AI Can’t Cry (Friend or Foe? Part 2)

Jesus wept. – John 11:35

“What’s for dinner?” asked the chipper voice.

I was startled, and a little uneasy. Was I supposed to be cooking? By the looks of the kitchen, there hadn’t been any meaningful activity going on, and it hadn’t occurred to me that I was supposed to be preparing dinner. I was in the kitchen of my childhood home in St. Louis, and my mother had always been the one spending her afternoons lovingly creating something delicious for the family. I looked up to see who was asking the question and was even more startled and puzzled to see none other than Elon Musk in my home (or whoever’s home this was)! He had a smile, on his face that didn’t fade as he looked around and asked the question a second time.

I looked around and saw no food on the counter. Opening the refrigerator, I observed nothing except a few scraps of dried-up food I couldn’t even identify. Desperate, I looked in the freezer and found a miniscule piece of salmon. Not enough to feed four people, I thought. (I don’t know why I was thinking four, except that’s how many my mother cooked for every night.) I explained to Mr. Musk that this was all I had. I could cook it, and he was welcome to it. I just wouldn’t eat tonight. Showing no disappointment, disapproval, gratitude, or apology, he said with the same cheerful smile that that would be fine. I was embarrassed and still confused – why would the richest man in the world be content to dine in my house and eat up the last scrap of food we had?

While pondering this thought, I clumsily dropped the half-frozen piece of fish on the floor, where it broke into several pieces. I scooped them up and rinsed them off, rendering the serving even smaller than before, but my guest assured me that was fine. Still smiling.

At that moment I got a call, and no sooner had I answered it than I was interrupted with the question, “How soon will dinner be ready?”

“Just a minute, Elon,” I said, and my friend asked Elon who? When I told her who and that he lived in our home now, she gasped. “You sound impressed,” I said. “Don’t be. He’s a jerk.”

I should hastily add here that I don’t think Elon Musk is a jerk. I don’t know the man, so I have no clue what he’s really like. One of the main lessons I learned in my class on dream interpretation is that dreams are symbolic. So whatever Mr. Musk was doing in my dream, he represented something. This morning it didn’t take me long to realize what that something was. As you know if you read my last post, I have been thinking about AI – and technology in general – and how it seems to have taken over the lives of many people, including myself. I have prayed about how to strike a balance, how to have technology without its having me. I need to know how to use technology as a tool, as one of you commented, and not as a master.

So, it’s pretty obvious what this dream was telling me – or what God was telling me through this dream. That technology had, in a sense, moved in and taken over my life, or my mind, anyway. As big and powerful wealthy as it is, it is still happy to take the last scraps of my life, if I am willing to give them up.

I’m not.

This morning, as various pop-ups on my phone were begging for my attention, even as I considered turning on the beautiful AI-generated songs from Psalms to fill my mind with the Scriptures, I walked past the living room and saw my guitar, out of the case, leaning against the chair, quietly inviting me to come play and sing songs – my songs – to the Lord. As dense as I can be sometimes, I do realize that He would rather hear me praise Him with my less-than-perfect voice, playing a real instrument with my arthritic hands that sometimes miss notes, than He would enjoy an AI song created with a few clicks.

I accepted the invitation, sat down and sang the song that was playing in my head. My voice wasn’t perfect, but I was surprised as how strong it was – and before my first cup of coffee!

“Worthy is the Lamb, seated on the throne …” *

As I sang, something was filling an empty space in me, and when I finished the song, I felt something tickling my face.

A tear. An offering to my God, who doesn’t demand perfection, because He knows we could never achieve it.

We are flawed, selfish, ignorant, sinful people, and yet He loves us! Loved us enough to die for us! If we believe and accept that His death on the Cross paid for our sins – and blunders and flaws and weaknesses – someday we will be as perfect as that AI recording, only more. Because only people were created in God’s image, complete with the capacity to love, to will, to worship. And to cry.

Prayer: Dear Creator, we acknowledge that we could never be perfect, and yet we keep striving to improve our performance to impress one another, to achieve wealth or fame or power, even to impress You. But You only ask one thing from us – ourselves, as we are, surrendered to You. Only You can make us perfect, and You promise that someday we will be. Meanwhile, help us to resist the pull of the world to spend our time, resources, and devotion to serving anyone or anything other than You. In Jesus’ name, amen.

*”Worthy is the Lamb” c 2000 Darlene Zschech/Hillsong Publishing