WeeklyTech #165

Why do Christians address sexuality and gender issues all the time?

A common refrain among many outside the church is that Christians seem obsessed with talking about sexuality and gender issues. Often, this is mocked or simply dismissed as Christians just seeking to enforce their personal views on other people or to impose our beliefs through government action. Many argue that society would be better off if Christians just kept to themselves and let people have their personal, private fun since it doesn’t hurt anyone. It is thought that the Christian sexual ethic is not only retrograde and backward, but also deeply harmful and inherently hateful since it limits moral autonomy, the golden calf that rules our day. The idea goes that we all must respect one another’s private decisions and honor the autonomy of the individual to decide what is right and good for themselves.

The Rundown

In AI arms race, ethics may be the first casualty by Scott Rosenberg | Axios

As the tech world embraces ChatGPT and other generative AI programs, the industry’s longstanding pledges to deploy AI responsibly could quickly be swamped by beat-the-competition pressures. Once again, tech’s leaders are playing a game of “build fast and ask questions later” with a new technology that’s likely to spark profound changes in society.

On Reading by John V. Fesko

“How can I absorb all of this information?” Another common complaint is, “This book is very hard to understand.” Given these questions, what might a reader do to ensure that she can keep up, retain information, and understand? I often give my students three pieces of counsel regarding reading strategies.

OpenAI releases tool to detect machine-written text by Ina Fried | Axio

ChatGPT creator OpenAI today released a free web-based tool designed to help educators and others figure out if a particular chunk of text was written by a human or a machine. Yes, but: OpenAI cautions the tool is imperfect and performance varies based on how similar the text being analyzed is to the types of writing OpenAI’s tool was trained on.

The race of the AI labs heats up | The Economist

Every so often a technology captures the world’s imagination. The latest example, judging by the chatter in Silicon Valley, on Wall Street, in corner offices, newsrooms and classrooms around the world, is Chatgpt. In five days after its unveiling in November the artificially intelligent chatbot, created by a startup called Openai, drew 1m users, making it one of the fastest consumer-product launches in history.

Savior or Stoics? Why Modern Men Look for Spiritual Wisdom Outside the Church by Shane Morris | TGC

Imagine you see a young relative who doesn’t typically read, and his attention is riveted to a book. He explains it’s a guide to virtuous living, exercising courage, and cultivating temperance, justice, and wisdom. It’s a primer on overcoming obstacles, forgiving wrongs, taking responsibility, and finding meaning in light of his inevitable death.

AI Might Teach, But It Can’t Preach by Russell Moore | Christianity Today

ChatGPT, the eerily accurate artificial intelligence (AI) information-gathering and writing chatbot that launched this past November, is worrying a growing number of people.