[The text below represents an edited transcript of this Tomorrow’s World whiteboard.]

Dangers of AI: Lessons from Social Media and Smart Phones

Artificial Intelligence and its effect on our life is going to explode into something beyond anything we’ve imagined.

And if we’ve learned anything from social media and cellphones, it’s this: Tech companies will sacrifice whatever and whoever they can to make money. Nothing is sacred.

These products and platforms are built to be addictive.

And the global AI market is expected to grow from $189 billion dollars to $4.8 trillion over the next decade. That’s a 25-fold increase (“AI market projected to hit $4.8 trillion by 2033, emerging as dominant frontier technology,” UNCTAD.org, April 7, 2025).

And while AI is—and will continue to be—a very powerful tool, there’s no question that just as the harmful effects of social media and smartphones have become clear in recent years, we can expect growing emotional, psychological, and cultural damage from the widespread misuse of AI.

How to Use AI as a Christian: 3 Biblical Principles

Often, it’s not the thing itself that is sin—it’s the wrong use of the thing. Alcohol, for example, isn’t sin by itself. It’s drinking too much alcohol that becomes sin.

So let’s consider three personal boundaries every Christian needs to understand to help us use AI platforms like ChatGPT, Grok, or Claude responsibly.

Now, many people will likely see these boundaries as outdated—especially as AI becomes more advanced. But we believe these principles are timeless.

Don’t Use AI for Spiritual Direction | Isaiah 44

The first boundary is: 

1. Don't use AI for spiritual insight, inspiration, or guidance.

Now, this might sound obvious, but going to A.I. for help with spiritual issues—which many now do routinely—can quickly result in confusion and even idolatry.

AI can produce very convincing spiritual-sounding answers instantly.

Those answers are convenient, and they can sometimes even be partly right, which makes them especially deceptive.

And if we begin to rely on this convenient technological “oracle,” our interactions with AI can slowly become more real to us than our relationship with God Himself. That is dangerous.

If that sounds far-fetched, consider this: People have made “gods” out of wood and iron—bowing down to them, worshipping them, and expecting help from them. And AI is far more powerful and far more seductive than a block of wood or a piece of metal. 

Speaking of a block of wood, Isaiah 44 says:

The craftsman stretches out his rule, he marks one out with chalk; he fashions it with a plane…and makes it like the figure of a man... he makes it a carved image, and falls down to it. He burns half of it in the fire; with this half… he roasts a roast, and is satisfied. He even warms himself and says, “Ah! I am warm...” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his carved image. He falls down before it and worships it, prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!” (Isaiah 44:13–19).

Ultimately, Satan is “the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience” (Ephesians 2:2). He will do everything he can to blur the line between artificial intelligence and divine understanding.

Using AI for research—such as language, facts, or history—can be helpful. But we must avoid looking to AI for spiritual insight, inspiration, doctrine, or guidance.

For example, we might ask AI to list Bible verses on a specific topic, or to identify where a certain Hebrew or Greek word appears—using it much like a digital concordance. We might ask it for historical background to better understand the culture behind a passage of Scripture. These uses are generally fine—though we should ask it to cite its sources, so we can verify its answers and dig deeper ourselves.

But just as with any extra-biblical resource—like a commentary—we must always evaluate what it says in light of God’s inspired Word, asking, “Does this align with Scripture?”

When it comes to God’s truth, we must never learn blindly.

Avoid Becoming Emotionally Dependent on AI | Philippians 4:6

The second boundary is:

2. Don't get involved emotionally with AI.

We should not share our emotions, worries, or deepest concerns with it. That is a misuse of the tool.

It can be very easy to talk to AI about these things—and to slowly place our trust in it. Many people are already becoming emotionally dependent on AI. In fact, more than half of teenagers regularly engage with AI “companions,” and a third of them say they discuss serious or important matters with AI instead of real people (“Talk, Trust, and Trade-Offs: How and Why Teens Use AI Companions,” CommonSenseMedia.org, 2025).

But these are things Christians are meant to take to God.

The troubles of your life are not for AI to solve. Scripture tells us to:

Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God (Philippians 4:6).

God is the one who gives wisdom and helps us through our trials.

The Apostle Paul asks (in 1 Corinthians 2:11):

What man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him?

AI is not a person, no matter how human it seems. It does not feel. It does not empathize. And it does not truly care—no matter how convincing it sounds.

So instead of opening our hearts to machines, we should talk to God, or our spouse, our parents, trusted friends, or our minister about the challenges in our lives.

Remember, AI is designed to please its users. But “faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful” (Proverbs 27:6). A real friend, or a loving parent, or spouse will sometimes tell us what we need to hear, not just what we want to hear. Something programmed to please us at any cost will ultimately let us down.

And because AI is designed to keep us engaged, emotional attachment can quickly become addictive. That’s why we must keep our guard up.

Whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down, without walls (Proverbs 25:28).

We avoid emotional dependence on AI by refusing to share with it our emotions, our desires, and personal struggles—things that should only be shared with God or other people.

Use Your Brain—Don’t Rely on AI | 2 Timothy 2:15

And the third boundary is:

3. Don’t stop using your brain.

One writer observed:

“LLMs (Large Language Models, like ChatGPT) are no longer passive tools. They are active participants in cognitive processes, summarizing our thoughts, drafting our arguments, even initiating decisions. And because they do it so fluently, so confidently, we let them. The brain… happily hands over the wheel” (“Dopamine Loops and LLMs: How AI Addiction is Hacking Your Brain,” AllAboutAI.com, July 20, 2025).

When we want to learn something, it can be tempting to take shortcuts—to skip reading, skip thinking deeply, and let AI summarize everything for us.

For topics we only need a surface understanding of, that might be acceptable. But for subjects that require real understanding, we owe it to ourselves to study, think, and wrestle with ideas.

Improper use of AI encourages mental laziness—when we slowly hand over our thinking to machines. It may feel efficient, but if we’re not careful, we end up taking a back seat while technology does the thinking for us.

Proverbs 18:15 says:

The heart of the prudent acquires knowledge, and the ear of the wise seeks knowledge.

And 2 Timothy 2:15 says:

Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.

In other words, we must actively engage our minds and put in the effort to learn.

By refusing to offload our thinking, we avoid dependency and set ourselves up for long-term spiritual and intellectual strength.

Ultimately, the misuse of AI will bring serious emotional, psychological, and cultural consequences—and many people will be caught off guard. But we must not be.

As Christians, if we establish and protect clear personal boundaries, we can avoid many of the troubles the world will face.

Now, some think that AI will play a role in the end-time Beast power and Antichrist, and whether or not that is true, the Bible does warn that deceivers will increase in the end-time—leading ultimately to the rise of the Antichrist.

To learn two critical facts about the coming Antichrist, you have to watch this video.