Nashville-based pastor and author Russ Ramsey refuses to use artificial intelligence (AI) to help him with his work. He told CBN’s Faith vs. Culture program that he has serious concerns over the prevalence of AI, especially as it pertains to artistic expression.
“I’ve avoided AI in every way, shape, or form. Because I’m a writer, I don’t ever want to not be the one who’s writing the words that I use, even if they’re not as precise or tight as an AI generator might make a paragraph,” he declared, adding that the crux of his concern is that AI “doesn’t have a soul.”
CBN’s Faithwire website writes that: “Pastor Ramsey’s argument is rich in Biblical truth. While Scripture isn’t perfectly clear about the parameters of the soul, the Bible’s writers, each of whom were inspired by God (2 Timothy 3:16-17), are unambiguous in their acknowledgment that — as beings made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) — humans are firstly souls, and secondarily bodies. In Acts 2:41, for example, the Apostle Luke referred to human beings who received salvation as souls.”
“Part of what makes so much of the art that we go to visit in museums so powerful is that it’s made from someone with a soul and somebody who has experienced suffering. AI doesn’t know what suffering is and AI doesn’t have a soul,” the pastor explained.
“So technically — and even creatively — we can see things we never would have imagined seeing before, but it’s not coming from someone who’s wept. It’s not coming from someone who’s buried a loved one. It’s not coming from somebody who’s been caught in sin and had to repent. And, in that sense, my concern is that, culturally, we’re moving to a place where we’re trying to normalise avoiding those parts of the human experience that really are integral to spiritual growth,” he observed.
Russ Ramsey is the author of six books with a passion for uniting his love of art history with his faith. Titles include Rembrandt is in the Wind: Learning to Love Art through the Eyes of Faith; Van Gogh Has a Broken Heart: What Art Teaches Us About the Wonder and Struggle of Being Alive; and Behold the King of Glory for which he received the 2016 Christian Book Award for New Author.
