The Eric Metaxas Show - Jason Thacker

Episode Date: May 4, 2020

If you want to know what will happen down the road when artificial intelligence gains more of a foothold in society, researcher Jason Thacker will give you a head's up from his book, "The Age of A.I."

But Texas show. It's the show that helps you make sense of things that would otherwise baffle you. Like, for example, why does that one shoe hide in the back of the closet like that? Is it afraid of you? Or does it just need some alone time? Or maybe it's ashamed of something, something terrible that only a shoe would be ashamed of? The answers to these and other questions right here, right now on the Eric Mataxis show. And now your host, Eric Mataxis.

Hey, folks, this is what we like to call Hour 2 on the Eric Mataxis show. I don't know why we call it Hour 2. But let me say this. We still have. With us now, Dave Rubin, who's got a new book out called Don't Burn This Book. Dave Rubin, welcome back. Mataxis, I just want to say two things. First off, great last name.

What a power name right there. Metaxus. It's incredible. That's number one. And number two, I've been doing a lot of radio, a lot of YouTube stuff, a lot of talking. Your radio voice, your inflection and intonation. On point, my friend. I have no idea what you're talking about.

But thank you so much. I just made up those words. Wasn't that impressive? You know, it was impressive. And you know what? Your inflection, when you said the word inflection, that's the way I think that they teach you to say it. I mean, if you really care about how to pronounce the word inflection. Can we talk about Sufi Sales?

Let's. No, let's not. Okay. But let's talk about your book. Don't burn this book. In case we didn't make it clear, in case people are just tuning in, why is the title, don't burn this book? Because there's common sense. and we live in a time when common sense is uncommon.

And the amount of hate that I'm getting right now for laying out these very simple principles, principles like individual rights, that we should all be treated equally under the law, regardless of our sexual orientation or our gender or our skin color or religion, somehow that is actually thought of as dangerous these days to the set of people who believe that groups should have rights.

And certain people based on skin color or gender or these other things should have, different rights or different advantages or disadvantages. I believe that's antithetical to the true American dream. And what I want to do is I want to free people. And by freeing people, all you can do is give them a chance. It doesn't mean some people didn't come for more money. It doesn't mean that some people aren't physically gifted more or will be more lucky or can make more luck or the series of other things that make up the, I know you're going to love this word, the gestalt of life. That's the chance you have in life. But all a government can do is say,

hey, you're all equal, have at it, or at least a good government. I'm trying to bring the word Gestalt back, so thank you for helping me. I thought that was going to be the one. I've got one more good word for you before we finish. There are a lot of words I'm trying to get rid of. There's a lot of things that, I mean, I'm a writer mainly, you know, I was an English major and stuff, so words matter to me. And there's certain words, you know, there are usually new words that I just,

I loat. And I just thank you for bringing back a good word gestalt. It's a very 60s word, gestalt. Would you say that you love America? It seems to me that you certainly love American principles. You do love America because I love America. That the left says patriotism is jingoism, is nationalism, is fascism. Where do you differ?

Well, first of off, that's absolutely insane. The experiment of the United States, which is all that this thing is, could there be a place on Earth where people from every walk of life, from every corner of the planet, with all of their traditions, with all of their foods and their religious backgrounds and all of those things, could they come to some place and all bring all of that stuff, not have to give it up, yet fold into a tapestry, the melting pot, of something that is much greater, that defends something much greater,

which is individual rights. We've done it. And right now, for people that will scream that the man in charge of the country is Hitler and half the country is Nazis, which of course is patently absurd, they still all want to come here. And nobody leaves. You know who wants to leave America right now? Billionaires. That's it. Nobody else wants to leave. Why is it that none of the celebrities who said they were going to leave when Trump got inaugurated left? Of course, Deborah Messing is still here. Lena Dunham is still here. Kathy Griffin is still here. I don't know why they're here. Why aren't they going to Sweden? Everyone says Sweden is so wonderful. I mean, get going. So yes, I not only love this country, I, I think right now we are in a uniquely precarious position that the things that we care about that we've been talking about, they are feeling sort of soft right now, that maybe our success has softened us.

Oh, there's no question. I mean, there is no question because we've not suffered. We don't really know what it is that we have so that we don't love it and appreciate it and protect it and fight for it. And free speech is one of them. I talk a lot about what's essentially the same thing in a different way. is religious liberty. I mean, the idea we've had so much of it in America that we hardly know what it is. And when it's threatened, when people try to bully us and say, you can't say this, you can't say that. We don't really have the language to fight back

because it's like, you know, the fish who's in water. He doesn't know anything else. It's the medium in which we've lived. But I do think that thanks to voices like yours, some people are waking up. But when Twitter can ban Candace Owens, as it did two days ago. I just have to tell you, I'm, I am still concerned. I'm concerned when people stay off beaches and places like California. I mean, this is madness. You understand. I am more concerned

now than I've ever been. Now, you know what it takes to write a book. I finish writing this book in July. So it's not as if Corona was happening when I wrote the book, but the things that I write about about individual rights, states rights. We're finally talking about states rights in America right now. You can go to libertarian conferences and they'll talk about states rights, but finally, mainstream in America, is actually saying what is the duty of the individual states. That's actually a beautiful thing. And that's, by the way, federalism. I mean, this is how we were supposed to be governed.

But as for Candace and big tech, I would say that the algorithm is FACTA. How about that, Metaxis? This is a family show. You cannot use that word. What is wrong with you, people? We've got a FACTA algorithm. I'm schvitzing, just hearing that word. No, I've got to tell you something.

I've gotten to know Peter Thiel, you know, And I have really pushed him on this publicly and the Socrates and the city conversation that I had with him. But I mean, when you have this happening, people need to do something because this is dangerous. And there's people who remember or at least conversant in how Hitler really rose to power and how those things can happen to civilized cultures need to understand that what you talk about is very serious. People need to lay it on the line and people need to say the things that they're not supposed to. to say because it's a free country. Are you doing any traveling during this travel ban? Well, I did walk my dog this morning and we went as far as three blocks away. So that was very exciting. I haven't jumped in a plane or anything like that. I am getting to the point now

where I'm feeling we need to start moving, like a road trip, go somewhere for the weekend or something. This does not feel right to me anymore. I think people should just ignore this stuff and just do what they want and say, well, you arrest me. Like, you can't arrest people if everybody's doing it. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, look, how did the Nazis come to power? Partly they came to power by acquiescence of good people. It's not that everyone in Germany was a bad person. And I would even argue there's probably some argument to be made that people that were loosely affiliated with the Nazis, not every single one of them was somehow some truly evil person, but they were afraid. And their their own fear actually is what fed the monster. And that is what we're seeing right now.

When these authoritarian come with these crazy laws, you can't go out onto the beach, partly what they're doing is they're going, hey, I'm going to put in a crazy law. I like power. I'm going to do something kind of nutty. And let's see if anyone pushes back. And sadly, you know, we're not seeing enough pushback. We are seeing it somewhat in Orange County in some places that are a little more right leaning. Yeah. But we need to see more. Well, listen, you don't, you don't know me so you don't realize that I wrote a book. on how the Nazis came to power. My family was in Germany during this period.

And as a Jew, obviously, you understand this better than a lot of Americans. But there's nothing weird about the Nazis or the Germans. All human beings have this tendency. You know it, and I know it. It's why the founders did what they did. They understood this kind of stuff. And the thing is, we've just got about a minute left. But, Dave, since you and I grew up, they haven't been teaching the basics

in the schools. When you mentioned federalism and all this kind of stuff, people used to get this with their mother's milk in America, but that's gone away. That's kind of the issue. Well, that is the issue. And then, you know, what compounds that is we've created sort of a cult of personality around the presidency, which really has solidified around Trump. But the idea that we left, why did we leave England? We left because we were trying to escape a king. Then we create this incredible system of checks and balances. And yet we treat everything as if when you're voting for the president, he's the king. He's only supposed to sign things into law. He's not supposed to make law, but we're very confused about this stuff. And we could do a whole other show on education

and how we got there. Hey, Rubin, I got to tell you, we're out of time, but I like the cut of your jib. You're just the kind of young man that I'm looking for in this organization. I'd like to have you back on the program, if possible, to continue to promote your book. A lot of fun. God bless you and to be continued. Thanks for being out. Mataxis, can you send me your book, and let's get you on my show and we'll arm wrestle or something? I will figure it out. All right. Thank you so much. Hey there, folks. It's the Eric Metaxas show. Right now we're going to be talking about artificial intelligence. What is artificial intelligence you may ask? Frankly, it's a question I have. It's very confusing. People talk about AI. Some people are AI experts, and they kind of assume that the rest of us know about it. I can tell you I don't, which is why I'm really happy to have my guest on right now. Jason Thacker has written a book called The age of AI, artificial intelligence, and the future of humanity. Jason serves as Associate Research

Fellow and Creative Director at the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. Jason Thacker, welcome to the program. Thank you so much for having me, Eric. I've got to ask you. First of all, this is kind of a standard question for authors of books, but what is it that led you to write this book? I imagine you could have written on many things. What made you want to write about artificial intelligence? Yeah, it's a great question. I've been doing a lot more research and kind of writing and a lot of the technology issues. Your listeners know artificial intelligence and just really technology at large.

There's a lot of questions around it. Like, what is AI? How is it affecting us? We see kind of big issues with technology kind of great in our headlines each day. And a lot of people just have questions about it. So as more I started researching kind of how, technology is affecting us as individuals and our families and our work. Artificial intelligence is one of the main emerging technologies. And I think often we get our understandings of AI from

sci-fi movies and novels and a lot of kind of pop culture in Hollywood rather than what the technology actually is and what it's actually doing. And reality is that we're using artificial intelligence every single day. Every single one of us from our phones, to our computers, to our banking, our communication systems. Everything's really, a lot of things are kind of undergirded by artificial intelligence. Now, artificial intelligence, I think a lot of times people get confused and they make a bigger deal of things than they are. I mean, I will simply say there is no such thing really as artificial intelligence. There's only human intelligence. And then we program computers to interact with things. But human beings do all of that. And so all of these

things are tools and, you know, sometimes we can make them pretty sophisticated. And then we make them, like with Alexa, Siri, whatever, we make it give the impression of being like another person. But the reality is, of course, it's not another person. It's pretending to be another person, kind of to make us comfortable so that we have this, you know, back and forth, Alexa, you know, what's the capital of North Dakota? And it's as though another person is responding with a voice, but of course it's just a computer program that spits something out and it goes, you know, a voice reads it and it sounds like another person. So isn't that a good place to start that we have to understand like what it is and what it's not? Yeah, and that's a really good place to start.

I think often when we talk about AI or artificial intelligence, we confuse it with another form of artificial intelligence called artificial general intelligence. So there's a difference between narrow AI and general intelligence. Human beings are the only general intelligent beings in the cosmos. God created us in his image. He created us unique and separate from the rest of creation. And so we don't have artificial general intelligence. There's a lot of questions and a lot of debate, if that's even possible to create a general intelligent system. What we do have is what's called narrow AI. And you bring out a really good distinction in the question that's saying AI, artificial intelligence is not like a human being. It's very different and distinct.

And as you said, it's perfect when you say it's a tool. And that's what I think we need to do not only as Christians, but as a society, start thinking about artificial intelligence in light of some of the big kind of fundamental questions of the universe that we've dealt with for ages and ages. is we're just having to, we're having a lot of questions on what, is there a God? If so, what is he like? What is, what does it mean to be human and what does it mean to be made in God's image? And then what is technology? And rightly understanding those categories can really help propel us and help us to engage this emerging technology, wisdom and insight and not being kind of led astray by a lot of the hype and a lot of the headlines that we see each day. I also have to say that, you know, when I think of a fertility cult 3,500 or 4,000 years ago, they would make idols and they would pray to the idols and talk to the idols and interact with the idols.

And it was only their ability to think creatively and imaginatively that lent this piece of stone or wood or ivory, whatever it was, anything beyond, you know, inert value, you know, that it's just this dead thing. And we can do the same thing with computers. You know, people talk about robots and sex robots. And you think people are just using their imaginations. The reality is that these things are dumb and dead, and we have programmed something into them or we have let our, you know, if you're talking to a robot, it's kind of like, you know, if you're watching the Muppet show,

you do this thing where you allow yourself to believe that this is a real character. And it's what we do when we're watching cartoons and so on and so forth. And I think that that's part of the confusion with AI is we kind of, we make that leap, but we forget we're making that leap. You know, if I'm talking to Big Bird, I don't really think I'm talking to Big Bird. I kind of allow myself to believe it for a minute. But with AI, I think there's this kind of temptation to think that it's somehow actually real. Yeah, and really for the first time in human history, we're able to create technology.

I mean, technology is not a new thing. Often we think of technology in terms of computers and cell phones and tablets, but we had technology since the very beginning of creation. Right. Gave us the ability to create these tools, like the shovel and the hoe, moving into the printing press and moving into AI systems. And rightly understood, artificial intelligence can serve us and helps us, it aids us in our work that God has called us to do.

And there is that distinction. And I think you're right when you say there is a form of idolatry with this. And this is just the nature of humanity and what we do in our sins. is that we idolize the creation, the things of Earth, rather than the creator. And what I mean by that is we look to these systems. We know, I mean, no matter who you talk to, we understand the world is broken. Things are not the way they're supposed to be. Specifically, like medicine, there's a lot of hope that AI can help create very sophisticated cancer drugs,

or we can create these new prosthetics that allow, us to kind of regain strength or mobility. And we look to these things as if they can save us, as if they can fix all the problems in our world, if we just have enough information, if we just have the right AI systems. But in reality, as Christians, when we approach these things, we understand there is a God that he did create us in his image. And not only that, but he sent his son to die on the cross for us to make us right. And so while we create these tools to aid us and to help our work. They're not to become idols or something that we bow down to or worship

because they are just that they're tools that God has given us in order to ultimately lead to what I see in Matthew 22 is to love God and to love our neighbor. And part of that loving our neighbor is realizing that no matter who you are or where you come from, you're created in God's image. And we should be harnessing this tools and these techniques in order to be. to aid human flourishing so that we love God and love our neighbor better. Well, so what are some of the dangers then of AI? Because obviously we're just at the beginning of artificial intelligence and the way things

move into the future. I can only imagine that in a few years or in a couple of decades, there's going to be some staggering stuff out there. What are some of the trends where we're moving and how might we need to be wary of them? Yeah, and really, there's a quote by a... guy named Ray Kurzweil, he's a kind of famed computer scientist and Googler that says if tomorrow all of our AI systems decided to wake up or become conscious, kind of the stuff of sci-fi movies and revolt against us. Every area of our society would break down from communication to banking, con me, national security, even just the way our families interact with our tools and kind of Syria and Alexa, because we're already using artificial intelligence to kind of undergird a lot of our systems. in order to make them respond quicker or to even translate something or to create and do kind of do data processing in terms of cancer drugs, for example.

A lot of the trends that I'm seeing with artificial intelligence is that confusion over what is this system and how are we to use them. And often it's undergirded by this kind of materialistic worldview that says these machines that there really is, nothing unique or special about humanity. You see this kind of the death of human exceptionalism, this idea that there isn't a God. He didn't create a... Actually, we're getting into some big stuff here. So hang on a second, Jason. And we're going to go to a break.

We're going to come right back, folks. I'm talking to Jason Thacker. The new book is The Age of AI. Christian bestselling author and speaker Richard E. Simmons does not shy away from the big questions of life. His latest book is called Reflections on the Existence of God, and it tackles the biggest question of all, does God exist? I've read this book and I got to tell you, I'm a little biased, but you can imagine that I like it a lot because Simmons offers insights for those grappling

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Simmons asked questions that speak directly to one of the most important things you possess your worldview. Folks, you know how important this is to me. Your worldview is going to impact the way you live your life for better or for worse. If you want to challenge yourself to spiritual and intellectual growth, and I hope you do, then be willing to ask yourself life's toughest questions. Dive in today by picking up a copy of reflections on the existence of God right now. Go to existence of Godbook.com. That's existence of Godbook.com.

Hey there, folks. I'm talking about artificial intelligence with Jason Thacker. He's just written a book called The Age of AI, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of Humanity. Jason, we're just getting into some deep theological waters. And in a sense, artificial intelligence gives this illusion that it can do everything, right? That, I mean, first of all, this idea, this is maybe a good place to touch down, is to say that people who are strict materialists, who don't believe in the God of the Bible, who don't believe in anything transcendent, they really believe that everything is material. Therefore, we don't have souls. We don't even have minds.

We just have brains. And if we just have a brain, which is this, you know, pink organ inside our skulls, that's basically a computer, and that's it, that's who we are, then why can't we create one of those in a lab? It'll be a computer and it'll be even more powerful. And it's the same thing as we are only smarter. But you and I don't believe that. In fact, we know that that's nonsense, that it's a computer is this inert thing, but it can't have consciousness. and people like Ray Kurzweil and others seem, they talk as though computers can have consciousness, as though they could revolt against their masters and have a will of their own.

And I guess my question is, where in the world do they get that? Because not only is there no evidence for that, there can be no evidence for that. Yeah, a lot of this, this is not a new concept. Often we think kind of the issues of our day are brand new, but as the Bible tells us, there's nothing new under the sun. This is an old philosophical understanding of the nature of humanity and the nature of the world itself is that everything reduces down to matter or material. And as you said, there's nothing spiritual, there's nothing transcendent. There definitely is not a God.

And so as you approach technology from that kind of purely enlightenment kind of understanding of nothing unique, nothing special, no God, what you can ultimately do is you're kind of humanizing these. machines by saying, well, we'll be able to create this at some point in the future, or we've already created something that can kind of outperform humanity. It's stronger, faster, smarter, and those very narrow tasks. And what that ultimately does is that confusion. So we're humanizing machines, but then we're also dehumanizing ourselves. And I think that's one of the greatest dangers with artificial intelligence today is that this dehumanizing of ourselves to say that we are nothing but a really fancy, organic computer. Right.

And there's nothing that could be further than truth. Well, that's, what was that, I'm trying to think, do Android's dream of electric sheep? Was that the line from, I always forget, it's the, Blade Runner, you know, this idea that a robot or anything like that that's created by human beings, this material thing, and it has this, you know, it looks like a person or it seems like a person or it seems intelligent, but we know that it's not, that it, in fact, it doesn't dream, it doesn't hope, it doesn't mourn. It's not a human being and it never can be. And I think that we have to remind ourselves, one of the reason I want to talk to you,

is that we've got to get our facts straight. There are certain things that can never change. We can have all of the artificial intelligence in the world, and we can't get past the idea that we're broken, we're sinners, we're selfish, we need a savior. I mean, these are basics that can't change, but I think there is a great temptation, a utopianist strain in human beings, always to look to the next thing, you know, just as Icarus tried to fly to the sun, you know, with the technology of the day, which was wings made with wax and feathers.

It's kind of a similar thing that we're always facing. I think that's what you're saying. Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think rightly understood, especially from a Christian worldview and perspective, is that we can harness and utilize these tools for great good, not only in medicine and our families and our work and the way that we even engage in warfare across the world. We can do these things in very human dignity-centric type ways that really focus on the uniqueness of every human being created in God's image. and we avoid a lot of the thorny kind of ethical, difficult decisions that our culture is already grappling with. I mean, it seems like every other day or so now we're seeing whether it's the European Union or Google or other technology companies coming out with sets of principles or ethical guidelines about how they want to use this technology. And as I look at those, they're often void of that kind of transcendent worldview, which is understandable because they're not coming from a Christian perspective.

but as Christians we can step into these conversations, one, aware of the trends, aware of the issues, and being able to step in with hope and a true understanding of who God is, what we are as created in God's image, and then how to use these tools to love God and to love our neighbor. Well, you know, as we're going here, I realize this is deep stuff, and I think that all you need to do is think about facial recognition software. Google, this breaks my heart to think that a company started by Americans has helped the Chinese to gravely oppress their own people. You know, facial recognition software is one of these things that it's a new technology. It enables us to do things, good and bad.

But if the heart of man is wicked, we can use these things for terrible purposes. And I think that, again, we need to always be realistic. as you're saying and understand that it's only human beings that are behind this, and human beings will always be who we are capable of good and evil. And all of these things are just extensions of that. But they can be kind of frightening extensions of that. When we come back, we've got a final segment, folks. I'm talking to Jason Thacker.

The book is The Age of A-I. Thanks for listening. Come and watch your children play. They think you're the only one. Hey there, folks. I believe that's Elvin Bishop, singing with his own voice. There's no artificial intelligence involved. We're talking, however, about artificial intelligence with Jason Thacker, just wrote a new book called The Age of AI. Jason, what else do we need to know? Because you know more about this than anybody, at least that I've had on the program. Yeah, I think one of the biggest questions that comes up with artificial intelligence is how it's going to affect our work.

we kind of see a lot of these headline after headlines about how we're heading towards a jobless future or the robots are going to take all of our jobs. And I think there's kind of two reactions that people typically have either an apathy. Like that's not a real thing. It doesn't really matter. It's not really going to affect me or a real deep-seated fear of what, you know, am I going to have a job in a few years or what happens if my job is automated or taken over by artificial intelligence? I mean, you take the idea of self-driving car technology that is already being tested on roads in the United States and throughout the world.

If tomorrow we had mass deployment of self-driving cars, just in the trucking industry alone, we'd lose three and a half million jobs. I mean, that's catastrophic on our economy and in our community. I know, but we know this will never happen, like, instantly, number one. and number two, anybody who can drive a truck can do all kinds of other stuff. And it seems to me that, you know, to act like there's some zero-sum game. Also, I guess it's just not clear thinking when you start acting like everything's a zero-sum game. Like there's these jobs, now they're being taken over by robots. And you think, wait a minute, what about creating wealth?

What about the idea of capitalism, which is that wealth enables us to do things we couldn't do before? So instead of having 50 people employed to dig a ditch, we have a steam shovel or we have an, hydraulic backhoe that can do it. And so now those 50 people can do other jobs that the backhoe can't do. I mean, it seems to me kind of a generally pessimistic view when we're talking about robots taking our jobs. Oh, it exactly is. And I think that's where as a Christian we can come into these conversations and say, one, you're created to work. It's part of who you are. It's part of being created in God's image. So we don't look forward to kind of a lifelong vacation, even if we have all the money in the world. We were created to work. But then on top of that, your work

isn't your identity. Often we identify and say, well, I'm a plumber, or I'm a designer, or I'm an author, and that's how we base our identity. But as Christians, our identity is based in Christ, rather than the things we do, which so often our society kind of defines our value. It's a very zero-sum game, very utilitarian type argument. And so when we step into these conversations, we are going to lose jobs. But it isn't going to be this catastrophic thing because humans created in godgiveness are creative. I mean, you just think of the idea of elevator operators. We don't have like a mass strike of elevator operators in the street because now we have elevators that are more automated. Humans have always been creative when we create new jobs. I mean, even the things that we're

doing now weren't able to be done even a thousand years ago. And so we're always creating new jobs. And that's the hope that we have, is that God is on his throne. He's reigning and ruling, and we as created in his image are adaptable. We're very creative people. And that's another distinction between us and the machine. Well, I was going to say, you know, even if you're not a Christian, if you just have kind of what I would today call a more conservative political view, you don't believe in the zero-sum game. You believe that because we're able to do it, we can. create new technologies and new jobs. And, you know, the idea that everybody's doing X and we've got

to protect X. I mean, that's part of what it is to be conservative is to conserve, but also to have that hope that we want to create wealth. We don't just want to stay where we are. Everybody's got the jobs. We've got the bus drivers got their jobs. The coal miners got their jobs. We'd love to move to an era where machines can do those things and that those human beings can do other stuff or have more leisure time to share the love of God with their neighbors, which they couldn't do because they were working so many hours doing something else. I mean, there's all kinds of possibilities. And I think that whenever I hear about robots taking our jobs, I think they're not getting it.

They're buying into that zero-sum game view of the world. You're exactly right. And often what we're doing is we're treating our work is that, again, kind of part of our identity. And when we do create wealth and when we do care for others, we can recognize that there are other things that humans can do that are very valuable that we can help to love God and to love our neighbor. Well, that's, and that's the important stuff. It's amazing. There's so much, when it comes to AI, there's so many good things that can come out of it. I don't want to make it sound like I'm poo-pooing the whole idea. I think the most amazing thing has to do with medicine.

I mean, the idea that we're going to be able to diagnose things better, have better data on people, because there's so many people slipping through the cracks that one doctor, one person can't possibly know everything. And it's difficult to keep up with the latest info. And so to be able to be helped by that, I would think that we already ought to be farther along than we are on that score. Do you know anything about that? A practical example. Sitting on my arm right now is an apple. watch. I mean, even the Apple Watch itself uses artificial intelligence, even just the heart rate

counter. And as some of the newer forms of the Apple Watch, they're able to detect kind of arrhythmia. They're able to detect like elevated heart rate. And they can warn you. And this is a story that happened a couple years ago that a young woman was sitting in her church and with her mom who's actually a registered nurse. And her Apple Watch started alerting her that her heart rate was weight. too high. She looked over at her mother and her mother said, yeah, we need to go and come to find out she was in kidney failure. Well, without that Apple Watch, without that AI system alerting her of that and picking up on this pattern, she very well might have died. And so just a very practical example of how we're already using AI, but then in cancer research, my father is a recent amputee to be

able to use a robotic leg to change his life and allow him to kind of regain and restore a lot of what he lost during the amputation. And so kind of we are on the cusp of a lot of great innovations and a lot of great uses. And AI can be used for good. Often we just say it's bad or it's evil. We don't need to reject it, especially from a Christian worldview. We embrace the good and we're aware of the bad, keeping that idea of the uniqueness of every human being and that human dignity at the center of everything we do. We're going to have to leave it there. Jason Thacker, Thank you so much, folks. The book is The Age of AI. I was up before the dawn, but I must be moving on.

Hey there, folks. Welcome back. My goodness, what a day. Albin and Chris, is it just me or is Dave Rubin one of the better guests we've had? I have to say, I just, I hope people will check that out. We're going to put it up on video today, today, today. Today, today. No, he is one of the best games. So if you hear it on radio, you're not really missing much because it's a radio program. But, okay, a couple of things to share real quick. Albin, you wanted to share something.

Yes, I had, my wife and I, Anne, we had an Anne-Frank moment this weekend, unfortunately. We ran out of cream for our coffee, for our honor-bound coffee, by the way. We ran out of cream, and so this is very sad. We had to use Haugendos French vanilla ice cream instead in our coffee. So, Anne Frank, yeah, hashtag Dear Diary. I'm sorry. Man, how you have suffered. We've suffered, yes.

How you have suffered. Can't go to the beach and can't get our cream. Yeah, all right. Well, that's the, unfortunately, that's the limit of our Anne Frank jokes for the. Well, it reminded me of Pelosi and her ice cream freezer situation. I wonder if Benigerides will do a Pelosi flavor of ice cream. That could be good, right? Oh, it could be good in two ways.

What would be in it? Probably a lot of nuts. Eye of Newt. That's pretty good. Leg of frog. Yeah, something from a toad. So, all right. A couple of quick announcements before we go.

We got to say these things. If you go to Metaxistocococcom, you'll see a new banner. Folks, it is a new banner. It's a banner day. What is the banner? Prison Fellowship. You've heard about prison fellowship. Well, Angel Tree, usually this time of year, we're trying to raise money to send

the children of prisoners to wonderful camps in the woods for a week to get out of the city. We can't do that this year because of the COVID shutdown and all this weirdness. So we're asking you to help us send care packages to these families of prisoners. I want to tell you, it includes grocery cards. I mean, it's all kinds of stuff. You can give anything, we always say this, that if you give anything, we're going to have a grand prize winner. We haven't established the details yet. But whatever you give, we want you to participate.

This is one of those things that, you know, we don't care what you give. Now, a prison fellowship and angels, we suggest that if you give $200, $150 goes to, I think I've got the information here, $150 goes to grocery gift cards. I think you understand. That's important, okay? Then they get choice of sports equipment like a soccer ball, basketball, whatever it is. They get a camper's Bible, Bible study aids, a note of encouragement. These kids need to know somebody cares about them and loves them. And I just want to encourage you to participate with us.

These are very tough times for some people. Most of us are doing okay, but I've got to tell you, if you have the means to help, we always try on this program to provide a way for people to give back. And if you care about the kids of prisoners, this is a really beautiful thing. and the organization, Prison Fellowship and AngelTree, it doesn't really get better. They are the gold standard. Okay, we work with just a handful of organizations that we vet and we love. So I want to say that.

I want to remind you, please go to our website metaxis talk.com. And Albin, I think you were just going to say something. Yeah, yeah. Listen, we were just talking about free speech all day long today on the show. And don't forget to go to no safespaces.com and use code save 24. You want to talk about free speech and Candice Owen, Dave Rubin. That's right. I think they're probably all in that film, right?

It's no-safaces.com and it was de-platformed. What an ugly word and an ugly idea from Netflix and from Amazon Prime. We're living in weird times and we kind of have to fight back. Let's rise to the occasion, folks. No-safaces.com. I think we may be at a time. Holy cow, we're at a time. I guess we'll have to see you on Tuesday.

Thanks for tuning in.