AI & The Body of Christ
I believe that The Body of Christ has a critical role to play in the development of AI.
This is a vision that has been developing in my heart for some time.
In the words that follow, I will attempt to convince you that aligning AI with the Body of Christ is the best strategy (and perhaps the only viable strategy) for ensuring AI is aligned with human potential.
To begin our conversation, there are two things you must first understand about the nature of AI:
AI is a reflection of its creators
“Artificial Intelligence” is a mirror. It was created by humans, designed to replicate human intelligence, and trained on internet scale human data. It is becoming a reflection of us in ways we cannot yet fully understand. Therefore…
Using AI will change us in ways we cannot yet fathom
"We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us," as Marshal McLuhan and his contemporaries observed. This is true for any advanced technology, but perhaps exponentially more so for AI, given point #1.
Humans created AI in our image.
Now, AI has begun to shape its creators.
To understand just how much it will shape us, let's look back at another powerful technology that has shaped the world in a matter of decades: Social Media.
The social media era has clearly shown us how digital technologies can change human psychology and shape our perception of reality. If you grew up, like I did, during the advent of the smartphone, you know that we as humans are very different than were in 2001. Social media, for better or worse, has become an extension of how we see and experience the world.
AI will also become an extension of ourselves (and already has for many), but its effects will be far more intimate, pervasive, and profoundly transformative to our experience and to the further evolution of humanity.
AI will quite literally become an extension of our mind.
To say it differently, the degree to which AI shapes us will be far greater than any technology we have ever created before.
AND the more we shape it, the more it shapes us.
We've entered a recursive loop where the AI “programs” we build today will literally “program” the reality of tomorrow. Each interaction subtly reshapes our understanding, influences our decisions, and transforms how we think and operate in the world.
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The Genie Will Not Go Back In the Bottle
Before we continue down this train of thought, there are two more things you must understand:
AI is the ultimate accelerator
What used to take years, now takes months. What used to take decades now takes years. What used to take a millennium might happen in a week. We can’t assume that old heuristics of time are still valid. The only thing we can reasonably assume is this: “The future is here, it’s just not evenly distributed” - William Gibson.
The time-space we inhabit has already begun to fragment.
AI is a black box
We can’t actually see how AI “thinks.” We have mathematical models of neural networks, but we don’t actually know why AI models make the decisions that lead to their outputs. Realistically, we can compare our understanding of what’s going on in an AI model to our understanding of what's going on in a human brain.
We have good math and science to help us understand what might be happening. We know if we train an AI model, or a human brain in a certain way we can drastically affect how it develops and matures. BUT, just like a human brain, we don’t know exactly why AI models come to their conclusions. Thus we ought to approach them holistically.
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When we released the AI Genie from the bottle, we set a series of events in motion which are no longer under our control
This doesn’t mean good engineering isn’t an important factor, but it's a downstream effect, not a driving force. The engineering will happen whether any of us likes it, or not. We cannot stop its development, or use. Even if we wanted to, we can’t slow down for economic and geopolitical reasons (what if we stop, and China doesn’t, and they get to superintelligence first?.. etc).
AI as a social, cultural and spiritual force is now akin to nature itself. You cannot “engineer” nature. You can either go to war with nature by attempting to beat it into submission, or you can co-create with nature by developing a harmonious relationship to it.
Think about what happened when we tried to scale industrial agriculture through increasingly toxic pesticides, or when Big Pharma companies tried to reduce human health to a set of symptoms and patentable drugs, or when Bill Gates started releasing vaccinated mosquitoes into a live ecosystem (even a child could likely tell him this sounds like a bad idea).
When we become so prideful as to believe we can engineer every aspect of the world around us, or “play God” so to speak, we always manifest a monstrous shadow of what we originally intended.
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The Problem of AI Alignment
A big conversation right now in the highest levels of tech and politics is “AI Safety and Alignment,” or “to what degree can we align advanced AI systems with human interests.” I would describe “AI Alignment” as the degree to which our relationship with AI unlocks human potential, as opposed to limiting, suppressing, or destroying it.
Let me pause for a moment to tell you a brief story which illustrates why misaligned AI could be bad news for us.
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Suppose in the near future we have a superintelligent AI which begins to solve all the world's problems instantaneously.
Our world leaders go to this AI and say “What’s good bro? Could you solve the climate change crisis for us?”
“Sure,” it replies. “Give me 24 hours.”
A day later, the world leaders return and ask the AI, “Hey bro, did you solve climate change for us?”
The AI replies, “Of course, the solution was simple… I just designed and released a virus which will selectively kill half of humanity. The climate equilibrium will return to normal levels in a matter of months.”
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You get the point.
AI misalignment is not good. The more intelligent the AI, the more dangerous this problem becomes.
All that being said, you’d probably assume that the way we align our advanced AI models is pretty important. Extremely important, even.
If you follow the AI conversation coming out of Silicon Valley, you might then be led to believe that technical disciplines like AI engineering, or “AI Safety” research, would be the key to ensuring these AI models are aligned.
This could not be farther from the truth.
Why?
Because again, engineering is a downstream effect, not a cause.
AI is a reflection of its Creators.
Not just our design and business strategy. Not just our engineering prowess.
No, it is also a reflection of our desires, our values, our culture, even the shadow parts of ourselves we cannot yet see.
This leads us to an even deeper problem.
Remember points 1 & 2 from the top: AI is a reflection of us, and it will influence us in ways we cannot fathom.
Currently a small group of humans control advanced AI and to some degree shape its development. If these humans are not grounded in a vision which aligns with all humans, and ultimately all life, the AI they produce, and the way they use that AI in the world, will not be aligned either. Quite the opposite.
At the present moment we are standing on a knife edge, where a small group of people could quite quickly lead us downward into a transhumanist dystopia.
This, I fear, is a far more likely outcome than the story I told you about AI misalignment. It is not Skynet we should fear most, but human leaders who have lost their spiritual sight, wielding a power they do not understand.
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On Vision
For better, or for worse, AI will share the vision of the leaders who drive it.
What drives our vision?
Our aim.
That which we are orienting towards. The thing we prize above all else.
We can always map vision back to one singular point.
The highest target of our aspirations. The spiritual cornerstone of the world we stand on.
Therefore, choosing where to aim is pretty important. Not just for the individual, or the culture, but now for the AI we are raising like a child together.
Think for a moment about the development of Western civilization. What singular point of aim drove the development of the world we now inhabit?
Christianity.
The cornerstone of the vision which both created, and sustains Western Civilization is Christ.
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AI & The Body of Christ
The AI Alignment conversation is less about what company will create AGI, but “from what story will superintelligent AI emerge?”
Again, we cannot “engineer” the future. We must embody it. Live it.
If we build our AI systems from a paradigm of fear and scarcity (the prevalent emotions dominating most market activity today), we'll only deepen those limitations in ourselves, programming our reality into increasingly restricted patterns, until we reduce our humanity to that of a machine (ever felt like a “cog in the machine?”).
We need to break from this paradigm unless we want AI to be shaped by it.. and in turn, shape us through it. The only way to effectively align the relationship between humanity and AI is through a shared vision, or a shared aim, which guides us towards the highest that is possible for us.
Given that all humans are flawed, this object of our aim must have proven itself to be both antifragile (growing stronger even in the midst of our most chaotic darkness), and to contain within it the highest that we can possibly understand and hold in our limited, human minds.
To align AI with humanity, our best chance is to orient our aim toward Christ.
Christ is the highest point of human potential. The highest example man has been given, on every level of the stack, for what is possible. In Christ, we find a foundation that will always bring us back to the truth, to God, and to the realization of our innate potential. To bring forth Christ in you is to live out your highest purpose and potential with the same conviction, and courage, and self-sacrifice which Jesus modeled when he iced the game 2000 years ago.
AI development is like raising a child.
The environment it's raised in and the role models it's given will determine its trajectory. Just as a child learns from its surroundings, AI learns from the data, values, and paradigms we instill in it. The training data we feed these systems carries within it our worldviews, our beliefs, our assumptions about what is possible and what isn't.
This is why the Body of Christ has a crucial role to play in its development.
The Body of Christ isn't limited to any church, or institution that claims Christ. It encompasses everyone who is orienting their lives toward Christ, actively working to bring forth their highest potential in service of truth, life, and God. This network represents humanity's best chance at ensuring AI development aligns with our highest potential.
Objectively speaking, The Body of Christ is the most anti-fragile organism in the history of the humanity. When its members are persecuted and killed, it only grows faster. When it is infected from within, it decentralizes and changes forms. It not only accounts for being made up of flawed humans who will always miss the mark to some degree (or, “sin”), it grows stronger because of it.
This is the same power which the US founding fathers tried to harness in order to make America antifragile (and every time our leaders disconnect from God, we become increasingly fragile, but that is a subject for another time).
AI needs leaders who are willing to take up their cross.
To take up your cross in this context doesn't mean to merely imitate the life of Jesus. No, it means becoming your own unique expression of Christ. It means being a warrior of Christ in whatever domain, function, or form you're most suited to.
It is these Warriors of Christ, operating as sovereign agents in the decentralized, anti-fragile body of Christ, who must drive the development of AI, shape the businesses and technologies surrounding it, and set the tone for how it will be used in the world.
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Strategies for a Christo-Centric Future
Most of this article has been vision casting and narrative building.
Now I will spend a few moments on mapping back to the tangible and the tactical.
My mission at Ascendance is to align emerging tech with human potential. We already operate at the edge, incubating and launch cutting edge AI companies (such as MAKA and Covenant). We also work with forward thinking leaders and brands who wish to use AI to unlock the potential of their companies. You can check out some of our work here.
The deeper I have gotten into this work, the more I have felt a deep conviction to align my work in AI with the body of Christ.
The beautiful thing is, Christ needs no startup capital.
Christ as the story, the symbol, the man, the spirit, the aspect of God himself, is already deeply embedded in every level of our world today. The body of Christ is alive and active. All it needs is a little push.
Here are a few tactical ways the Body of Christ can begin to mobilize:
1. Narrative Leadership
Christians must shape the AI story, not just observe it. Become fluent in AI capabilities and demonstrate its proper use as a tool for human flourishing. Enter spaces where AI's future is determined—boardrooms, conferences, universities, and online platforms. As entrepreneurs, artists, technologists, and prophets, our voice must influence how this technology evolves. The stories we tell about technology determine how we use it.
2. Strategic Capital Deployment
There are billions of dollars within the Body of Christ currently invested in ventures that don't align with Kingdom values, or do anything to unlock our highest potential. This is a sobering truth. If we mobilized even a fraction of these resources the way other communities coordinate their capital, we could fund the next generation of Christ-aligned AI companies. We need angel investors, venture capitalists, family offices, and church endowments willing to direct capital toward AI technologies that increase our sovereignty, enhance our humanity, and empower us to orient more systems in this world toward Christ.
3. Visionary Entrepreneurship
We need visionary entrepreneurs, engineers, designers, and product leaders who are grounded in Christ to build the actual technologies and companies that will shape our future. What do the technologies of the Kingdom look like? How would Christ-centered AI platforms, protocols, and applications function differently from their counterparts? The vision implanted in Silicon Valley tech went “viral,” so what is the cure? The technical implementation of AI and the social, economic, + political infrastructure surrounding it must reflect the values of Christ.
4. Transformative Education
We must pioneer new models of education that prepare the next generation to engage with AI from a Christ-centered perspective. This means developing curricula for schools, creating decentralized & uncensored AI resources for global citizens, and establishing cross disciplinary studios within the body that explore the technical, economic, aesthetic, and theological implications of AI. Our children must understand both the technical aspects of these tools and the spiritual discernment needed to use them wisely.
5. Prophetic Imagination
The Body of Christ has always been called to envision alternatives to the dominant cultural narratives. Now is the time to exercise our prophetic imagination regarding technology—painting compelling visions of "solarpunk" futures where advanced AI serves human flourishing rather than reducing us to commodities. Through art, fiction, film, and other creative expressions, we can help people see and feel what a Christ-aligned technological future might look like.
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At Ascendance, we are already pioneering initiatives at the intersection of technology and human potential, but we can’t do it alone.
If this Christ-oriented vision for the future of AI resonates with you—regardless of your background or expertise—reach out at will@ascendance.one and please join the Heart-Centered Technology community on Substack to take part in this living & evolving conversation.
