While news of Donald Trump’s impending arrest dominated headlines earlier this week, the former president remains a free man as of this writing. That reality might come as a surprise, however, for the millions of people who’ve already seen pictures of him thrown to the ground and dragged off by police.

It turns out, those “deepfake” pictures that went viral across social media were the work of an AI art generator following the suggestions of Eliot Higgins, the founder of an open-source investigative outlet called Bellingcat.

As Higgins described, “I was just mucking about. I thought maybe five people would retweet it.” More than 5.5 million views later—not counting all those who have shared the images across other platforms—it’s safe to say that the images have surpassed his initial expectations. And while the original post included the caption “Making pictures of Trump getting arrested while waiting for Trump’s arrest” to clarify that the images were fake, that disclaimer was quickly lost as the pictures spread.

Senator Mark Warner (D-Va.) noted that “while it took a few years for the capabilities to catch up, we’re now at a point where these tools are widely available and incredibly capable.” And the more famous the person at the focus of the art, the more realistic the images become since the AI gets better at portraying someone the more often it attempts to do so.

Sam Gregory, the executive director of the human rights organization Witness, warns that a time could be fast approaching when realistic but false images made for fun are the least of our concerns: “There’s been a giant step forward in the ability to create fake but believable images in volume. And it’s easy to see how this could be done in a coordinated way with an intent to deceive. . . . The aim may not be to convince people that a certain event happened but to convince people that they can’t trust anything and to undermine trust in all images.”

However, if that outcome were to become a reality, it would not necessarily be the fault of the AI but rather of the people who use it. And we don’t have to look far to see how those decisions are already yielding potentially devastating consequences.

Ten minutes to guns loaded

In a recent study by the group EKO, researchers set up nine new TikTok accounts (PDF), each with a birthday portraying the account holder as a thirteen-year-old, the youngest a user can be to set up an account with the service. Their goal was to see how easy it would be for a child to find explicit videos related to suicide, incel and “manosphere,” and drugs.

After establishing accounts to focus on each of those subjects, they liked and bookmarked—but did not share or comment on—ten videos related to one of those topics. That sample proved sufficient for TikTok’s algorithm to flood their For You Page with videos that promoted increasingly explicit content related to their search.

The results on suicide were particularly troubling.

As the researchers relate, it only took ten minutes of basic viewing for TikTok to begin recommending videos “with guns being loaded and text suggesting suicide, alongside hundreds of comments in agreement and some listing exact dates to self-harm or attempt suicide. Beyond videos explicitly pushing suicide, TikTok’s For You Page was filled with videos promoting content that pushes despondent and hopeless commentary.”

The study’s authors caution that “looking at these videos in isolation might not raise concern. . . . [but] the algorithm seemed to be chasing our researcher with content to keep them on the platform. In this case, the content fed by TikTok’s algorithm was overwhelmingly depressing, nihilistic and otherwise hopeless.” They go on to describe how “even employees at TikTok have been disturbed by the app’s push towards depressive content, that could include self-harm.”

And these issues are hardly limited to TikTok. Most social media platforms have AI-driven algorithms designed to promote increasingly engaging content in whatever areas a user shows interest.

The true problem with AI

It would be easy to look at the findings in the EKO survey or the chaos created by the fake images of Donald Trump’s arrest and conclude that the problem is the technology.

We must remember, however, that AI is not inherently evil. After all, if you go looking for funny animal videos, cooking tips, or sports highlights, it can fill your feed with content that brings happiness and laughter. But if you go with a darker purpose in mind, it can easily exacerbate those intentions as well. And those darker intentions have been around since humanity first left Eden.

Ultimately, the problem with AI is the degree to which it makes feeding our sinful impulses so much simpler. And it can do so in a way that is so subtle that we hardly even notice it’s happening. Again, though, the foundational problem is and always will be our sin.

We can get mad at TikTok or other forms of social media—and such anger or hesitance is by no means unwarranted—but even if they went away tomorrow we would still create new ways to satisfy those same desires.

At the end of the day, people just need Jesus. And as clichéd or preachy as that may sound, it’s the truth.

So be mindful of the power wielded by social media and the artificial intelligence baked into its algorithms, but don’t forget that you are ultimately responsible for its influence in your life. And be sure that when it comes to evaluating that influence, you remember to include God in the conversation.

He is the only One who can save us from the sin that resides at the heart of these problems, both eternally and in the present moment.

Will you seek his help today?

Denison Forum

On a morning when the news is dominated by the Federal Reserve attempting to control the economy and the grand jury investigating Donald Trump, I wanted to focus on something more transcendent. To do so, however, I have to begin with the temporal. Actress Gwyneth Paltrow’s trial over a 2016 ski accident got underway this week. The actress is being sued by a man who alleges that she injured him after she crashed into him on a ski slope and sped off. Paltrow countersued, claiming that the man crashed into her.

More than forty-eight thousand jury trials occur every year in the US, which works out to 192 per weekday. This, however, is the only one of which I am aware that is being streamed, pointing to the power of celebrity in our culture.

In other news, Joe Exotic of Tiger King fame has announced that he is running for president. However, he is serving twenty-one years in prison for his role in a murder-for-hire plot. But once again, we see the power of celebrity to make news.

And Blake Shelton made headlines when he recruited his final contestant on The Voice this week. Shelton has announced his retirement from the singing competition. It is estimated that ten thousand people in the US reach the retirement age of sixty-five every day, but Shelton is the only “retiree” I have seen in the news today.

Beware “Celebrity Worship Syndrome”

One obvious reason Americans are so interested in celebrities is that the media makes them so ubiquitous. It’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario: people get famous, which gets them in the news, which increases their fame, which makes them more newsworthy.

A second is that many people live vicariously through the celebrities they follow. When I watch the Masters next month, I will be imagining myself playing on the most famous golf course in the world. When we read about Warren Buffett’s billions, we imagine ourselves with such wealth. Celebrities are famous because their followers want to be like them.

This phenomenon has become so pronounced in recent years that psychologists have coined the name “Celebrity Worship Syndrome” (CWS). They warn that “CWS is an obsessive addictive disorder in which a person becomes involved with the details of a celebrity’s personal life.”

Celebrity obsession is especially alluring for people going through difficult times or young people who are still establishing their identities. One psychologist said, “In our society, celebrities act like a drug. They’re around us everywhere. They’re an easy fix.”

This addiction can lead to compulsive buying and other behaviors by which people try to emulate the celebrities they “worship.” Others use social media platforms to seek celebrity for its own sake rather than learning and using skills that contribute to society.

“You cannot see something that is above you”

This quest for celebrity speaks to something even deeper: there is hunger in each of us for significance that transcends the moment. We want to live beyond ourselves. We want to believe when our lives are over that they mattered, that we made a difference, that what we did was worth doing.

This is one way we deal with the reality of death: if we believe others will remember us, we will “live on” in a sense. But even more, this quest for enduring significance is a God-shaped hunger for living eternally in the temporal. It is a “signal of transcendence” pointing from this life to the next.

Here’s the problem: the quest for celebrity can leave us either frustrated that we are not who we wish to be or proud that we are.

A psychologist notes: “If you look at the Halls of Fame and biographies around the world, there are perhaps only thirty thousand entries and of those, perhaps ten thousand are dead. So this leaves about twenty thousand slots” for fame seekers. How many US presidents can you name? CEOs? Movie stars? Great athletes? Out of a world population of 7.8 billion, how many would you call “great” today?

If you do achieve celebrity that outlives you, beware of the pride that so often accompanies such fame. C. S. Lewis observed, “As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.”

“Jesus came to give us his own life”

The most transcendent celebrity who ever lived was a man who lived in the most humble of ways. If you and I will follow Jesus’ example by focusing on the eternal in the temporal and seeking intimacy with our living Lord, we will experience and reflect his life to a culture in desperate need for what he alone can give.

He testified: “Whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do” (John 14:12). This is because the same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus now empowers us. He manifests the same “fruit” in our lives that he demonstrated in our Savior’s life (Galatians 5:22–23). And every day, by focusing on Jesus, we experience eternal significance that our world cannot begin to bestow or take.

As usual, Henri Nouwen makes my point better than I can: “Our lives are destined to become like the life of Jesus. The whole purpose of Jesus’ ministry is to bring us to the house of his Father. Not only did Jesus come to free us from the bonds of sin and death; he also came to lead us into the intimacy of his divine life.

“It is difficult for us to imagine what this means. We tend to emphasize the distance between Jesus and ourselves. We see Jesus as the all-knowing and all-powerful Son of God who is unreachable for us sinful, broken human beings. But in thinking this way, we forget that Jesus came to give us his own life. He came to lift us up into loving community with the Father.

“Only when we recognize the radical purpose of Jesus’ ministry will we be able to understand the meaning of the spiritual life. Everything that belongs to Jesus is given for us to receive. All that Jesus does we may also do.”

Are you seeking “the intimacy of his divine life” today?

Denison Forum

Jesus Revolution, a movie about a spiritual awakening in California in the early 1970s, is nearing $46 million in box office ticket sales as of this morning. In so doing, it has matched or surpassed The Fabelmans, The Banshees of Inisherin, Tár, Women Talking, and Triangle of Sadness, combined. (For more on Jesus Revolution, see our review, as well as our interview with director Jon Erwin in The Denison Forum Podcast.)

Why is the movie striking such a chord with so many millions of people?

Rev. Greg Laurie, a California pastor and central figure in the movie, writes: “We were created to worship. And when you get down to it, every person on Earth does worship. We don’t all worship the God of heaven, but we all worship someone or something. It may be a sports figure, an entertainer, or someone else. It may be a possession. But everyone bows at some kind of altar.”

The pastor continues: “Even atheists worship. Skeptics worship. Republicans and Democrats worship. Independents worship. Everyone, everywhere, worships. It’s the fundamental drive of life and one of the unique distinctions of humanity.”

This is because, as Rev. Laurie notes, “God has placed eternity in the human heart (see Ecclesiastes 3:11).”

Every person you know is looking for God in some way. Every person, whatever their public or private stance on faith and religion, is made by God for God. This is a fact beyond their control. It is a reality St. Augustine famously voiced sixteen centuries ago: “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you” (Confessions 1.1.1).

As a result, no matter how dark the days seem to be, you and I should have an “abundance mentality” that expects the King of the universe to use us in making a transforming difference in our lost world. As we will see today, it is always too soon to give up on God.

“No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars”

Evidence that biblical morality is best for us continues to grow. For example, the Wall Street Journal headlines, “For Long-Term Health and Happiness, Marriage Still Matters.” By contrast, studies have clearly linked premarital sex to divorce.

While our secularized culture conflates success with happiness, another Wall Street Journal article reports the opposite: “We’re all sprinting on what psychologists call a hedonic treadmill. That is, we might get a hit of joy when we achieve something, but we eventually return to our baseline level of happiness (or unhappiness). Whatever heights we reach, we’re still, well, us.”

This is because we are fallen people living in a fallen world.

The annual “Stress in America Survey” reports that stress is “rising rapidly” as a result of escalating inflation, concerns about possible Russian cyberattacks or nuclear threats, fears that a World War III could break out, and worries about money and the economy. Unsurprisingly, 90 percent of US adults say the United States is experiencing a mental health crisis.

The depressing news cycle exacerbates our angst. Bad news generates more interest than good news, contributing to a “negativity bias” that conditions us to pessimism about the world around us. As the axiom goes, “A pessimist is never disappointed.”

However, as Helen Keller noted, “No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway for the human spirit.” Winston Churchill added, “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.”

Who was the first named disciple of Jesus?

If I asked you to name the first named disciple of Jesus, whom would you nominate? Peter, the preacher of Pentecost? John, the “beloved disciple”? James, or Matthew, or Thomas? The answer is Andrew (John 1:40; John is the other disciple in the narrative, but he does not name himself).

As soon as he began following Jesus, what did Andrew do? “He first found his own brother Simon and said to him, ‘We have found the Messiah’ (which means Christ). He brought him to Jesus” (vv. 41–42), thereby becoming the first evangelist in Christian history. Andrew later brought some Greek inquirers to Jesus (John 12:20–22), thereby becoming the first cross-cultural missionary in Christian history. He went on to plant churches across modern-day Ukraine, Romania, and Russia, making him the patron saint of all three nations and the 140 million Christians who are his spiritual descendants.

Andrew was ultimately crucified for his Lord. However, according to reliable early tradition, he testified that he was not worthy to die in the same manner as did his Lord, so he was crucified on an X-shaped cross that is known today as “St. Andrew’s Cross.”

But there was a time when Andrew was not so heroic. When five thousand families were following Jesus, he asked his disciples, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” (John 6:5). Andrew responded: “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” (John 6:9). Jesus then turned that small boy’s tiny lunch into a feast for the multitude.

“What are they for so many?”

Andrew’s question is our question. We read of rising animosity against our Father and our faith, then we look at our capacities and ask, “What are they for so many?” We look at the spiritual, financial, and material needs of our day, then turn to our resources and ask the same question.

In response, consider the counsel of Pope St. Leo the Great (died AD 461): “Do not be put off by a lack of resources. A generous spirit is itself of great wealth, and there can be no shortage of material for generosity where it is Christ who feeds and Christ who is fed. His hand is present in all this activity: his hand, which multiplies the bread by breaking it and increases it by giving it away.”

Will you put your “lunch” in his hands today?

Denison Forum