Christian friends group reading and study bible from mobile phones praying worship to GOD with church online Sunday in the garden at.Live Church with the bible. spirituality religion online concept

Technological change is already dominating 2025, and Christian thinkers around the world are divided on the impact it will have on our understanding of God and of community.

At the end of 2024, the Australian government introduced age limit laws on social media to protect young people. Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg announced an end to fact checkers.

In the last few days, Chinese AI startup DeepSeek has shaken the tech world (and the US stockmarket) by producing a comparable AI model at a fraction of the cost of other platforms.

But while many fear mis/disinformation driven by AI and social media, some religious leaders have embraced artificial intelligence to write sermons.

Texas-based pastor Jay Cooper used ChatGPT to generate an entire service. According to the New York Times, Mr Cooper’s decision attracted a wider audience but also raised questions about whether God could speak through AI.

Vrije Universiteit Professor of Theology and AI Marius Dorobantu said developments in AI could help us progress some of the most difficult questions in philosophy and theology.

He said the attempt to build an artificial mind could provide valuable knowledge about what makes humans distinctive.

“AI is the ultimate litmus test of whether something like us can be made,” Dr Dorobantu said.

But Duquesne University Professor of Christian Social Ethics Anna Scheid expressed concern for the ways AI was used in a social context, especially in social media.

She said the algorithms of social media platforms manipulate people through selective, personalised information and by introducing bots designed to sow discord and promote extremism.

Language-generating AI makes online communication even more complicated. Dr Scheid said people needed to ask whether the person they thought they were talking with was writing for themselves or if AI was creating their posts.

“We can’t know who or what we are really communicating with,” she said.

Dr Scheid also said this kind of AI was exacerbating the problem of alienation on social media, which relates to general concerns regarding the impact of AI and social media on social cohesion.

The Scanlon Foundation’s 2024 Mapping Social Cohesion Report, however, found some surprising results regarding the impact of social media on social cohesion in Australia.

“The results suggest that most Australians are not unduly influenced by inflammatory information and misinformation on social media,” it said.

The report found that while social media could entrench polarised ideas by the algorithms creating an “echo chamber,” the vast majority of people distrusted social media sources of information.

Read it all in The Melbourne Anglican