Technological Threats to Human Nature (Part 4): Seven Reasons (5, 6, 7) Why I Don't Use AI
Keith D. Stanglin
In the final installment of this series, I want to address three more reasons I don’t use AI and would recommend others to think twice.
5) Rewards deception. Many of the previously mentioned aspects of AI are problems because the entire enterprise is deceptive and is built on deception. That is, AI proponents don’t usually come right out and say, “This is lazy, it isolates you, and you are cheating,” but that is the upshot of the narratives in ads for AI. I can’t help but wonder what would happen if each of the narratives promoting AI had a believable sequel. In other words, what would the actual results be? People will be fired from their job, and their relationships will be harmed.
Imagine this scenario: I pick up checks from the Center for Christian Studies mailbox, and take them to the bank for deposit. There are five checks—some donations, some payments. I look them over and total them in my head before walking in the bank. I walk in, hand the checks to the teller for a deposit, and say, “I think these come to $9,340.” The teller checks my math with her calculator, and then expresses her amazement at my ability to add in my head. (It’s usually only one or two odd amounts, but mental addition is apparently a rare ability these days.) This happens almost every time. What if—actually—I was in my vehicle adding them up with my calculator, and then came in, acted like I hadn’t used a calculator, and then accepted the praise, never revealing my use of the calculator? That would be deceptive, cheating. It wouldn’t really be me doing the math.
Another example. If, immediately before lecturing in front of my class, I rave on and on about how helpful AI is, how useful, how efficient, how smart, how good at composing lectures, and so on—and then I stand up to teach—what would students be thinking about the hour-long lecture they’re listening to?
The increasing norm, however, is the expectation that AI is being used. Soon, AI use will be the default; you won’t have to ask. I foresee that the exception will be people who do not use it. And I think it’s important, for those of us who opt out, to declare that we don’t use it.
To that end, in the January 2026 issue of the Journal of Christian Studies, I wrote the following in my editor’s note:
…As editor of JCS, I can assure readers that we have resisted and will continue to resist the use of AI in the production of this journal, which, I observe, is not the case for some other journals and their authors. (I realize that some uses are perhaps harder to avoid—a simple Google search now alleges to rely on AI to summarize the findings.) Our authors are instructed not to use generative-AI in the composition of their original articles. Editors actually take the time to read and edit for content and style with nothing but human eyes. From start to finish, JCS is a fully human process and product, by the grace, we trust, of the Holy Spirit. For that matter, as director of the Center for Christian Studies, I can assure our subscribers and participants that the words we present across our other media platforms—video courses, books, live classes, and podcasts—are also free from AI-generated words.
This commitment could be seen by some as backward or even Luddite. (For the record, we are not opposed to technology. I have typed this on a computer, and I am aware of what I am gaining and losing by doing so.) It is probably a commitment to longer hours, and it may mean missing a comma or more here or there. But it is a commitment to the human, to full ownership of the work, to the process of learning, and to the relationships that are formed and nurtured in the process. To our subscribers and participants, we aim to model the hard but rewarding work that we believe characterizes your own ministries in your church and family.
And then, lo and behold, the next month, in the February issue of Texas Monthly, a full-page notice titled, “A Promise from Texas Monthly.” It said, among other things, “Human creativity and curiosity, reporting, and writing have always been the foundation of TM and always will be. Our work is by humans and for humans, and it will remain that way….” It goes on from there.
I believe it’s important for CCS subscribers and supporters to know where we stand, and what they’re actually getting. No deception. I said the same thing earlier this year to the congregants for whom I teach and preach every week. You’re getting me—with all my breadth, depth, experience, and expertise, as well as all my faults and foibles—the real deal. On that note, I would encourage all ministers to be forthright with their churches about the extent of their use of AI. If you find yourself hesitant to reveal all, then that probably reveals all.
6) Blurs the line between the real and fake. You cannot tell anymore. Of course, there is nefarious use of these deep fakes—to spread lies, to scam. It doesn’t take much imagination to see how a war could be started from a fake video.
But my concern extends beyond the expressly nefarious uses. If I’m watching a nature documentary, I used to marvel at how the cameraman captured that footage of the rare animal. Now, I have no idea if it’s CGI or AI-generated. One minute, it’s a penguin; the next, it’s a dinosaur. Each looks as real or fake as the other.
It is a great loss on a societal and human level, when we can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is artificial, what is true or false. It increases skepticism and cynicism about what is real. Trust is eroded. The confusion between real and fake applies to images, videos, and relationships—every aspect of life that AI touches.
7) Cheapens the word and the work behind it. If the blurred lines between real and fake lead us to doubt everything, then the sheer amount of content (real or fake) leads us to value nothing. This point became clearer to me at the AI seminar I attended earlier this year, which I mentioned in a previous post. The seminar was eye-opening in many (unintended) ways. AI generated the speaker’s slides, the pics, the videos, the podcast sample he played. He showed us how to prompt a question to get a response, and then asked AI to meta-prompt—that is, prompting AI to come up with the most effective and detailed question to ask.
No matter what was asked, it resulted in an explosion of words. Miles and miles of lists and words (I had never thought about measuring words in miles before). If Qoheleth were alive today, he might observe: “Of generating many lists there is no end, and much information wearies the body.” Much content is generated, but is it really helping us appreciate said content?
AI exacerbates the information glut. If you thought the information glut was bad after the printing press (and it was), and then especially after the advent of the internet (and it was), AI is a whole new level. There is too much, too easily, so no one cares. No one reads it. If a blog post can be generated in two seconds, why would we expect anyone to spend two minutes reading it? Why should we expend more time and energy listening to or reading something than it took to produce it? Would you be more likely to give me your reading attention right now if I told you that I spent hours and hours working on this blog series, or if I told you I’m pasting something generated by AI in 2.4 seconds? I assure you, the former is the case. But if it were the latter, you would, rightly, not care much about what I’m saying.
This glut goes a long way toward explaining why people don’t seem to read anything anymore or take the time to engage and understand communication. Remember when email became the way to communicate? And then the corporations discovered this, and the mass e-blast was born. Inboxes were inundated. And now no one reads them. And then the same thing happened with texting. And it shortchanges those who still do spend a lot of time and energy writing a human sermon, composing a human text for weblog or email.
Endless lists, generated in seconds, have no effect. Like a long “terms and conditions.” It may be important or include some important material, but no one reads it. Since there is no human effort behind it, then there is nothing worth appreciating.
While watching that seminar presentation about the use of AI, I couldn’t help but think also how it increases the workload for the few who must sift through it all. Your laptop just generated 1,000 slides. Congratulations! If you intend to digest it all, it means endless work.
Using AI to help us consume the glut also cheapens the effort of the creative producer. For example, I have published books that took me years to write, and a fair number of people have read a fair number of them and benefited from them. They include sustained argument over hundreds of pages, based on many years of research. And, I imagine that AI can sum it all up in a paragraph. Again, it may or may not summarize well. But the consumer of information or student doesn’t even have to crack open the book and survey the table of contents, introduction, conclusion, index—all the little ways people used to access a book on the fly and find what they need.
And the wise readers at least still recognized that they only skimmed, and they might be missing something. AI now enables the illusion that you have understood a work with the “AI Summary.” People will think they are wiser, but all they’re doing is using a book for a bibliographical entry, without understanding any of it deeply.
Conclusion
Perhaps despite how it has sounded, the preceding is not intended to be simply “having a go at AI,” or a screed against technology per se. Let’s return to our main topic: human being in the image of God (imago Dei). Do our habits and practices, whatever they may be, enhance the image of God, enabling growth and formation in that image? Are we growing into the “perfect man, to the measure of the maturity of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13)? Let us ask that about every habit we keep. And let us ask that of every technology we introduce—in this case, AI.
As bearers of the image of God, we are to take care of creation for the sake of its own beauty and for the good of the creature. Human beings should not be treated like machines, nor machines like humans. We are given the privilege of being co-creators in this world. From God we are given natural creativity, reason, language, relationality, a thirst for what is real and true over the fake and false; we cannot outsource those essential aspects of the image of God without diminishing that image in ourselves, and without the utter atrophy of the imago Dei in us.
So here are some concluding questions to consider about any technology:
1. What are the negative consequences? How bad could it get? What could this specific technology look like in the hands of a mad scientist or of a businessman whose bottom line is financial profit? More specifically, what are you losing by using it?
2. Does the technology make you less human? Does it diminish the imago Dei? Does the technology hinder relationship, do your thinking for you, and—if taken to the next level of use and functionality—will it put you out of work?
3. Will it make you wiser and more virtuous? (This is a very different question from, “Will you have more data?”) And how would you know if it’s making you wiser and more virtuous?
4. Does it seem like cheating? Are you cheating—cheating yourself out of rewarding work, and cheating those in relationship with you, who think they’re getting all of you but aren’t? Listen to your gut; follow your conscience. If it seems like cheating, it probably is.
We all use technology. It is inevitable. But it is also okay to opt out of any or all of it. The more you opt out of, the better chance you will have of preserving your humanity.
