As I write, my 14-year-old son is in the next room playing “Blackbird” by The Beatles on guitar. His teenage voice cracks a little, and he fumbles through some parts, but he is learning how to use his fingers and his voice in a way that beckons out from his soul a new depth that comes with adolescence. It’s a sweet little backdrop as I write this; perhaps my readers can keep this backdrop in mind as they read on.
I don’t know about you, but I’m getting bored with all of the doomsday talk of artificial intelligence (AI). Is it the end of things? Maybe. Is it just another leap in the advancement of technology, such as the plow, steam engine, or telephone, and life won’t ever be the same, but we all need to CHILL because this is the way of things? Also maybe, but I think most of us feel it’s a lot heavier than that.
What advice can we offer our youth in such a landscape? “The trades! Go into the trades!”
But wait, even the trades might be taken over by robots.
Really, none of us know what will become of things, and it’s impossible to be truly prepared. I do know this: Stressing about our doom is not the way that I want to spend my precious years on earth, or how I want my children to, either. I want to live, and I want them to live, and I want to figure out—and keep figuring out—how to make our lives beautiful and worth living.
This summer, I was a guest at a stunning cowboy ranch in Cody, Wyoming. On our final evening, we were treated to an elegant multicourse dinner, prepared and served by the hardworking staff. At the end of the meal, our host toasted the chefs, remarking that their art was a particular gift because it was so fleeting.
He then shared the story of a boy in school who was instructed by his teacher to write a poem and really put his heart into it. The boy spent hours composing and was at last invited to read the poem aloud to the class.
After he finished, the teacher took the poem from his hand and in front of everyone, tore it up and threw it away, saying: “That, dear boy, was a wonderful poem, thank you for sharing it. But I throw it out so that you may always remember to find joy not in the keeping, but find joy in the doing.”
I particularly like this story because I’m a songwriter. So is my husband. With our eldest four in college, we now find ourselves in a family of songwriters as our teenagers and college kids take up the craft. We shyly share songs with one another and give feedback. We sing each other’s songs around the house because they run through our heads and we like them. I know it’s a unique family culture, but what I love most about it is that none of us is trying to chase fame or write the next hit song or get discovered. We just like doing it and know it’s worth doing.
Through the years, we’ve had lively conversations about the purpose of music: how it changed from small-time folk songs and ballads that were passed down through generations into a high stakes competition fueled by the recording industry, American Idol, and Hollywood, with one real goal—to win.
Somehow, in a few short decades the cultural purpose of most American music became a sad trajectory: to be discovered, then famous, then rich; then to become an addict of some sort, then a wash-up; and then, finally, to die depressed or from an overdose.
AI changes this dramatically, because no one can write a pop hit, a moving film score, or a baroque masterpiece the way AI can in 45 seconds.
Of course, the technology is both astounding and frightening, but what AI can’t replace for me—or for any of us—is the underrated joy of doing.
We’ve all heard the quote, attributed to G.K. Chesterton, “If a thing’s worth doing, it’s worth doing badly.” The first time I heard an AI-generated song, I thought, “Is creativity dead!?” But after pondering it further, I started getting excited, wondering if maybe this will bring music back to what it’s meant to be: something to be shared with those you love, something to do—not in order to be the best at it, but in order to be an embodied human and to let the joy and the ache find a way out of your heart.
This fall, Humanality is launching “Villages,” or small communities of families, friends, churches, or schools who want to journey together in exploring not only The Why (that our phone addictions are bad for us; I think most of us know that), but also The How (how to rightly use technology instead of letting it use us, and how to reclaim the beautiful incarnate lives for which we were made).
Villages can be as small as two people or as large as you want. The important part is not going at it alone. They meet regularly to watch engaging curriculum and dialogue together. Next, Villages take on group challenges such as hosting cooking competitions, dance parties, or stargazing nights, and individual challenges such as taking only one photo a day (not of yourself) or keeping your phone out of your bedroom. There’s even a fun water bottle with stickers that act like scout badges when challenges are completed.
Why do we reach for these devices more than we ought to? Yes, the dopamine, but I believe that it’s deeper than that. I believe that it comes from a desire to distract ourselves from our restless hearts, and an even deeper desire for community, connection, and simply put, love.
The lasting solution to combating tech addictions (and any addiction) isn’t just to white-knuckle it alone, but to fill the void with real-life experiences and real relationships with real people. Cultural change is done only through subcultural change. The only way that any of us can truly change the world is by changing our own micro-worlds, starting first with ourselves and the influence that we have on the people closest to us.
Maybe AI could have written a better op-ed piece, but it couldn’t have replaced the enjoyment I found in writing one, and I thank my readers for their precious time.
None of us can control the future of AI and the devastating effects it may have on humanity. But we can spend our time here fighting to live each day with purpose and meaning, drinking deeply of life in all of its seasons, teaching the next generation how to smell a trick and turn their nose up to it, and with wonder, leaning into our sacred humanity ... exploring with feeble minds and longing hearts just what it is to have been made in the image and likeness of God.
Maybe, just maybe, this can be our moment to reclaim and rediscover that.
As Beatle Paul McCartney wrote, “... all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to be free.”