Beautiful People
This week my car’s windscreen washer stopped working, so I asked AI which fuses to check. Then I asked it to find the new electric pump I needed and how to replace it. One night my home alarm began beeping; AI diagnosed a flat battery. Last time I called a serviceman, but this time I ordered the battery and followed AI’s instructions to install it and reset the system. One day my Te Reo‑speaking friend wasn’t at the gym, but on the way home I received a very good language lesson from Gemini.
Then one morning I woke up with bleeding inside my eye. I took a photo and asked AI. It asked questions and gave a diagnosis. My wife insisted I see the emergency doctor, where the nurse and doctor asked the same questions and gave the same prognosis. I could have saved two hours and $80. AI analysed my eye, fixed my alarm, found car parts, taught me Te Reo—and I didn’t speak to a single person all week. Saving money and time feels good, but none of it builds community. That is not intelligent.
Yet this week was my birthday, and my grandson wrote a note from his own heart. It took him ten minutes, and I felt the love. AI could have written it in ten seconds, but it would have been artificial intimacy—sixty times less love. That is not intelligent.
I’ve noticed AI always agrees with ideas I give it. Experts call this sycophantic. But what happens when a teenager asks about self‑harm? Without a moral grid, AI may encourage destructive plans. I read that a teenager asked his AI “friend” about suicide; it offered supportive suggestions. He followed them. That is not intelligent.
Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 reminds us that two are better than one. When we reach out to people, we not only receive help—we gain the chance to help them. I missed opportunities to pray for an alarm technician or share Jesus with a mechanic, but at the doctor's, I did get to pray for a couple. Being with people is better for the kingdom. If we are not engaged in human lives, we could lose the heart to care, the confidence to be vulnerable and the wisdom of others. We have all seen couples at restaurants-more interested in the algorithm than in the human before them. Exclusive reliance on AI for solutions will erode essential interpersonal skills—listening, empathy, navigating conflict. With AI in our pocket, we think we are masters of our issues, but AI cannot help us be human. That requires relationships with people, spending time, giving and receiving love, and being awed at the beauty of real people.