A lot of my fellow online English instructors hastened to deliver its message to their students, a good thing as we deal with a trickle-to-deluge of AI-written garbage showing up in our classes.
I plan on sharing it with my students as well, but fear it won't reach those who are tinkering with the technology and "getting away with it."
Those who are leery of AI will read the message and appreicate it.
Those who are on the fence with AI will read the message and hopefully avoid the easy pitfalls AI offers.
Those who are already using AI will read the message and maybe think twice, but I suspect for most of them the intent won't reach the core.
I confess to being a lazy person. But I look at AI and think, no, that's not the solution. The solution, as Elder Bednar reiterates several times in his speech, is work, and while I'm not necessarily a fan, I recognize that's the way to go.
The full text of his speech is here.
The text of the church's guidelines on AI use, which he references, is here.
I very much appreciate Elder Bednar's message. The crux of it is here, where he cautions those using AI to not let it deprive them of their moral agency:
As you strive to learn the gospel of Jesus Christ and perform the work you have to do, I specifically exhort you to be wise in your use of contemporary technological tools. Innovations such as artificial intelligence [can] both (1) assist you in receiving magnificent blessings and (2) diminish and suffocate your moral agency. Please do not allow the supposed accuracy, speed, and ease of modern technologies to entice you to avoid or circumvent the righteous work that invites into your life the blessings you will need. My beloved brothers and sisters, there are no spiritual shortcuts or quick fixes.
He goes on to say this:
Now beware. The ease of use, perceived accuracy, and rapid response time that characterize artificial intelligence can create a potentially beguiling, addictive, and suffocating influence on the exercise of our moral agency. Because AI is cloaked in the credibility and promises of scientific progress, we might naively be seduced into surrendering our precious moral agency to a technology that can only think telestial. By so doing, we may gradually be transformed from agents who can act into objects that are only acted upon. And we may unwittingly help Lucifer to achieve in mortality what he was unable to accomplish in premortality.
Truth is knowledge of things as they really are. Artificial intelligence cannot simulate, imitate, or replace the influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives. No matter how sophisticated and elegant AI technology ultimately may become, it simply can never bear witness of the Father and the Son, reveal the truth of all things, or sanctify those who have repented and been baptized.
I remind myself that all things have a spiritual component, including what we use our brains for and the things we submit as our own in even secular settings such as school and work.
He does not dismiss AI as useless, and even suggests we should not hide from it. There are legitimate uses, but the caution is in letting something else do all the work for us. That takes away our agency, he says, and turns us into things that are acted upon, not something that acts. We should use the talents God has given us. We should develop those talents through righteous work, not through easy shortcuts.
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