There’s a parallel between AI and evolution. Both work with chance and necessity. Just as there is no intelligence guiding evolution, there is no intelligence guiding AI. It just charts a space through what is already known while making an occasional random change that creates something new. The “I” in AI is entirely a misnomer. Those who do not get this will not be able to use this otherwise exceptionally powerful tool well.

In AI, the large language model is trained on text to string words together based on what has been said before. It is like the person in a meeting who boringly repeats, with minor variations, what has already been said in countless prior meetings. But then AI adds something. It introduces an element of random choice, picking an unlikely continuation of a sentence over the likely one. Instead of finishing the sentence “everything happens for a” with the word “reason,” it might pick “while” as the next word and finish the sentence by saying that “everything happens for a while until it is forgotten.” Suddenly, a cliché turns into something almost wise. You might wonder whether some deep thought is being expressed. But of course, it is just a random choice. If it happens to be new and meaningful, it is so entirely by accident.

Animal behaviour, too, is the product of evolution by chance and necessity. But human behaviour is different. We not only understand our actions, but we also understand what it means to act reasonably and what it means to act well. We make meaning. We create meaningful relationships with each other, with other creatures, and with creation. We build a relationship with ourselves and with God by understanding why we act as we do. Now we can even make sense of evolution and find meaning in it, even if it developed by chance and necessity and without a guiding intelligence.

In AI, our finding meaning in what was randomly created, our discerning the meaningful from the meaningless, is important. When engaging with the output of AI with the goal of finding meaning in what it provides, the human spirit is lifted up. When the output of AI is taken up without thinking about it, the human spirit is suppressed. Following AI without personal engagement is akin to acting instinctively, like an animal. It would be without human discernment of good and evil and of the valuable and the worthless.

Some think that accepting that evolution is without an intelligent guiding hand somehow diminishes the significance of being human. Indeed, it is the opposite. It highlights the magnitude of the difference between mere animal behaviour and our understanding of meaning and purpose. Being human means being creative and able to place one’s creativity in the context of what God already created. Understanding new ideas and recognizing the good ones, this is true intelligence. For this, AI can be an exceptionally useful tool, but only when we remember that it is a tool for the intelligent, not intelligent in itself.