A Forgotten Art
Friday (December 26)
A Forgotten Art
Psalm 137:4-6
How shall we sing the LORD’s song in a foreign land? If I forget you, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget its skill! Let my tongue stick to the roof of my mouth.
I’m about to turn forty in a couple of months and I already feel ancient when I look around at the way A.I. is eroding the human element of humanity. When I was in high school, I had to read Shakespeare and write summary essays in my English Literature class. But a college student from NC State just told me that her English professor, on the first day of class, gave the students permission to use ChatGPT when writing their essays. Of course, A.I. provides us with enormous benefits, but the more it eradicates our labor, the more it causes our right hand to forget its skill and our tongue to stick in the roof of our mouths, in so far as we let it do and speak for us, it does great harm. For another example, I’ve been working tirelessly on a new album over the past month with a buddy of mine who recently left his job to do studio work full-time, and it has been a costly but rewarding endeavor, but during the process, a guy at church came up to me and said something to the effect of, “Seth, you’ve got to check out my new music I’ve been putting out!” I said, “Oh, you’re a musician?” He replied, “Not in the slightest; but I’ll put a few lines or ideas into my chat bot and tell it what style of music I want, and it churns out incredible songs.” Well, that church brother thought he was talking shop with me about musical production, and he thought we were doing the same thing, but we weren’t. Only the human labor is art. The computer-generated one is something else entirely.
Christian, never forget that Almighty God incarnated into our human condition and human struggle and human labor to accomplish the greatest work of all time! Never forget that God fashioned you from dust and formed your hands and your feet and your vocal cords, so that you could plant a tree or bake a meal or write a sentence for His glory. So don’t forego the work in your worship.