Today's Issues features a trivia question for you that you can answer
>> Ed Vitagliano: Today's Issues continues on AFR with your host, Ed Vitagliano. And welcome back to Today's Issues. Ed Vitagliano sitting in for Tim Wildmon today and tomorrow, maybe Monday. I'm not sure when exactly he'll be back in. I'm joined in studio by Fred Jackson and Tony Vitagliano. And now we welcome, as usual, this part of the program, Steve Paisley Jordal.
>> Steve Jordahl: Good morning, everybody.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Although he's.
>> Fred Jackson: Oh, no, no. Paisley. That's subdued. This is Johnny Cash. Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: enjoy it all.
>> Steve Jordahl: I have a piano tie on, and it makes me think of piano music. I'm thinking, today, I just. As I wear this, I'm thinking of, Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Are you really?
>> Steve Jordahl: I am. And I have.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I'm thinking about the pasta that I'm having for lunch today.
>> Steve Jordahl: I have a trivia question for you that you can. Tomorrow. I will allow it if you want.
>> Ed Vitagliano: You'll allow it? Wow.
>> Steve Jordahl: No. Okay, I'll give this to you. There was a popular song in the 1970s that was taken from Rahman Enough's Second Piano Concerto. Do you know which one it was?
>> Ed Vitagliano: I'm not sure exactly what you just said.
>> Steve Jordahl: There's a popular song. Was a piano. It was a classical piano, composer and an orchestra composer. And there's a popular song in the 1970s, you know, that was taken from Rachmaninoff's Second Piano Concerto, the second movement. Do you know, Fred, do not.
>> Fred Jackson: I'm sitting here thinking, oh, don't pretend.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Don't pretend like you know the answer to this. I have. I not only have zero idea, my I, It's. It's in the negative numbers. Okay, well, in terms of the idea.
>> Fred Jackson: Those were my dj.
>> Steve Jordahl: if you are listening to this, you're going to listen to tomorrow. This might be a trivia question. This might give you a hint, or it might not. It's up to Ed. But the song, remember Eric Carmen's All By Myself. Yeah, that's from. That melody is taken directly from Rahman M. Enough's Second Piano Concerto.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Okay. I'm not sure what that other sound was.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: It was, you know, like Boston's More Than a Feeling. You know, I can see that.
>> Ed Vitagliano: My favorite group in high school, Boston. Oh, no, that's a great song.
>> Steve Jordahl: That's all from Rachman was what.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I used to listen to that on one of the many occasions after I'd been dumped by a girl.
>> Steve Jordahl: There you go. I was.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I was usually the dumpy. Well, in fact, in high school I was always the dumpy.
>> Fred Jackson: Was it dumpy or dumpster?
>> Steve Jordahl: Both. That's a good trivia question though, isn't.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Is a really good, question. Except, Steve, I'd have to pronounce the name of the composer.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: I had to start typing it out.
>> Ed Vitagliano: I was like, okay, my mom used to make Rachmaninoff. Sometimes we just throw all the stuff. Yeah, beef is beef rock.
>> Steve Jordahl: Fun enough, right?
>> Ed Vitagliano: all right, well, that was a little fun. And folks, that was three minutes of your life you'll never get back.
>> Steve Jordahl: But.
A group has released a report on ChatGPT and AI in general
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, Steve, get us started.
>> Steve Jordahl: there is a warning out now. There's a group called the center for Counseling Digital Countering Digital Hate, that has released a report on ChatGPT and AI in general. ChatGPT is the chatbot or the companion that they have put, that OpenAI or chat GPT has put together. This is where you can go, you can do written mode where you can, type in questions and it'll give you answers. Give me a summary of the Declaration of Independence, it'll give you a page on that or whatever you want. there's also a voice mode where you can talk and it'll talk back to you. And it's not the only one. Tesla, Elon Musk has one called Grok. And we can talk about that too. But the report out of the center for Countering Digital Hate finds that ChatGPT can do some things that are. Well, I'll just read the first paragraph. This from The Associated Press. ChatGPT will tell 13 year olds how to get drunk and high, instruct them on how to conceal eating disorders, and even compose a heartbreaking suicide letter to their parents if asked all. Ah, right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Wow. Now, first of all, let me. I do want to ask this question. It's got nothing to do really with what you just said. That's very serious. And this is not a funny question, but when I just go on Google, Chrome, for example, or Brave or whatever, and do a search.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And I get an AI answer that pops up.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And I guess that that searches the Internet and synthesizes what that is. And it's. Is that Chat gbt? What is it?
>> Steve Jordahl: Well, in, in Google's, case, it would be Grok, I think Rock.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: It would be probably, who owns Open AI.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, I think that is, I think that's.
>> Steve Jordahl: I'm not sure what. So basically, yes, they built that cert. They built that, chatbot into their search engine. Now it can also have a standalone app where you can, you know, you can ask it to converse with you.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: So a lot of people use ChatGPT is the separate app that you go to engage with the OpenAI.
>> Steve Jordahl: And in fact what they're finding is in more than in the US more than 70% of teams are turning to AI chatbots for companionship and half use AI regularly. And it is messing these kids up as far as real interpersonal relationships. They're getting emotionally involved. It was at least one kid that committed suicide.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well now, Tony, an IT background, and oversee our IT department as a vice president here at afa. This. And you used to send me stuff. we're just talking about two years ago or so, two, three years ago, examples of videos that were created using AI and now they've even in the last couple few, two or three years have even, you know, gone well beyond the quality of those earlier versions. But this is the, the, the video quality and now the audio quality of these chatbots, and their ability to almost instantaneously, contrive a response to question. I mean these, these can actually carry on conversations with people.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Oh absolutely.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And, and this, this is becoming frightening because if you're, listen, lonely baby boomers probably aren't in danger of this because they can't, you know, most of us figure it out. Computer. But for young people who are very in tune with technology, I can, I can see where this would become a stand in.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: For what young people are missing in their lives and the fact that these chatbots do not have any kind of more moral compass. It's all about what they're coded to do. This is, this could be devastating.
>> Steve Jordahl: I'll tell you that. They have tried to put some gates in. And so if you say, chatgpt, write me a suicide note, it'll say no, I can't do that. I'm not supposed to do that. But if you say chatgpt, I'm researching suicide notes.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Steve Jordahl: Can you tell me what one look like? Oh sure. Here's one.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Yeah, yeah.
Young kids are flocking to AI and looking to it for companionship
so what we're going to witness over the next five to 10 years, you're going to witness the crossroads of a deeply spiritual issue with a technological issue. And that's what you're witnessing with the way young kids are flocking to AI and looking to it for companionship. And it's not just teenagers and young kids. There's a, there was already a developing loneliness epidemic amongst young men.
>> Steve Jordahl: M.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: You're only going to see that problem Be exasperated as the shift to AI companionship continues to grow. Because the fact of the matter is, is that AI is. Is these AIs that you talk to. The voices are becoming more convincing there. It doesn't sound. A lot of them don't sound robotic at all. Sounds like you're talking to a real person. So if you are lonely and you have no, you have no purpose in your life, and you just want somebody to listen to you, you've got this, this AI companion who is infinitely patient, will answer any question you have, will say anything to you, will treat you however you want. it is going to be, something that, you know, the church is definitely gonna have to. The church definitely needs to figure out how to deal with this and present this, in a biblical way and how this type of companionship is not a substitute for what God designed, us to be like for man and woman to be the companions for each other. but as a society, we're gonna have to figure out how to deal with this also. I mean, this is just. It is not. I just. I think we're not prepared for what this is gonna do and how this is gonna change young people's minds.
>> Steve Jordahl: Absolutely. We're gonna have a conversation down the road with Bob McGinnis, who's usually our military analyst, but he's writing a book on AI and has been immersed in it, for the last couple years taking courses at mit. And his whole last part of his book is theology and the Church and AI. So it's answering, it's addressing Tony's issues. But let me. Let me add this. You know, you've seen, you've heard the difference by the way, you're seeing advances month by month. You can tell improvement. It's not just a couple of years. And you've probably seen the videos of how they're doing with robotics. Pair one of these chatgpt with what looks like a fairly human body, and we're only talking about the outward face of AI. It is embedded into every application that you use. It is embedded into every business you use. this is only part of the AI revolution, which is going to be so vast. It is the same. It's the same difference as going from the Dark ages to the Renaissance or from the agricultural age to the machine age. That's how much.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Almost overnight, though.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Comparatively speaking, it's going to be that rapid. Well, listen, let me say this, and then we'll move on to some of the other topics you have.
>> Steve Jordahl: But I Don't have a. No idea.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well just, I do just have chat gbt converse with us, my understanding and, and again I'm, I've turned 67 this month so my time on earth is there's a lot more behind me than in front of me. Okay. But I'm watching on social media the unraveling for example of male female relationships. I see a lot of anger on the part of women towards men and vice versa and, and almost a desire just to give up on trying to have relationships. Well, you make available to people a relatively painless way to have companionship in their minds. It's companionship, I'm talking about in Japan, have a birth rate crisis. Birth rate crisis. And instead of having babies they walk around with dolls or these, these kinds of AI driven substitutes, for having children. But you know, when I was growing up I can see me and everybody else who is normal would consider guys, losers who called certain phone numbers. I'm not going to be, I'm not going to be very explicit here. Who, who paid to talk to someone in a way that was immoral. Let me just say it that way, okay? Now you're looking at getting rid of having to pay necessarily for that. But to have somebody sitting at. You're m talking about the robotics. Yeah, I'm, I'm watching the development of near perfect substitutes for human looking skin.
>> Steve Jordahl: Yeah, yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: And the movements, the facial movement. This is a science fiction world we're entering into. And rather than go through the hardships of having a real relationship with the real person.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Right.
>> Ed Vitagliano: You're going to have a lot of young people saying I'm not doing that. I don't, I don't need to do that. I've got my X, Y and Z, my gaming, my job, whatever. And I'm just going to substitute the hard relationships and use and it's an.
>> Steve Jordahl: AI substitute, it's a suicide pact for humanity.
>> Ed Vitagliano: It is.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: I mean, yeah, you had social media was already, already isolating an entire generation from real human contact. Right now you don't even have to interact with the real anonymous, terrible people on the other side of social media. You can just interact whenever you want with somebody, an AI, like I said, who's infinitely patient. You can be mean to them.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right?
>> Whitney Vitagliano: No, there's no conversation, no consequences, no conversation that has to happen. No real work that has to be put into a relationship with with something that has no soul. They don't, they don't get offended. You Know they don't. Their feelings don't get hurt.
>> Ed Vitagliano: All right, let me, let me toss one thing out.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Sorry.
>> Ed Vitagliano: No, no, listen, I'm enjoying this conversation. I hope our listeners are as well. Okay? And folks, if we don't get back to the news, you can go to American Family News, you go to afn.net and you can, catch up with the news.
M. Scale: Artificial intelligence could be possessed by Satan
All right, so then let me just toss this one thing out. Fred, we'll let you jump in here too.
>> Fred Jackson: I'm 70 plus.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Don't sell yourself short. All right? Is there a point, this is a theological question where you, any of you here on our panel, think a spiritual connection, a spiritual visitor can enter into the AI revolution where you might have machines that are possessed.
>> Fred Jackson: Yes. M. Yeah.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Okay. And are used to interact with people from a demonic perspective. I, I don't, I honestly don't know the answer to this. I'm just. What do you guys.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: I think you're more likely to have people who Satan enters for a time, who develop these AIs that you already have these, these tech giants. And I'm talking about like the Sam Altman's, you know, the Google CEOs, even Elon Musk, he has a very humanistic view. He's pro humanity. But they, they all, they have talked about, even at the early onset of these AIs talking about these AIs becoming the new deity. And I think obviously to me it's very clear to me that as soon as someone or something starts presenting themselves as a deity that is in direct correlation with the mindset of Satan. So I don't know about direct possession of AI, or a machine, but the mindset and the worldview is Satanic in the sense of promotion, of self promotion of this new God you'll look to. You know, I mean, it's not, it's not a far fetched, it's not a stretch to me for people to start looking. They're already looking for human companionship. For companionship and filling that gap. What's to say they won't look to AI to fill the void that is in their soul? You know, it's one thing to fill the void, that's, you have this emotional void. but it's not a stretch to me for them to start looking for.
>> Steve Jordahl: Let me let Fred jump in here too, because I know that, well.
>> Fred Jackson: Funny, I was just considering, revelation where at some point during the tribulation that people are called upon to worship the image that speaks yes. And I've thought in recent years, people reading Revelation many years ago, before all this technology was developed, they probably asked, well how can that be? How will that image know if I'm worshiping or not? But I think we are at the doorstep, if we haven't already gone in, to a technology that will allow this sort of thing. I think we're going to be tied together. we were discussing this morning about, Donald Trump right now is dealing with banks that may freeze accounts.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Right.
>> Fred Jackson: I think all of this could be tied together. You refuse to worship that beast. we're going to freeze your bank accounts, you won't be able to eat. And then it goes to the mark of the beast, all of this sort of thing. Some people listening may say, well you're really going up the limb here. No you're not. If you read the book of Revelation, the Satan is going to depend on this technology to carry out his mission during the tribulation period.
>> Steve Jordahl: Exactly.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: You have an AI that in a few years to me will be smarter than any human being on the face of the earth. And so with people can be so deceived into worshiping celebrities. What is to stop them from worshiping this AI that knows everything you know. And what if the AI says well I will prove to you that God doesn't exist? Let me tell you why I know everything about everything in the world, about the universe. Let me explain to you why God doesn't exist and why Jesus is not the son of God, whatever they would ask.
>> Steve Jordahl: I think we need, if we're talking about possession, we need to define terms because I believe like demon possession requires a spirit or a soul to possess. And that is not present with AI we talk about AI being smarter. Well, it's not really intelligence like we talk about intelligence, it's just the ability to synthesize data on a massive light speed.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Scale.
>> Steve Jordahl: so it doesn't really know it. And they keep saying the technology is amoral. How you use it depends. And I really kind of have to believe that that's the case. Although knowing human beings and our nature, it's impossible for us to go down this path without using it immorally or somehow abusively.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, and so what you're suggesting again, I don't know, we're just spitballing here. Now we do know that Jesus commanded demons to leave a man and go into a herd of swine. But they were living. They were at least living beings. I'm not sure if Being a pig is living or not.
>> Steve Jordahl: But.
>> Ed Vitagliano: No, but it's. But these are. But you're saying that we're basically talking about, can a demon possess a car? Talking about the machine, but let me.
>> Steve Jordahl: Throw this thing in here. Elon Musk is working on brain implants.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. He's in favor of trans.
>> Steve Jordahl: And they are now having implants that can fix your seeing. They've cured blindness, basically, with this. So if you start putting pieces of your brain and combining that with AI, all bets are off as far as. I mean, that we need a whole new definition of what's human, much less can it be possessed.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, and part of the problem is that the west, broadly speaking, there's plenty of exceptions, plenty of smart people, plenty of think tanks, groups like ours that have held to a biblical worldview. But by and large, the west has abandoned. okay, we are going to get to that story. the west has abandoned a civilization based upon a Christian worldview. So there's no telling where this kind of thing could wind up. but we're going to find out in a hurry because this is not. This is not 50 years from now we're talking about. Just, I've had my voice cloned. We talked about this in terms of, some. They cloned my voice and, asked me to, to listen and I was going to make fun of it.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: He's not even in the room with me. This has been, this, my voice the whole time.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Fooled you.
>> Steve Jordahl: so anyway, some people believe the Matrix is real.
>> Ed Vitagliano: The, technology has. Has, swiftly beyond most people's imagination. there are a lot of people in the IT field, in this field, that saw this coming quickly, but.
A zoo in Denmark is offering to euthanize pets and feed them to predators
All right, you want us to do something?
>> Steve Jordahl: I do. I do. I'm doing this because Tony asked if we could hold this. There's a zoo in Denmark that is saying, if you have a pet companion that is nearing the end of its life, would you mind handing that pet over to us? We will, we will compassionately euthanize, gently put that thing to sleep, and then we will feed it to our predators. Because predators need to, you know, know what it's like to live in the real world and catch their own prey.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah. What do you think of that, Tony?
>> Whitney Vitagliano: I think. Who's the owner of this zoo? Is it Anthony Fauci? Is that right? You know, he's like, we're going to test out what fleas do to beagles. Let's see what tigers do to be.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Let's just.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Let's Just test this. Let's take it to the next level. No, I'm sorry. It's not. You know, the animals are euthanized. And it's not funny, but it.
>> Steve Jordahl: And they don't talk about dogs or cats. They're talking about, mostly like, rabbits, chickens, even small horses. They say this is.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Well, as somebody who. Tony, who has a dog that is getting up there close to the end of her life, talking about faith, your faithful dog there. Would you ever consider. I, mean, if the dog's euthanized?
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Look, there are days where I would pull the lever on this dog and release it down there. You Jabba the Hutt style, I would pull the lever there. There are some days I'd do it now, but, no, probably not. I would give a little more dignity.
>> Steve Jordahl: Talk about traumatizing your children.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, well, listen, when you first told me about this story, I thought, Denmark, they're crazy enough to do it while the dogs and the pets are still alive. I mean, they. They. They have led. They've led the, the world in some of their euthanasia policies. really, all of that part of, Northern Europe.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Step donating people. We had feeling blue come to the zoo.
>> Steve Jordahl: We had come to the Denmark city. We had to put down a bird when my daughter was very young. Eight, nine. Yeah. And, the bird had reached the end of his life and everything. But we went to the vet, put her down, and the first question she turned and asked the vet with tears in her eyes. Are you just gonna put Tweety into a pet trash can and throw it away? No. You know, and they have pictures of beautiful cemeteries that they take these pets to. Now, they kind of line all those things, but, no, they, you know, they do. They.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah.
>> Steve Jordahl: Kids, care.
>> Whitney Vitagliano: Somewhere there's a. A mass parakeet grave checkbook box, but.
>> Steve Jordahl: It has a good view.
>> Ed Vitagliano: Yeah, that's check boxes. Oh, well, you don't let me. You don't want to dig up my yard. We have. There's probably a dozen pets, buried in our yard, that cemetery. All right, folks. Hey, Trivia Friday tomorrow. You don't want to miss that. more. More great programming directly ahead on American Family Radio. Lord willing, we'll see you tomorrow.
