A very useful tool for ministers and Bible teachers is now freely available to all. Here is a simple, but fun demonstration.
Launched in November 2022, Chat GPT is an AI-based natural language model, allowing the user to input questions or make requests and receive a conversational response. Think of it as a form of google providing a direct answer rather than a list of possible websites. Chat GPT can reply to almost any request in a conversational manner, but it can also be directed to tailor its response as a poem, a haiku, or even in the style of a famous or important historical person. We are going to have some fun with that.
It is important to realize that the output from Chat GPT is only as good as the inputs upon which it has been trained. Chat GPT can give a wrong or highly misleading response to any given question or request. It has all the weaknesses of human-based web search but is much faster and will provide a direct reply. For ministers, though, I would recommend that all content should at least be run through Chat GPT. Someone listening to your message will almost certainly have in the back of their mind at least some of the details that Chat GPT may bring up.
The question that I wish to examine with Chat GPT is one that has been discussed across Christian denominations for well over a millennium. I will not state my view but it may eventually become obvious from what I pose to Chat GPT. And this is a very important point to note. Chat GPT is the ultimate "leading question" engine and can easily be used as a confirmational bias tool. Answers that do not sit well with the preconceived views of the user will be discarded, and the question will be revised until the user finally gets the answer that they want. So let's have some fun.
The question I am attempting to address through Chat GPT is the following.
Is baptism a gift or a command?
But let's get creative with how we approach this question with Chat GPT. The below was my first request from Chat GPT after opening my free account.
This was its response:
Now I have to say I was more than impressed with my first foray into this AI-generated text engine. But I wanted to press further.
This was its response:
To say I couldn't believe would be my biggest understatement of the year. (Though, to be fair, it is still only January 2023.) The poem that Chat GPT pulled from thin air is "mount on my wall" quality in my opinion. I consider myself a closet writer, and I highly doubt that even in a month I could have come up with anything nearly as good.
But if Chat GPT spoke like Martin Luther King, what would the response look like?
And this is how Chat GPT responded.
And if we posed the same question to Donald Trump?
Now, I'm sure you can see the endless possibilities with Chat GPT. At the very least, Chat GPT is an excellent supplemental resource to get started with a question, validate your own view, or gain insight into alternate views. The final question I asked from Chat GPT on this topic was:
And Chat GPT gave this reply.
If you wish to play around some yourself with Chat GPT, the direct link is: