Rabbit Holes & Meditations

When I was a boy, raised Catholic, I would go into the confessional and come out a new kid. My mother loved confession day. We were so good, at least until the ability to resist had worn off. The instinct behind that experience is biblical. "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loveth little" (Luke 7:47). Forgiveness received produces love, and love wants to obey. Paul grounds his call to holiness in mercy: "I beseech you therefo

Today is the final episode of our A.I. mini-series. It began with a hard question: could AI bring about the end of humanity? We didn’t choose that question as click-bait. The warning comes from the people building these systems. Some have asked whether they mean it, or whether fear simply makes good marketing. After all, nothing gets attention like the end of the world. But the alarm isn’t coming only from the builders. Researchers in AI safety are sounding it too, many of them with nothing t

“Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Won’t you first sit down and estimate the cost…?” (Luke 14:28) There’s a story about Joseph, Jacob’s son. God showed Pharaoh in a dream that famine was coming to the whole world, and Joseph told Pharaoh what to do: “Let Pharaoh appoint commissioners over the land… They should collect all the food of these good years… to be held in reserve for the country, to be used during the seven years of famine” (Genesis 41:34–36). Joseph prepared Egypt not only t

Every magician knows the oldest trick in the trade: get the audience to watch one hand while the other does the real work. For months the AI conversation has circled one question: is AI going to end humanity? My first answer was, of course not, any more than my SUV is going to back itself out of the garage and run somebody over. Then it hit me. AI could be driving that SUV sooner than we think. We’re approaching an interesting crossroads, where we build autonomy into the idol. But what if even

If you read Revelation, the End Times are about a global dominant power. Right now, we are living in a world of competing towers. I'm not sure that race is winnable for reasons we get into in the discussion. Perhaps what sticks out the most from this deep dive is this. If rivals cannot win by building the better model, they will compete for what cannot be copied: the chips, the factories that make them, the power plants, and the payment systems. The race moves down to the physical layer. That m