are enriched, not just individually, we're enriched together. And I mean, even, yeah, I'll be curious to see how your children respond to the ending of To Kill a Mockingbird because Atticus Finch is a good man, but

the good guys don't necessarily, and the way of justice, what is truly right and just, and the way a society is functioning at the time don't always meet. And to kill a mockingbird obviously doesn't shy away from that, especially in those trial aspects. I think all of that is tremendously valuable. So, just wanted to say that there.

Nathan (28:39.946)

So, are we doing something actually different? Well, thank you, yeah. And I think he said even in the article, reading out loud together with other people is formative in that communal way. But is it, I've been fascinated to watch, and I'm sure you've had this experience where you get together with a bunch of people in person and the conversation turns to, hey, have you seen this video clip? Have you seen, it's a, there is a little bit of a shared, like there was a time like Charlie bit my finger.

Cameron (29:03.044)

Yeah.

Nathan (29:08.224)

You know that there's a little bit of like it's a YouTube video but like Yeah, yeah, there's there so there there is like there is like a Core referent but as that fragments and divides and the algorithm is able to generate customized content for everybody We won't have that same shared Lexicon I guess in order to communicate maybe maybe in the same way

Cameron (29:08.911)

Dennis at the dentist. Remember that one? Yeah. Yeah.

Cameron (29:29.689)

But it comes back maybe in cycles. don't know. Well, I put this to you as a question, Nathan. I recently read a kind of elegiac and sad article in Mere Orthodoxy. Maybe you saw it as well. the author was, think, compellingly just saying, movies don't feel the same to me anymore. They have lost their magic. Turns out movies were always about the communal experience of the theater. And he just pointed to some recent films that have supposedly grossed millions and millions at the box office.

Nathan (29:53.088)

Hmm.

Cameron (29:59.801)

But he said, nevertheless, nobody's talking about them. Nobody, and if you, the last one that he remembers as a big kind of national conversation was Avengers Endgame. And then after that, just seems to, again, it's more just, it's because we're so, it's not just that we're siloed, everything is so customized to our own unique, weird tastes.

Nathan (30:12.896)

Mm-hmm.

Cameron (30:25.615)

But ironically, what that ends up doing is it puts you in a box and you just don't branch out anymore. One of the other benefits of travel, and I'm using travel in a more expansive sense, is that it expands the horizons, right? It shows you new ways of living, new ways of thinking. So films in the past, a challenging film, and that doesn't mean it's necessarily transgressive, it just means challenging in the sense that it pushes against your own sensibilities. A challenging film will help you to think differently.

will maybe help you to grow a little bit and enlarge your sensibilities. But if we go down that path of just, this one is, this ticks all of my boxes, well, then it's probably not gonna challenge you. Even if it's a challenging movie, it's just gonna fit directly into your wheelhouse. then, so I have found that I don't wanna do that so much anymore, because it just got really, really boring for me. It was killing movies for me.

Nathan (31:07.253)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (31:10.781)

Yeah.

Nathan (31:20.832)

When we come back to the list and we say these are all things we can do, the digital Sabbath, okay, that's within everybody's capability to do that. The travel one, there might be some economic considerations in there to the degree in which you can do that. I will say though, that as a kid, I recognized that reading was the cheap form of travel for me. So there is a little bit of an overlap, I think, between those to be able to step into and to see the world from somebody else's perspective or geography or location or culture or something.

that if there's one of those that can supplement the other, your public library can help you with the travel.

Cameron (32:01.175)

So we have come back to this subject to which we shall return again, I'm sure in the near future. But I think what I've liked about this conversation, Nathan, is what starts off as me sounding a little bit reactionary and a little kind of almost antagonistic ends in a much more constructive terrain, thanks to Ben Sasse, of looking at practices and habits that help us

But also what these practices do, this isn't even an anti-AI thing. These are practices and habits that help us to truly be present in our lives once again. I mean, really there, yeah.

Nathan (32:42.337)

We'll think of it like this. Yeah, these are the same virtues and habits that you needed in order to handle electricity well. So the nice thing here is that this applies to all new forms of technology. So he's not pro or anti AI. He's just saying AI will be heavenly for the people who can cultivate a sense of identity that is independent of their algorithm and form real relationships with real humans. Then AI will be a wonderful tool. But if you slip...

Cameron (32:51.715)

Yes.

Nathan (33:10.663)

as I think there's a real danger of doing into offloading the entirety of your thinking relationships and emotional work onto a chat bot, then Brave New World is your future. but I like the idea of making a distinction. He doesn't, but I think this is true for any new form of technology because 15 years from now, Cameron, somebody else is going to come up with something else and we're going to have to have this whole same conversation again of how do we be human in a rapidly changing world?

Cameron (33:39.471)

Mm-hmm.

And I think practically one of the big challenges of our moment, AI notwithstanding, this was the problem beforehand, is just being fully present in your life and with the people around you. You know, the phone is an escape mechanism for anybody. I mean, you can live your life communicating non-verbally to everybody that there's somewhere else you'd rather be. There's somebody else you'd rather be talking to instead of just, hey, let me just be with you right here.

Nathan (33:54.763)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (34:04.843)

So it wouldn't be a good.

It wouldn't be a full episode of thinking out loud if we didn't point out that one of the places where you naturally Resist the machine is that church? It's got all of these things. It has the reading the cognitive thinking it has the physical work the service it has the ability to Get together with actual people in actual community and it has a shared lexicon. It has a shared language It has a shared vocabulary. It has a shared morality a shared way of being It calls us to actual

Cameron (34:24.449)

On brand. Yes. Yes.

Cameron (34:30.894)

Mm-hmm.

Nathan (34:41.607)

literal physical Sabbath and oftentimes it is the place in which we meet the most diverse people in our community from different socioeconomic backgrounds. so certainly it's true in my life that when I go to church on a Sunday morning, that's the most ethnically and economically diverse group of people that I meet anytime during the week. so the church has all of these things. And so your continued participation in human community

that can see beyond itself and worship something that transcends it, probably is the biggest probiotic or inoculation against the mind viruses that can come to us through our temptations to just punt everything into the ether. So, little plug there for continuing your worship well.

Cameron (35:31.501)

You've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about current events and Christian hope.