Leaders advise young people to use new tools ethically and remain anchored in faith.
May 2, 2024 | Christiansted, St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands | CARU Staff and Inter-American Division News
When planning their mission trip to the island of St. Croix, the General Conference Treasury department identified youth engagement as essential. This is particularly crucial given the recent emphasis on mission refocus. The team aimed to leverage youth involvement to effectively establish digital ministries, thus maximizing the spread of the gospel message.
Advertised as an AI (Artificial intelligence) and Ice cream social, the two hour engagement gathered just over fifty participants at the upper floor of the central Seventh Day Adventist community center on April 11, 2024 with the intention to create a space where technology and faith intersect in one setting.
The training emphasized the necessity of leveraging the digital era’s tools while staying anchored in the faith. Richard Stevenson noted that “Online now, there are so many competing sources of truth, but when you dig a little deeper they are hollow. What we want to do with all the advancement in AI is increasingly produce information to point others to scripture.”
The program explored the multifaceted area of technology, highlighting its potential for both good and evil; advancing the gospel and posing challenges.
Youth director for the World Adventist Church, Pastor Busi Khumalo expressed his satisfaction with the initiative, stating that when you look at the history of the church you cannot help but marvel at how God is willing to use young people to advance His church. Technology is where young people are . That’s their space. They are fascinated by gadgets, media, social media and artificial intelligence – the direction in which the world is moving. We should not be found lacking by not moving with the times.
Richard Stephenson, Chief Information Officer and Associate Treasurer for the General Conference and facilitator of the program highlighted that “This is a good moment, a necessary and very urgent one for all of our young people. Digital media has gathered us with a single mission to establish a communication network.”
Stephenson indicated that “the whole world has already made decisions regarding digital technology. People are looking for information and we should give deep thoughts and provide truthful answers. He shared that “websites, cars, phones, even our refrigerators are learning the patterns of human life simply through memory and programming language. We have undergone four industrial revolutions, each further advancing the boundaries of innovation and convenience. All these advancements could work in the church’s favor,”
Notwithstanding the advancements, he warned that “so much of what we see and what we hear is fake. How do we tell what’s true?” He warned that AI just is not our source of truth. -Rather, God’s word is truth and we must spend time in scripture. As advanced as AI is, we cannot allow it to be the foundation of truth. There’s an inherent risk in AI technology such as ChatGPT, and experts are just beginning to comprehend some of its implications. But AI can be a powerful tool if used correctly, he emphasized
“This is powerful” said world youth director Pastor Pastor Busi Khumalo “because sometimes youth don’t know where to start. Generative AI can give you enough to get you started and help you to save time, organizing data that would take days and weeks to process,” he explained. “But let us be authentic.”
“This is the beginning of a new era and we have to teach our young people how to use AI responsibly,” said Sabrina C DeSouza, Associate Treasurer of the GC. “Young people are using AI to plagiarize and do all sorts of illegal things. We want them to use AI responsibly as a tool to help us to do so much.”
Stevenson used a considerable amount of time in his presentation to show those in attendance different AI tools that can be used to generate songs -content that they want to hear and they want to do. He demonstrated how AI can help modulate the configurations so that what is generated and shared matches their religious beliefs and can be used to advance missions.
He shared how the Adventist Church incorporates AI technology to share a weekly message by GC president Ted N. C. Wilson with other world fields. AI uses Wilson’s voice and inflections from the original English and using his voice, superimposes his message into dozens of languages. By way of an example, Stevenson shared samples of one of Wilson’s weekly messages in Korean and other languages. “This is a combination of content and technology,” Stevenson said. “This is not a demonstration we are doing; it is a tool that from now on will make the message available in many different languages. What we need is all possible tools to share the good news of salvation.”
Church leaders will continue to encourage young church members to share hope throughout their social media communities. Pastor Busi Khumalo reported that at the next General Conference (GC) session there will be a special offering collected just for digital ministry and this meeting is preparing them for that time. He prayed that God would give us wisdom and open our eyes so we would not get wrapped in what is before us.
The original version of this story was posted on the Inter-Ammerican Division news site.