Column Title: Communitas
Column Entry: “Loneliness, Artificial Intelligence, and the Image of God”
Column Description: The term Communitas refers to an unstructured community of equal members often traveling from one place to another. Like the characters in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, we are fellow pilgrims on the road towards the Father’s house, following Jesus as the way, truth, and life. This column is a space to share common ideas about faith, communication, and culture with the intent of affirming the image of God in all persons.
By Elizabeth McLaughlin, PhD, Bethel University
April 2025 / September 2022 / August 2022 / July 2022 / January 2022 / September 2021
“God said, ‘It is not good for a man to be alone’” (Gen 2:18a).
Even in the garden, before the fall, loneliness existed. The human need for connection was central to human flourishing. Then, God created woman, and human relationships began, the image of God in man and woman (Gen 1:26+).
Loneliness is epidemic. It is visible in fractured family relationships split by politics, married people who live more like roommates than partners, never visited older adults warehoused in dorms, children who feel abandoned or bullied. But more, even in the souls of churched, “well-adjusted” Christians can feel empty in the push and pull of life. Both the UK and Japan have a minister of loneliness to address this societal problem.
One lonely elderly woman changed the life of Dr. Thomas Harris when he was going his rounds in a nursing home. She grabbed him, pulled him toward her and said, “I am so lonely.” He dedicated his life to honoring elders in his practice from that day forward.[1]
Jewish theologian and philosopher Martin Buber describes the difference between seeing people from an I-It perspective as they are objects helping us achieve our goals in his now classic book I and Thou; or we can choose an I-Thou perspective that seeks understanding, thins the differences between us and others, and sees them as individuals. It is a choice how we see others. The desire for connection is at the heart of the commandment to love God and love neighbor.
We all know the power of social media to reduce or even replace face-to face communication. Now Generative AI, build on large language models to imitate human communication, seeks to answer the problem of loneliness. Enter Character ai, one of many platforms designed to connect humans to relationships with AI personas. The platform offers users an opportunity to converse with one of their many made up characters or create their own. According the Associated Press, on February 28, 2024, 14-year old Sewell Setzer, III committed suicide to join his lover Danny (Daenerys Targaryen from the television show “Game of Thrones.”). His mother found him in the bathroom with a gunshot wound in his head; she is suing the platform for the emotional manipulation of her son, in light of his suicidal ideation in his posts.
Another AI companion helps connect grieving family members with their loved ones after they die. Known as “death bots,” a person can take the deceased person’s information from the internet and other sources, upload it, and continue to have a relationship through text after he or she is gone. What could go wrong? How about the dead person’s privacy rights or consent? How about the ethics of having a bot simulate dead people? What does this do to the healthy grieving process for the family?
Creating characters and talking to pretend dead people are only two ways that AI seeks to simulate human connection. Where does the I-Thou/ I-It relationship begin and end?
For Christians wanting to follow Jesus in the meeting of human needs and sharing God’s love—and for Christian communicators who see communication as the life blood of image-bearing—the challenge is to create and practice meeting the loneliness of others in tangible, face-to face ways.
One successful program that encourages this connection is the Stephen Ministries. The ministry trains volunteers, church members, and lay people to be present to people going through difficult times by spending one hour each week with a person who needs to be heard and understood. The Stephen Minister does not try and help a person solve his or her problems, but rather serves as a sounding board, listener and companion through the storm.
What ever happened to church potlucks and other community outreach? Traditionally, the church has served as one center for meeting human needs for relationships, friendships and connection. If we can put away the COVID cocooning tendency, then these events can help revive both church and community.
As communicators, we can think about our spheres of influence and try to really see people, students, colleagues, co-workers, family and friends, honoring them as persons of sacred worth and their dignity as image-bearers of God. It is not good that any of us are alone.
Notes
[1] See Thomas, Bill Dr., Second Wind: Navigating the Passage to a Slower, Deeper, and More Connected Life. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.