It’s a common idea that we become like what we behold and that whatever we worship determines the values we organise our lives around. Which is why I believe we ought to be concerned about how these two things (hero worship and A.I.) converge.
This past week a couple of things happened. Firstly I caught ChatGPT lying to me, or at least overplaying its confidence and secondly I noticed that the kind of people I've made into 'heroes' in my life have changed, and this time for the better I believe.
It’s not been uncommon throughout my life for me to have heroes, people I’ve admired and aspired to emulate.
My first awareness of this hero-worshipping impulse was during my teenage years when, as is common, I become preoccupied with trying to mimic certain older boys. At the time it was those who were good at sport, or fashionable, or confident with girls. If someone met those criteria then they became (without their knowledge or consent) the de facto authority figures in my life.
I changed my music tastes, my vocabulary and my interests all in the hope that by doing so I might gain entry into the kind of world that they inhabited. Theirs was a world, it seemed, overflowing confidence, a world of success and fulfilled longings.
To some degree it worked as well.
‘Fake it until you make it’ does get someone so far. The trouble is that when you do eventually ‘make it’ you’ve done so as a fake and a fraud. Often that’s a worse reality than not ever having made it in the first place. As Stephen Covey (of ‘Seven Habits’ fame) puts it, there’s nothing worse than working hard to climb up a ladder only to discover that the ladder’s leaning on the wrong wall! In that scenario (now riffing of C.S. Lewis) success looks like turning around and going back the way you just came.
When I became a Christian in my early twenties my ‘imitation game’ shifted slightly as the sorts of things I admired and aspired to began to change. What was ‘cool’ was no longer just being athletic and good with girls now I admired those I saw who loved God passionately. I hero-worshipped people who could prophesy or speak in tongues or who knew their Bibles well or who could preach with clarity and fire.
Around this time too I stopped thinking of this as simply ‘hero worship’ and instead used the language of having/wanting ‘father figures’. I realised that what I wanted wasn’t a hero, but a dad. It wasn't that my dad was deficient it’s just that my heart needed more than one. I loved men who I considered to be competent authorities who I believed also had my interests at heart.
My heroes had become pastors, and I don’t think that was a bad thing.
It’s no bad thing when we begin to move from wanting gods to desiring fathers since God is in fact a Father; and we therefore move closer to going with the grain of the things. God is a shepherd and a pastor and so discovering that this was what I was looking for in the men I admired was something I considered to be a point of growth.
I’ve noticed recently however that this instinct in me for hero worship, or for a father figure or for whatever else I might call it has shifted once again. I couldn’t tell you when it happened but only that I’ve recently noticed that it has happened.
Several months ago I spoke to someone over Zoom for the podcast I produce. She was a Haitian woman called Yvrose Telfort who was visiting friends in the UK for a few days. Meeting her made a big impact on me so much so that the next day I jumped into my car and drove for an hour just to spend a few minutes in her company before she left for Haiti again.
There was something about her, a presence, that I couldn’t pass on the chance to be around. Her manner, even over the internet, tasted to my spirit like my saviour. I saw Christ in her and I needed to get closer.
This happens from time to time doesn’t it? You meet someone whose manner and presence makes an impact on you. I remember that the first time I attended one of Terry Virgo’s pastor’s retreats it was like that. I saw his attentiveness, his prayerful concern and loving interest in others something that, as I drove away, moved me to tears. I felt like I’d seen a glimpse of a holiness I hadn’t realised existed before.
When I first met my friend Mojtaba in Turkey it was like this too. He was 25 and fresh out of an Iranian prison where he’d spent five years being punished for his faith. My spirit reacted to his presence, my spirit recognised Christ in him.
I’ve named it this week, this new kind of 'hero worship'. I’ve named the experience as something based on Christ’s presence and I've realised that where I used to admire people for their skill or think someone worth honouring because of their talent, I'm now drawn to something deeper. I’m able to name what I've known all along that what I long for and who I delight to be around are people who minister Christ’s presence to me. That's what all the celebrity culture and influencer obsession of our society is really all about. Our instincts to elevate aren't wrong, but our internal compasses are deficient and damaged by sin. We stop short at admiring someone's talents but what we're really after is Christ.
What’s this got to do with A.I.?
A few days ago I asked ChatGPT a trivial question about where a particular quote from a TV show could be found. It answered confidently but then when I looked it up it was nowhere to be found. When I pointed this out it replied ‘you’re right - sorry about that!’ It then made up some excuse about timestamps varying from format to format. After I explained that it was, again, wrong it changed the episode that the quote I was looking for could be found in. I looked this one up and, again, it was wrong.
Why does this matter you might wonder and what’s it got to do with hero worship I hear you ask?
Simply this. Generally our heroes are the capable and the clever, celebrities and experts. We idolise competency as a society and elevate to positions of prominence people who can well. A.I. is the pinnacle of performance, smarter, faster, more ‘gifted and talented’ than any person ever could be. It’s likely then that we’ll hand more and more of our attention and devotion over to it. We’l idolise it, elevate it, rely on and marvel at it. The trouble is, it can’t be trusted.
Videos like this one make that fact even more plain.
It isn't that A.I. lies or makes mistake, those issues can be 'ironed out' in time. It's that the promise of A.I. is a lie and it's a lie that we'll buy because of our crooked internal compasses.
What the world needs isn’t an impressive hero but a self-sacrificial saviour someone who isn’t only worthy of admiration and respect but who actually loves us and helps us.
The reason our souls need more than one father to fill them is because our we’re made to known by the Father beyond all fathers. The reason A.I. could never give us what we need is because what we’re after most of all isn’t information and ideas but presence.
We need Christ and anything that is worthy of elevation and emulation is only so to the degree that it mediates his life to us. It is, after all, Christ in me that is the hope of glory.