Disciples, Apostles, and Saints!
Last week, I described our work as people of faith as being in the relationship business. That, unlike the promises of efficiency and productivity we see in AI hype and the market, we aren’t supposed to be the fastest or most capable of anything to anyone. Our job is to be real with the people around us.
News this weekend that ChatGPT had solved a ninety-year-old math problem sent shockwaves through academia. And then the truth came out. Researchers were over 90% there, OpenAI stole the research, spent $15 million on tokens running agents around the clock, all to make a startling claim that their LLM had solved the problem.
There are several ethics issues here, each of which could yet land OpenAI in court. But I want to highlight how much this moment doesn’t fit with our values—particularly as the news of the discovery went bigger than the rules-breaking and the defense of using these “tools” to produce breakthroughs is too easy.
This isn’t a case of a machine doing the work faster. It’s a story of theft and stolen credit. It’s also a story about how we use our resources and for what purpose. In this case, it wasn’t for the glory of mathematics but to make a machine look good. If Sam Altman did this for himself, we’d call it hubris and selfish ambition.
Boosters might call my response anti-AI. Whether I am or not is not the point. I want for us to be conscious of our relationships, of our humanity, of the dignity of every human being. Is this an expression of Kin-dom of Heaven or the kingdoms of earth? That’s the question I want us asking. Because that informs my thoughts about LLMs and how they’re used.
With love,
Drew+
