AI.

Deep fakes.

Generated images.

Tools that can cause deception. 

AI has surged and is getting a lot of attention. From deep learning, to AI playgrounds and accessible cloud platforms, anyone who is willing to get their hands on it can create the next best thing. 

The question is – what’s real and what’s fake?

I can’t scroll my social media without seeing AI generated videos, fake headlines and more. I have to scrutinize the details to check for flaws because the majority of these generated videos look real. Beyond social media, there are real lives being impacted by AI generated scams, impersonation, fake audios, emotional manipulation and social engineering tactics.

The question is – how can I know what’s fake?

It reminds me of 1 John 4:1, which tells us to test the spirit to know its true nature. This verse advises against uncritically accepting every claim of spiritual inspiration and instead calls for discernment. Certainly now more than ever we need a discerning spirit to sort through the deceptions of life. 

To spot malicious AI, you can test it by looking for oddities, misalignment, blurry features, illogical or distorted backgrounds, misplaced or nonsensical text. Similarly, we don’t adopt every spiritual claim, we test it by lining it up with God’s word and looking for a match and we look for the qualities of God, such as loving one another.

In the context of the prophets, Matthew 7:15 says to be aware of those who come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. Title or no title, we apply this discernment to people who call themselves speaking biblical truths. People can spark inspiration by being loud, they can dazzle you with rhetoric disguised as healthy conversations and might even make you feel like an outlier for not agreeing with their pushy agenda. These are the times to discern words versus actions and performance versus produced spiritual fruit. Let’s not just cry, “Lord, Lord” in public but not live it consistently, let’s not be selective in our operations and most importantly our words and lives must align with God.

By these things, we know who and what is real. 

Lord, my prayer is that the people that call on your holy name and identify as your followers, would be authentic and mindful of how they are portraying You. Let us not blemish your Name or living word or cause others to question our authenticity in Christ. We need real followers and doers of your word in this dying world. 

The Bible has many verses on discernment, the ability to distinguish between good and evil, truth and error, and between human wisdom and God’s will. I believe this new AI surge is a practical application of applying spiritual truths to everyday life to sort the real from fake. 

See you next week!