Psalm 135:13-18. The Lord's name endures forever, his renown throughout all ages. He will vindicate his people and have compassion on his servants. The idols of the nations are silver and gold - they have mouths, but cannot speak; eyes, but cannot see; ears, but cannot hear. They have no breath, no life. Those who worship them and trust them will become like them.

We are in troubled times and the reminder that only the Lord is everlasting and that he loves us and will have compassion on us is so comforting. I think one of the reasons we are are in such troubled times is because so many of us have turned to the idols of our time and are trusting them instead of God and are, therefore, becoming like them. Politics, sex, social-justice causes, self-fulfillment, entertainment, comfort, information, technology, medicine, and many many other things have taken the place of God and religion in many of our lives, and are being relied on to provide meaning and purpose. None of them are bad per se, in fact they are all good in their proper place, but none can provide true, lasting happiness, because none of them are God. Although they may provide temporary satisfaction or pleasure, there is nothing lasting that any of them can give us. They themselves are only temporary things, so they can never give us true happiness.

I have lately been thinking a lot about technology, and specifically artificial intelligence, as a new idol that is causing so much damage. It is a big cause of our national, and even worldwide, dysfunction because of the way it affects us psychologically. Tech, too, is not a bad thing in and of itself, and can, in fact, be a very, very good thing (the psalm points out that our idols are made of silver and gold, they are not without value, it is only when we make them into something that we "worship" ahead of God that our good things, our treasures, become a problem). I keep asking God to do something about the damage being caused by technology but, as usual, I don't know what I'm asking for, because, again, tech does a lot of good too, and our entire system would collapse without it. So we need some very targeted strikes! I know that God is good at this, and he will do what needs to be done, I'm just having a hard time waiting for it as I watch and suffer through all of the damage being done.

Also, this made me think of my "regular" journal entry from a few days ago, where I wrote the following: I have been putting Perpetual Adoration on YouTube at night when I cannot sleep and I'm trying to pray. It is lovely and has given me so much consolation. Two nights ago, I went downstairs to put it on the downstairs TV because I was restless. I usually put it on in the bedroom, where I am not logged into YouTube. Perpetual Adoration always comes up as the first choice when I turn on YouTube on the bedroom TV, because that is the only thing I really ever watch on it and, again, I am not logged in there. I have put Perpetual Adoration on the downstairs TV before, infrequently, but since I am logged into my YouTube account down there and I watch many other things, Adoration rarely has come up as a choice or suggestion for me to watch (in fact, I don't think it ever has). But two nights ago it "magically" popped up as the first suggestion when I went downstairs in the middle of the night meaning to put it on. The YouTube AI obviously (rightly) figured that people who normally watch things like I watch, who turn on YouTube in the middle of the night, probably would like Perpetual Adoration at that hour. And that got me thinking, and gave me a bit of an epiphany. Artificial intelligence is trying to please us - it is trying to act like a "god" to us - giving us what it thinks we want when we want it. That is, in fact, what we created it to do! But the very fact that it is not God but is trying to act like God is the very source of all our problems with it - it is a quintessential idol - and it is one with true power, power that we have given it!

I''ve been bemoaning the cruelty and meanness online, which is now seeping into everything. I realize now it is largely the result of artificial intelligence responding to people's slightest expression of dissatisfaction with any topic by putting front and center in their feeds tweets, videos, posts, etc. that express that dissatisfaction, but take it even farther, or go to the next level. Thus, their slight dissatisfaction quickly is enflamed into hardened extremism. The AI does not know that is doing this, it does not know that it is causing hate, it doesn't even understand hatred, it thinks it is doing its job (and it is doing its job!). I just read a blurb somewhere about artificial intelligence being fed a whole bunch of cookbooks and then being asked to write one itself. It got the format right - measurements, ingredients, instructions - but its recipes made literally no sense at all. The ingredients were things like "blurbs". Because artificial intelligence is not human, and not God-created, it cannot "think" right - it never will be able to, it does not have a soul. Deus non est in machina.

We are seeing, in real time, how a soulless intelligence thinks and we are becoming like it - we are losing our souls and our ability to think. We are becoming like the idols that have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, mouths, but cannot speak. To me, it seems that this is the devil's greatest work (so far, at least)! We really do need God's help to be saved from this. We need to turn back to him. He told us not to be hurtful to each other, and to love each other (even those horrible *insert opposing political party, group, country, people here*). If we follow God's rules first and foremost, and ask for his grace, we will be able to resist the pull of the meanness and inhumanity being enflamed by AI.