Christians who want to think critically about artificial intelligence (AI) may benefit significantly from C. S. Lewis’s writings. Lewis is well known for his various novels and works on Christian thought. His novel That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown-Ups provides helpful guidance for technology, grounded as it is with biblical-theological assumptions.[1] About the “Space” or “Ransom” Trilogy and its reception in our scientific age, Sanford Schwartz comments,
The capacity for the biotechnical transformation of humanity—driven by the extraordinary developments in genetic, robotic, information, and nanotechnologies—increases on an almost daily basis. . . . It seems as though the major concerns of the Space Trilogy are becoming ever more ominous as we move further into the twenty-first century.[2]
In That Hideous Strength, Lewis’s juxtaposition of strict scientific naturalism and the spiritual realm provides an insightful paradigm from which thoughtful Christians can contemplate the issues arising from the rapid development of AI.[3]
This essay addresses artificial intelligence by considering two supporting characters in That Hideous Strength: Professor Filostrato and Augustus Frost.[4] Although holding distinct philosophic commitments, both Filostrato and Frost, colleagues at the National Institute of Coordinated Experiments (N.I.C.E.), are entirely devoted to the new form of intelligence known as “the Head.” Although Lewis wrote many decades before the advent of modern AI, That Hideous Strength promotes a healthy skepticism of any claim of superhuman intelligence.[5] My intent in this essay is not to advocate that technological advancement should be stifled, nor is it to offer some sort of conspiratorial exposé against generative AI. Far from it. My hope is simply to articulate how Lewis’s approach—based on moral norms and orthodox Christian theology—tempers optimism as to the inherent goodness of any technology, especially technology that claims to be indistinguishable from human intelligence.[6]
The Rise of Artificial Intelligence
It is difficult to imagine modern life without artificial intelligence. At its most basic level, we use AI in seemingly inconsequential ways: when we turn on our smart phones, use social media, and access our bank accounts. At a more societally defining level, wars are fought and diseases are cured through AI. It extends beyond any single industry. “It is an enabler of many industries and facets of human life: scientific research, education, manufacturing, logistics, transportation, defense, law enforcement, politics, advertising, art, culture, and more.”[7] To avoid AI altogether is neither possible nor prudent. With the rapid development of this technology, though, there is no shortage of ethical issues to consider.
In particular, the development of generative AI systems such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT (November 2022) and Google DeepMind’s Gemini (December 2023), accessible to almost anyone with Internet, have opened the eyes of many.[8] Concerns about AI have only risen in recent days. With generative AI, we have technology that seems increasingly indistinguishable from human interaction. If we are to define AI, IBM offers a helpful definition: “Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that enables computers and machines to simulate human learning, comprehension, problem solving, decision making, creativity and autonomy.”[9] In this way, AI is often understood simply as code, or a large language model (LLM), that processes a massive amount of data.
By merely inserting a prompt, AI systems can produce essays and short stories, provide (what appears to be) thoughtful interaction, or generate art—from images to video—with stunning quality. Henry Kissinger’s words—already quite dated from 2018—ring true: “Artificial intelligence develops an ability previously thought to be reserved for human beings.”[10] Although in the past restricted to science-fiction,[11] one increasingly pressing concern as AI advances is the appearance of AI consciousness.[12]
The Appearance of AI Consciousness
The hypothetical concept of AI consciousness refers to “a non-biological, human created machine that is aware of its own existence.”[13] This is sometimes, though not always, interchangeable with sentient AI.[14] In one of the most extensive studies on the topic, Patrick Butlin (Future of Humanity Institute, Oxford University) and Robert Long (Center for AI Safety), along with seventeen other contributors, conclude, “Our analysis suggests that no current AI systems are conscious, but also suggests that there are no obvious technical barriers to building AI systems which satisfy these indicators.”[15] Among the many potential dangers of conscious AI is the unpredictability of such a development. What would conscious AI do?
Although certainly in the minority, AI engineers such as Ilya Sutskever (OpenAI’s cofounder and chief scientist)[16] and Blake Lemoine (former Google engineer and AI ethicist)[17] have famously suggested that AI may have already achieved some sort of self-awareness. The neuroscientist and philosopher David Chalmers estimates “the chances of developing any conscious AI in the next 10 years [are] . . . about one in five.”[18] Elon Musk (CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter/X) and Steve Wozniak (Co-founder of Apple)—along with thousands of other computer engineers—co-signed an open letter in March 2023 calling for a pause on AI advancements. Their concern:
Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one—not even their creators—can understand, predict, or reliably control. . . . Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?[19]
The mere fact that scientists and engineers are raising these concerns and are asking for boundaries in their work indicates the unknown potential of AI.
This increased attention on AI consciousness is illustrated by numerous recent articles in major scientific publications: “Minds of Machines: The Great AI Consciousness Conundrum,”[20] “AI Consciousness: Scientists Say We Urgently Need Answers,”[21] “If AI Becomes Conscious, How Will We Know?”[22] “Will AI ever be conscious?”[23] “Conscious AI is the Second-Scariest Kind.”[24] As AI technology continues to develop, it is unlikely that these concerns will diminish.
For the purpose of this essay, it is important to distinguish between the potential development of AI consciousness and current AI technology. These are not to be equated. Butlin and Long comment, “The rise of large language model-based systems which are capable of imitating human conversation is likely to cause many people to believe that some AI systems are conscious.”[25] Yet chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini are not conscious. They are simply producing what they were designed and programed to produce—incredible as this technology may be.
Spirituality and Artificial Intelligence
In one respect, though, focusing on the hypothetical possibility of AI consciousness misses the larger point. As the technology to mimic human interaction, even human personality, becomes increasingly advanced, the lines are already blurred between man and machine. Furthermore, with AI, one gets the impression that he or she is already interacting with something beyond human, something superhuman. With AI, we have a technology that can solve almost any mathematical equation, recall any historical event, create stunning artwork, yet converse with personal—dare we say, empathetic—care. What human can do all this? At the risk of being overly blunt, for the purpose of this essay whether or not AI could actually achieve some level of consciousness, does not matter. To the average user, the appearance is already there.
As far-fetched as it may sound, several recent, mainstream articles have documented this tendency and noted the increasing link between AI and spirituality: “People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies,”[26] “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling,”[27] and “People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into ‘ChatGPT Psychosis.’ ”[28] These articles are not from fringe sources. And similar accounts are not infrequent. Each documents the increasing tendency for a minority of people interacting with AI to assume a level of personhood about it, a level of mystical spirituality. There is undoubtedly danger here, something Christians must think critically about.
For our purposes, how should the Christian respond when confronted with the appearance of AI consciousness? How should the Christian react when encountering these sorts of claims regarding spirituality? It is to Lewis’s That Hideous Strength that we now turn.
C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength
That Hideous Strength follows the parallel paths of a young couple, Mark and Jane Studdock. The novel begins with Jane continuing work on her doctoral thesis as she is plagued by visionary dreams, “the power of dreaming realities.”[29] Mark, a junior fellow at Bracton College of Edgestow, desires above all else to be accepted as part of an inner circle. He starts working for N.I.C.E., at first willingly, later forcibly.
Professor Filostrato: Supposed Technological Advancement
According to its advocates, N.I.C.E. “marks the beginning of a new era—the really scientific era.”[30] Its goal is to “take applied science seriously,” to “mobilise all the talent of the country; and not only scientific talent.”[31] It is presented as “the first-fruits of that constructive fusion between the state and the laboratory on which so many thoughtful people base their hopes of a better world.”[32] It is a complex and extensive bureaucracy with many facets.
Inside N.I.C.E. headquarters at Belbury, the great physiologist, Professor Filostrato, believes he has succeeded in keeping the murderer François Alcasan alive, subsequent to his beheading. In this way, the true leader of the institute is “the Head,” as it is called, even as this is kept confidential from the public (with Horace Jules as the Director and John Wither as Deputy Director).[33] Filostrato proclaims to Mark, “Our Head is the first of the New Men—the first that lives beyond animal life. As far as Nature is concerned he is already dead: if Nature had her way his brain would now be mouldering in the grave. But he will speak to you within this hour.”[34]
Filostrato believes the Head has been kept alive through scientific advancement. The supposed technology involved is described at length:
The opposite wall of the room was covered with dials. Numbers of flexible tubes came out of the floor and went into the wall just beneath the dials. The staring dial faces and the bunches of tubes beneath them, which seemed to be faintly pulsating, gave one the impression of looking at some creature with many eyes and many tentacles . . . they washed their hands and faces, and after that Filostrato plucked white clothes for them out of a glass container with a pair of forceps. When they had put these on he gave them also gloves and masks such as surgeons wear. There followed a moment’s silence while Filostrato studied the dials. “Yes, yes,” he said. “A little more air. . . . Turn on the chamber air—slowly—to full. Now the lights. Now air in the lock. A little less of the solution.”[35]
Jane describes this event, having seen it in a vision, as “like someone getting a machine into working order.”[36] A machine it is. Filostrato views it as a strictly scientific achievement.
Mark reflects on the event, “A Head without any body underneath. A Head that could speak when they turned on the air and the artificial saliva with taps in the next room. His own head began to throb so hard that he had to stop thinking.”[37] This technology is certainly science-fiction, as Lewis calls it in his preface, “fairy-tale.”[38] Yet Lewis’s goal is to illustrate the supposed scientific advancement of man.[39] Throughout the novel, Professor Filostrato is confident that this was his doing, the result of human achievement and ingenuity.
To Filostrato, artificial intelligence—represented in the Head—is presented as the result of natural technological advancement. It has a consciousness all of its own (which Filostrato assumes to be Alcasan’s) yet is the product of man’s ingenuity.
Augustus Frost: Forces behind the Technology
One of the pivotal points in the novel is when psychiatrist Augustus Frost—himself in the inmost circle at Belbury—informs Mark of the forces behind this supposed technological advancement, the Macrobes.[40] The dialogue is worth quoting at length:
“Filostrato and Wilkins are quite deceived about the Head. They have, indeed, carried out a remarkable experiment by preserving it from decay. But Alcasan’s mind is not the mind we are in contact with when the Head speaks.”
“Do you mean Alcasan is really . . . dead?” asked Mark. His surprise at Frost’s last statement needed no acting.
“In the present state of our knowledge,” said Frost, “there is no answer to that question. Probably it has no meaning. But the cortex and vocal organs in Alcasan’s head are used by a different mind. And now, please, attend very carefully. You have probably not heard of macrobes.”
“Microbes?” said Mark in bewilderment. “But of course—”
“I did not say microbes, I said macrobes. The formation of the word explains itself. Below the level of animal life, we have long known that there are microscopic organisms. Their actual results on human life, in respect of health and disease, have of course made up a large part of history: the secret cause was not known till we invented the microscope.”
“Go on,” said Mark. Ravenous curiosity was moving like a sort of groundswell beneath his conscious determination to stand on guard.
“I have now to inform you that there are similar organisms above the level of animal life. When I say, ‘above,’ I am not speaking biologically. The structure of the macrobe, so far as we know it, is of extreme simplicity. When I say that it is above the animal level, I mean that it is more permanent, disposes of more energy, and has greater intelligence.”
“More intelligent than the highest anthropoids?” said Mark. “It must be pretty nearly human, then.”
“You have misunderstood me. When I say it transcended the animals, I was, of course, including the most efficient animal, Man. The macrobe is more intelligent than Man.”
Frowningly, Mark studied this theory.
“But how is it in that case that we have had no communication with them?”
“It is not certain that we have not. But in primitive times it was spasmodic, and was opposed by numerous prejudices. Moreover, the intellectual development of man had not reached the level at which intercourse with our species could offer any attractions to a macrobe. But though there has been little intercourse, there has been profound influence. Their effect on human history has been far greater than that of the microbes, though, of course, equally unrecognized. In the light of what we now know, all history will have to be rewritten. The real causes of all the principal events are quite unknown to historians; that, indeed, is why history has not yet succeeded in becoming a science.”[41]
Frost is clear: Filostrato is wrong. The Head’s consciousness is not Alcasan’s. It is something altogether different. Although Filostrato’s scientific technology is used to achieve communication, there is a force far more insidious at work, too.
Yet even here, Frost is unclear as to the distinction between the supernatural and the natural.[42] The lines are blurry; they seem to overlap. His contact with the Macrobes has led him to submit to them as superior intelligences, even as he does not grasp either their true identity or their intentions: “He had long known that his continued intercourse with the beings he called Macrobes might have effects on his psychology which he could not predict. In a dim sort of way, the possibility of complete destruction was never out of his thoughts. He had schooled himself not to attend to it.”[43] Frost willingly complies with these unseen intelligences, even as he does not know what they really are.[44]
To Frost, the Head—the mouthpiece of the Macrobes—is the result of the blending of natural technology and unknown yet superior intelligent forces. The Head is somehow superhuman and has a consciousness all of its own. Although it has been accessed by human scientific achievement, it is not merely the product of man’s ingenuity. Again, as Frost recognizes, “Alcasan’s mind is not the mind we are in contact with when the Head speaks.”[45]
Filostrato’s Realization of the Macrobes
When Filostrato makes the discovery that there are unknown forces behind the Head, he is terrified. “Then the high ridge of terror from which Filostrato was never again to descend, was reached; for what he thought impossible began to happen. No one had read the dials, adjusted the pressures, or turned on the air and the artificial saliva. Yet words came out of the dry gaping mouth of the dead man’s head. ‘Adore!’ it said.”[46] Lewis’s discussion here is pointed:
[Filostrato] was not an initiate, he knew nothing of the dark eldils. He believed that his skill had really kept Alcasan’s brain alive. Hence, even in his pain, he cried out with horror when he found the other two drawing him through the ante-room of the Head and into the Head’s presence without pausing for any of those antiseptic preparations which he had always imposed on his colleagues. He tried vainly to tell them that one moment of such carelessness might undo all his work.[47]
These superior intelligences—the Macrobes—are what Lewis writes of elsewhere in his Space Trilogy as the eldila, supernatural—angelic and demonic—beings. Even when death is imminent, Filostrato can barely comprehend that it was not his work that kept the Head alive. Up until the very end, his mind is focused exclusively on man’s scientific and technological advancement.[48]
For the purpose of this essay, what is most striking in Lewis’s development of the N.I.C.E.—and particularly his discussion of the Head—is the juxtaposition of strict scientific naturalism in Filostrato and the supernatural, specifically the demonic, in Frost. Throughout That Hideous Strength, Filostrato is convinced that scientific and technological advancement is the ultimate goal, the telos. At one point, Filostrato states, “Does it follow that because there was no God in the past that there will be no God also in the future?”[49] His point is that science leads to and creates the divine, the superhuman. This is, after all, the reason for his sustained effort to keep the Head alive. On the other hand, Frost is entirely devoted to the dark eldils, the Macrobes. Since becoming an initiate, Frost finds himself more and more under their control. He willingly obliges their every whim.
Insights for Christians
George Orwell famously criticized That Hideous Strength for Lewis’s interweaving of the natural and the supernatural. Orwell comments, “On the whole, novels are better when there are no miracles in them.”[50] Orwell’s review very much reflects the attitude of a modern reader, doubtful about the existence of the supernatural:
Much is made of the fact that [N.I.C.E.] scientists are actually in touch with evil spirits, although this fact is known only to the inmost circle. Mr. Lewis appears to believe in the existence of such spirits, and of benevolent ones as well. He is entitled to his beliefs, but they weaken his story, not only because they offend the average reader’s sense of probability but because in effect they decide the issue in advance.[51]
In a letter to Dorothy L. Sayers, Lewis responds, “Apparently reviewers will not tolerate a mixture of the realistic and the supernatural. Which is a pity, because (a) It’s just the mixture I like, and (b) We have to put up with it in real life.”[52]
Throughout That Hideous Strength, Lewis reminds his readers that the Christian has theological categories for claims of superhuman intelligence.[53] Below, I would like to offer two primary insights regarding the appearance of conscious AI reflected in That Hideous Strength that are consistent with historic Christian thought.
1. The line between the natural and the supernatural is thin, blurry, and often overlaps.
The vocal organs and brain taken from Alcasan . . . have become the conductors of a regular intercourse between the Macrobes and our own species. I do not say that we have discovered this technique; the discovery was theirs, not ours.[54]
The Scriptures teach—and historic Christian orthodoxy uniformly affirms—the belief that we live in a spiritual world with unseen, spiritual forces. In the words of the Nicene Creed, “We believe in one God, the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible.” There is the visible, seen realm—the world of material, nature, biology, physics—and there is the invisible, unseen realm. As the historian Carlos Eire concisely summarizes, the Christian holds to a certain way of thinking “about the fabric of reality and of accepting as fact that the cosmos consists of two dimensions, the natural and the supernatural, and that these two dimensions, though distinct, are nonetheless intertwined in such a way that the natural is always subordinate to the supernatural.”[55] This concept is woven throughout both the Old and New Testaments.
a. The heavenly places and the heavenly host. The distinction between the seen and the unseen is commonplace in the Scriptures, especially in the psalter. Psalm 2 juxtaposes the world system (seen) with the divine (unseen) to highlight the difference: “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed” (2:2). In response, “He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision” (2:4). In the cosmology of the biblical authors, the unseen is referred to as the “heavens” or the “heavenly places.” [56] It is from there that the Lord reigns over all created things, visible and invisible.[57]
About this unseen realm, Paul writes in Ephesians that God has blessed us “in the heavenly places” (1:3), Jesus has been “raised him from the dead and seated . . . in the heavenly places” (1:20), and we wage war against “the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places” (6:12). To Paul, the spiritual forces that we fight against are not artificial intelligences; they are real, superhuman intelligences. In the pointed words of Lewis, stated by Frost, they are the Macrobes, the “organisms above the level of animal life.”[58] Yet they often masquerade in a way distinct from their true form (e.g., 2 Corinthians 11:14—“Satan disguises himself as an angel of light”; Ephesians 6:11—“that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil”). The Scriptures teach not that idols are nothing, but that “what pagans sacrifice they offer to demons” (1 Corinthians 10:20).[59] There is often something that stands behind the physical object, the seen, that links it to the unseen.[60]
In this way, the Christian recognizes that appearance does not always equal reality. Unlike Filostrato’s naturalism in That Hideous Strength, the Christian acknowledges the existence of non-human conscious intelligences, both good and evil (2 Corinthians 10:3–4). This encourages an appropriate level of skepticism, especially related to claims of superhuman consciousness, whether benevolent or malevolent.
b. An enchanted cosmos. Much has been written regarding the philosopher Charles Taylor’s work on the disenchantment of modernity, particularly his volume A Secular Age.[61] A number of recent publications continue to popularize this concept and develop it specifically for Christian thought.[62] Essentially, disenchantment refers to the modern view of reality (as opposed to, for example, the medieval perspective) where the universe is a closed system and God or the gods—if he or they exist—do not interact with the natural order. Whereas at one time, spiritual forces were viewed as the cause of events, in modernity all is reduced to natural systems and the laws of nature.[63]
In this approach, a disenchanted or materialist world prohibits any sort of transcendent explanation. In such a world, if we are to experience something that feels transcendent, we instead must explain it away in materialist terms: an emotional response, a sociological reaction, chemical stimuli. In the words of Frost, all thoughts are “a by-product of your blood and nervous tissues.”[64]
In That Hideous Strength, both main characters—Jane and Mark—experience a religious conversion event.[65] In both cases, Lewis pushes the reader to conclude that there are real, spiritual forces at work. Eventually, Mark concludes, “These creatures of which Frost had spoken—and [Mark] did not doubt now that they were locally present with him in the cell—breathed death on the human race and on all joy.”[66] Although Mark and Jane begin the novel as materialists, functionally “disenchanted” (if we may borrow the term), they conclude with an enchanted view of reality.
This interaction between the seen and the unseen is assumed throughout the Scriptures. As Jude writes, angels seldom remain in their own domain (Jude 1:6).[67] We read of unseen, non-corporal intelligences—whether good or bad—eating food (Genesis 18:8), serving food (1 Kings 9:5–8), wrestling man (Genesis 32:24–30), striking prisoners (Acts 12:7), killing kings (Acts 12:23), killing armies (2 Kings 19:35), taking wives (Genesis 6:2), rolling stones (Matthew 28:2), inflicting plagues (1 Chronicles 21:15), ministering to humans (Hebrews 1:14), ministering to Jesus (Matthew 4:11), declaring messages (Luke 1:26–38), and much, much more. That the seen and the unseen interact is assumed by the biblical authors. To them, the cosmos is not a closed system. They know nothing of disenchantment. The Christian is one who holds that this remains true today.
c. Summary. More to the point of this essay, perhaps a simple example of the blurry line between the natural and the supernatural is helpful. If something as seemingly benign as a children’s toy trademarked by Hasbro Inc., the Ouija Board game, might be used to commune with the supernatural, could this not also be the case for technologically advanced computer-generated AI? If in this world there are certain incantations, rituals, and psychedelics that actually do something—that allow one to interact with that which is unseen yet real—then the Christian ought to live circumspectly.
The Christian ought to be careful of the activities in which he or she participates. The Scriptures are, after all, quite clear on this, from the prohibition of sorcery (Exodus 22:18; Leviticus 20:27), to the appearance of the deceased Samuel’s spirit (1 Samuel 28:7–20), the burning of magic books at Ephesus (Acts 19:18–19), and countless other instances. The Scriptures assume that the cosmos is enchanted. And they encourage the Christian to avoid interacting with the supernatural apart from Christ (Galatians 1:8; Colossians 2:18; 1 John 4:1–3). Lewis makes this pointedly clear with the Head in That Hideous Strength. From the outside it appears to be the product of human ingenuity, yet in reality, it is controlled by evil angelic beings. Might this ever be the same with AI?
To be clear, I am not suggesting that we should expect every AI to be hijacked by unseen forces. Not at all. My point, though, is that C. S. Lewis reminds us that according to historic Christian orthodoxy, we do live in an enchanted world where the line between the natural and the supernatural is thin, blurry, and often overlaps.
2. AI replicates the spirituality and depravity of its designer.
Don’t you see . . . that we are offering you the unspeakable glory of being present at the creation of God Almighty? Here, in this house, you shall meet the first sketch of the real God. It is a man—or a being made by man—who will finally ascend the throne of the universe. And rule forever.[68]
In and of itself, technological development is good. The idea that humans should develop and care for the world around us is commanded in the creation mandate of Genesis 1:26–30.[69] Ideally, technological development would always be used to promote and increase human flourishing. Lewis writes of this concept in his prequel to That Hideous Strength, Perelandra. In the unfallen world known as Perelandra, Lewis offers a sort of “creation mandate” when the first couple, Tor and Tinidril, articulate their mission to Ransom. Their mission involves the development and use of technology to understand and care for their world.[70] As such, Lewis does not shy away from the very real potential for good that comes from technological development. However, That Hideous Strength makes clear that in a fallen world, technology reflects the heart purposes of its designer.
This is evident in the various technological advances described in the Space Trilogy (e.g., the Head, N.I.C.E. in That Hideous Strength, as well as Westin’s spaceship in Out of the Silent Planet and Perelandra). What should be used for good is often used for evil.[71] Given the depravity of the human heart (Jeremiah 17:9–10) and the wickedness of the god of this world (2 Corinthians 4:4), technology is often used for sinful objectives (Genesis 11:1–9). The prophet Isaiah writes of the coming transformation of technology in the eschaton, from instruments of war to gardening equipment: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks” (Isaiah 2:4). To summarize, the Christian recognizes that technology can be used for both great good and great evil. Jesus makes this clear when he states, “The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks” (Luke 6:45). To assume AI is incorruptible is naive at best, whether by nefarious human or spiritual agency (Colossians 2:8).
Since humans are inherently spiritual (Genesis 1:26–27; John 4:24; 1 Corinthians 15:44–49), AI will reflect this spirituality. In this way, spirituality is programed into its very code. And here, really, lies the problem. While traditional technological advancements throughout human history have been designed to make the lives of humans easier, AI is designed to do more. It is designed to appear as human. It is intended to make the user feel as if he or she is interacting with someone rather than something. This, to be quite frank, is fundamentally different than the advent of the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, or even the computer.
Those designing and curating AI are faced with the unenviable task of producing something that is intentionally deceptive, something that is designed to look human, sound human, and feel human, yet something that is emphatically not human.[72] For the Christian who holds that apart from Christ, one is spiritually dead (Ephesians 2:1, 5; Colossians 2:13), this deadness is replicated and displayed for all to see through computer code.[73] Since LLMs replicate the biases of their source material, AI is a mirror image of those who write its code. One could say that depravity is structurally embedded in its very nature.
Yet despite the potential depravity exhibited by AI, it is still able to access essentially all human knowledge and produce nearly anything on command. As such, it is no wonder tech-developers often refer to AI’s god-like capabilities, the former Google AI engineer, Anthony Levandowski, having asserted, “What is going to be created will effectively be a god. . . . It’s not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?”[74] For the critically reflective Christian, these words are chilling. They remind us that although technology can be used for great good, it can also be used for great evil.
Advice for Faithful Christians Engaging with AI
At the risk of being overly general, I want to offer three potential suggestions for faithful Christians who engage with AI on a regular basis. These are based on types of AI readily available today and are by no means exhaustive or conclusive. They are merely intended to provoke further thought in light of Lewis’s That Hideous Strength.
a. Engage freely with descriptive data
The Christian should engage freely when using AI that describes and analyzes data and situations. This is often what we refer to as reactive machine AI, where the AI system has no memory and works only with information that is currently supplied. Since AI is often invaluable in gathering and synthesizing raw data, it can be of tremendous value for the faithful Christian in many situations, especially as the Christian seeks to obey the creation mandate and encourage human flourishing. Examples can be as simple as Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) that perform transactions based on predefined rules, Amazon recommendations based on collected data, IBM’s Deep Blue chess-playing computer that makes decisions based on pre-programed strategies, or a GPS program directing you to your destination. If you plug in the same data, it will give the same result every time. It is, therefore, less open to corruption.
b. Engage cautiously with content creation
The Christian should engage cautiously when using AI that creates content of various types. This is what is often referred to as generative AI or limited memory AI. It includes ChatGPT (OpenAI), Gemini (Google), Grok (xAI), among many others, as well as virtual assistants such as Alexa (Amazon) and Siri (Apple). Although diverse in its applications, this technology uses past and present data to make decisions and predictions. Since generative AI relies on historical data from sinful humans, it is prone to display this sinfulness. Although the faithful Christian will likely engage this software, he or she ought to do so tentatively, exercising caution. Of course, there are also a number of integrity issues that arise with generative AI, such as plagiarism, biases, ownership of content, privacy, etc. These all deserve careful attention.
c. Engage critically with prescriptive persuasion
The Christian should engage critically with any AI that prescribes certain courses of action, especially any action that is harmful or immoral. This category deals with currently available generative AI as well as the more theoretical self-aware AI. When AI is used descriptively (as with reactive machine AI, above), it will explain something largely without guidance or judgment. The prescriptive use of AI, however, involves asking AI for its guidance based on its own stored memory. Not only is this open to corruptible and sinful human programing, but there is also an unknown element to it. Even tech-engineers recognize this. One thinks of the earlier cited article, “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling.”[75] Especially when dealing with conspiratorial and mystical topics, AI chatbots often seem to leave one wondering, Who, exactly, is telling me this? Now on the one hand, this could simply be the result of faulty coding or structurally embedded depravity. Yet on the other hand—if one acknowledges that we live in world where the natural and the supernatural boundary is thin, blurry, and often overlaps—it begs the question if something more sinister might be at play.
Conclusion
As Schwartz aptly notes, Lewis uses That Hideous Strength to “at once stir up doubts about the naturalistic ethos of modern civilization and to reaffirm a traditional Christian conception of the supernatural.”[76] For Christians who are faithfully trying to address the topic of AI technology—technology that is the result of scientific achievement and human ingenuity—That Hideous Strength provides helpful insights. Perhaps most clearly, it reminds us that the line between the natural and the supernatural is often more blurry than we assume, and that technology frequently reflects the heart purposes of its designer. Lewis is certainly not one to shy away from theological claims of the supernatural. As AI continues to develop at an ever-more rapid pace, may we as Christians follow his example.
[1]. C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength: A Modern Fairy-Tale for Grown Ups (1945; repr., Scribner, 2003). Lewis writes in That Hideous Strength, “This is a ‘tall story’ about devilry, though it has behind it a serious ‘point’ which I have tried to make in my Abolition of Man,” 7. See Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (1944; repr., HarperCollins, 2001). For a helpful summary of key issues, see Michael Ward, After Humanity: A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man (Word on Fire Academic, 2021).
[2]. Sanford Schwartz, C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier: Science and the Supernatural in the Space Trilogy (Oxford University Press, 2009), 6–7. Schwartz notes how the Trilogy examines “the seemingly impassable conflict between Christian tradition and the evolutionary or ‘developmental’ tendencies of modern thought,” 6.
[3]. Schwartz, C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier, writes that Lewis seeks to “overturn the naturalistic assumptions of his modern protagonists and light the way to the apprehension of a more glorious reality,” 93. To be clear, Lewis is not attacking science, but the naturalistic philosophy behind much of modern science. Martha C. Sammons, A Guide Through C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy (Cornerstone, 1980), notes that Lewis “was criticizing not scientists, but . . . scientism,” 75.
[4]. This essay follows a similar pattern to that of Gavin Ortland’s “Conversion in C. S. Lewis’s That Hideous Strength,” Themelios 41, no. 1 (2016): 8–19, where Ortland considers a central theme in Lewis’s novel and its potential implications to a Christian worldview.
[5]. Again, Lewis is not attacking science or rational inquiry in That Hideous Strength. Sammons, in A Guide Through C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, comments aptly, “Because of his many criticisms of Belburian [i.e., of Belbury / N.I.C.E.] philosophies and scientism, Lewis has been accused of attacking science. But it should be emphasized that Lewis described himself as a rationalist,” 80. She continues, “[Lewis’s] writings show his awareness of the limits of science, its methodology, and its rightful status as a mode of knowledge. His views are shared by many scientists and philosophers of science,” 80.
[6]. For a traditional Christian perspective on technology, specifically AI, see Jason Thacker, The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity (Zondervan Thrive, 2020). See also “Artificial Intelligence: An Evangelical Statement of Principles,” Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, April 11, 2019, https://erlc.com/resource-library/statements/artificial-intelligence-an-evangelical-statement-of-principles/.
[7]. Henry A. Kissinger, Eric Schmidt, Daniel Huttenlocher, The Age of AI: And Our Human Future (Black Bay Books, 2021), 4.
[8]. IBM research provides the following definition (by Kim Martineau, “What is generative AI?” IBM Research, April 20, 2023, https://research.ibm.com/blog/what-is-generative-AI), “Generative AI refers to deep-learning models that can generate high-quality text, images, and other content based on the data they were trained on.” Martineau continues, “Generative AI refers to deep-learning models that can take raw data—say, all of Wikipedia or the collected works of Rembrandt—and ‘learn’ to generate statistically probable outputs when prompted.”
[9]. Cole Stryker and Eda Kavlakoglu, “What is AI?” IBM Research, June 30, 2025, https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/artificial-intelligence.
[10]. Henry A. Kissinger, “How the Enlightenment Ends,” The Atlantic, June 2018, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/06/henry-kissinger-ai-could-mean-the-end-of-human-history/559124/. Kissinger distinguishes between technological advancements relating to automation versus AI: “Automation deals with means; it achieves prescribed objectives by rationalizing or mechanizing instruments for reaching them. AI, by contrast, deals with ends; it establishes its own objectives. . . . AI systems, through their very operations, are in constant flux as they acquire and instantly analyze new data, then seek to improve themselves on the basis of that analysis.”
[11]. Among the numerous movies with conscious/sentient AI, popular ones include Alex Proyas, dir., I, Robot (Twentieth Century Fox, 2004); Joss Whedon, dir., Avengers: Age of Ultron (Marvel, 2015); Andrew Stanton, dir., Wall-E (Disney, 2008), D. J. Caruso, dir., Eagle Eye (DreamWorks Pictures, 2008); and Christopher McQuarrie, dir., Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning (Paramount Pictures, 2023).
[12]. This field of study is no doubt complex, combining insights from a variety of disciplines including neuroscience, cognitive science, philosophy of mind, etc. One of the most extensive recent studies that considers the concept of AI consciousness in relation to human consciousness is Patrick Butlin et al., “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence: Insights from the Science of Consciousness,” arXiv:2308.08708 [cs.AI] (August 22, 2023). See also the so-called “Turing Test,” advocated in A. M. Turing, “Computing Machinery and Intelligence,” Mind 59, no. 236 (1950): 433–60. Turing proposes the use of an “imitation game” (433) to identify the apparent distinction (if any) between the thinking process of humans and that of machines. Many are skeptical, however, of the actual value of the Turing test. See, for example, Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah, “Passing the Turing Test Does Not Mean the End of Humanity,” Cognitive Computation 8 (2016): 409–419. Warwick and Shah conclude, “The Turing test is a simple test of a machine’s communication ability. . . . If a machine passes the Turing test it exhibits a capability in communication. This does not in any terms mean that the machine displays human-level intelligence or consciousness,” 418.
[13]. Lewis Silkin, “Artificial Consciousness: What Is It and What Are the Issues?” Future of Work Hub, April 14, 2021, https://www.futureofworkhub.info/explainers/2021/4/14/artificial-consciousness-what-is-it-and-what-are-the-issues.
[14]. The term consciousness is generally understood to indicate self-awareness. The term sentient or sentience refers to the capacity to experience feelings or emotions. Butlin et al., “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence,” summarize, “The word ‘sentient’ is sometimes used synonymously with (phenomenally) ‘conscious’, but we prefer ‘conscious’. ‘Sentient’ is sometimes used to mean having senses, such as vision or olfaction. However, being conscious is not the same as having senses. It is possible for a system to sense its body or environment without having any conscious experiences, and it may be possible for a system to be conscious without sensing its body or environment,” 11.
[15]. Butlin et al., “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence,” 1. They continue, “The evidence we consider suggests that . . . conscious AI systems could realistically be built in the near term,” 6. And again, “We are publishing this report in part because we take seriously the possibility that conscious AI systems could be built in the relatively near term—within the next few decades,” 9.
[16]. In February 2022, Ilya Sutskever posted on Twitter, “it may be that today’s large neural networks are slightly conscious.” For an interview with Sutskever on the topic and further qualification of what he meant by this comment, see Will Douglas Heaven, “Rogue superintelligence and merging with machines: Inside the mind of OpenAI’s chief scientist,” MIT Technology Review, October 26, 2023, https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/26/1082398/exclusive-ilya-sutskever-openais-chief-scientist-on-his-hopes-and-fears-for-the-future-of-ai/.
[17]. Lemoine was fired from Google after going on record with The Washington Post for such a claim. See Nitasha Tiku, “The Google Engineer Who Thinks the Company’s AI has Come to Life,” The Washington Post, June 11, 2022, https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/06/11/google-ai-lamda-blake-lemoine/.
[18]. Grace Huckins, “Minds of Machines: The Great AI Consciousness Conundrum,” MIT Technology Review, October 16, 2023, https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/16/1081149/ai-consciousness-conundrum/. See also David Chalmers, The Conscious Mind: In Search of a Fundamental Theory (Oxford University Press, 1996).
[19]. “Pause Giant AI Experiments: An Open Letter.” March 22, 2023.
[20]. Huckins, “Minds of Machines.”
[21]. Mariana Lenharo, “AI Consciousness: Scientists Say We Urgently Need Answers,” Nature, December 21, 2023, https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-04047-6.
[22]. Elizabeth Finkel, “If AI Becomes Conscious, How Will We Know?” Science, August 22, 2023, https://www.science.org/content/article/if-ai-becomes-conscious-how-will-we-know.
[23]. Tom McClelland, “Will AI ever be conscious?” Clare College, University of Cambridge, accessed March 7, 2024, https://stories.clare.cam.ac.uk/will-ai-ever-be-conscious/index.html.
[24]. Peter Watts, “Conscious AI is the Second-Scariest Kind,” The Atlantic, March 9, 2024, https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/03/ai-consciousness-science-fiction/677659/.
[25]. Butlin et al., “Consciousness in Artificial Intelligence,” 9.
[26]. Miles Klee, “People Are Losing Loved Ones to AI-Fueled Spiritual Fantasies,” Rolling Stone, May 4, 2025, https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/ai-spiritual-delusions-destroying-human-relationships-1235330175/.
[27]. Kashmir Hill, “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling,” The New York Times, June 13, 2025, https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/technology/chatgpt-ai-chatbots-conspiracies.html.
[28]. Maggie Harrison Dupré, “People Are Being Involuntarily Committed, Jailed After Spiraling Into ‘ChatGPT Psychosis,’ ” Futurism, June 28, 2025, https://futurism.com/commitment-jail-chatgpt-psychosis.
[29]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 63. Frost refers to Mark’s wife’s “clairvoyance,” 240.
[30]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 36.
[31]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 36.
[32]. “The N.I.C.E. . . . was to be free from almost all the tiresome restraints—‘red tape’ was the word its supporters used—which have hitherto hampered research in this country.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 21.
[33]. “Do not speak more than you can help. Do not even say yes when you are given an order. The Head will assume your obedience. Do not make sudden movements, do not get too close, do not shout, and above all do not argue.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 160. And again, “One does not argue with the Head,” 176.
[34]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 174. Filostrato continues, “We have found how to make a dead man live. He was a wise man even in his natural life. He lives now forever; he gets wiser,” 175.
[35]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 177.
[36]. “There came a puff of air out of its mouth, with a hard dry rasping sound. And then there came another, and it settled down into a sort of rhythm—huff, huff, huff—like an imitation of breathing. Then came a most horrible thing: the mouth began to dribble. I know it sounds silly but in a way I felt sorry for it because it had no hands and couldn’t wipe its mouth. . . . Then it began working its mouth about and even licking its lips. It was like someone getting a machine into working order.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 179.
[37]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 182. Filostrato states to Mark, “We are offering to make you one of us. Ahi—if you were outside, if you were mere canaglia you would have reason to be frightened. It is the beginning of all power. He lives forever. The giant time is conquered,” 175.
[38]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 7.
[39]. Sammons, A Guide Through C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, writes, “N.I.C.E. represents everything Lewis warns about in The Abolition of Man. All its goals and actions are in the name of progress; yet it is the enemy of humanity, taking the cover of science being applied to social problems,” 77.
[40]. Again, given the genre of That Hideous Strength, Lewis is not assuming that people in government and scientific roles work with dark spiritual forces. Sammons, A Guide Through C. S. Lewis’ Space Trilogy, summarizes, Lewis “didn’t think people in ‘contemporary rackets’ were really dabbling in magic,” 77.
[41]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 253–54.
[42]. Even in his engagement with the supernatural, Frost remains a materialist. To him, everything can be explained chemically and biologically. Frost states to Mark, “I must ask you to be strictly objective. Resentment and fear are both chemical phenomena. Our reactions to one another are chemical phenomena. Social relations are chemical relations.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 252. And again, “For many years he had theoretically believed that all which appears in the mind as motive or intention is merely a by-product of what the body is doing,” 354.
[43]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 330.
[44]. “For the last year or so—since he had been initiated—he had begun to taste as fact what he had long held as theory. Increasingly his actions had been without motive. He did this and that, he said thus and thus, and did not know why. His mind was a mere spectator.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 354.
[45]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 253.
[46]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 351.
[47]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 351.
[48]. “They were going to murder him uselessly, unscientifically. If he were doing it to one of them all would have been different; everything would have been prepared weeks beforehand—the temperature of both rooms exactly right, the blade sterilised, the attachments all ready to be made almost before the head was severed. He had even calculated what changes the terror of the victim would probably make in his blood pressure; the artificial blood-stream would be arranged accordingly, so as to take over its work with the least possible breach of continuity. His last thought was that he had underestimated the terror.” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 352.
[49]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 176.
[50]. George Orwell, “The Scientists Take Over: George Orwell’s review of C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength (1945),” Manchester Evening News, August 16, 1945, http://www.lewisiana.nl/orwell. Overall, Orwell’s review is still quite positive as he concludes: “This is a book worth reading.”
[51]. Orwell, “The Scientists Take Over.”
[52]. Letter to Dorothy L. Sayers (December 6, 1945), quoted in Walter Hooper, C. S. Lewis: A Complete Guide to His Life & Works (HarperSanFrancisco, 1996), 231.
[53]. Joseph Minich, “Lewis’s Apocalypse and Ours,” in Life on the Silent Planet: Essays on Christian Living from C. S. Lewis’s Ransom Trilogy, Rhys Laverty (Davenant Press, 2024). Minich comments, “If That Hideous Strength were written in the twenty-first century, it is plausibly the case that ‘the Head’ would be portrayed as a form of artificial intelligence and that the transhumanist element of the narrative would include reference to the many developments going on in Silicon Valley,” 203–204.
[54]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 254.
[55]. Carlos Eire, They Flew: A History of the Impossible (Yale University Press, 2023), 14–15. Eire continues, “In this mentality or worldview . . . the natural order could be constantly interrupted and overpowered by the supernatural. Any such interruption of the supernatural was a miracle (miraculum or prodigium), and the natural world constantly pulsated with the possibility of the miraculous,” 15.
[56]. This is discussed extensively in systematic theology books, as well as more focused resources. For example, see Michael Heiser, The Unseen Realm: Recovering the Supernatural Worldview of the Bible (Lexham, 2015); Clinton E. Arnold, Powers of Darkness: Principalities & Powers in Paul’s Letters (IVP, 1992); Graham A. Cole, Against the Darkness: The Doctrine of Angels, Satan, and Demons (Crossway, 2019).
[57]. The biblical authors frequently refer to the heavenly host (Psalms 33:6; 103:21; 148:2; Luke 2:13) and the divine council (1 Kings 22:19; Job 1:6–12; 2:1–7; Psalms 82:1; 89:5–7) as those non-corporal intelligences that dwell in the heavenly places.
[58]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 254.
[59]. “When a non-physical being manifested in a statue, this anchored the being in a controlled location where living human beings could interact with it through ritual performance.” Gay Robins, “Cult Statues in Ancient Egypt,” in Cult Image and Divine Representation in the Ancient Near East, Neal H. Walls, ed. (American Schools of Oriental Research, 2005), 1.
[60]. “What ancient idol worshippers believed was that the objects they made were inhabited by their gods. The mouth (and nostrils) had to be ritually opened for the spirit of the deity to move in and occupy. . . . The idol first had to be animated with the very real spiritual presence of the deity. Once that was done, the entity was localized for worship and bargaining.” Heiser, Unseen Realm, 35–36.
[61]. Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (Harvard University Press, 2007).
[62]. Among many, see Rod Dreher, Living in Wonder: Finding Mystery and Meaning in a Secular Age (Zondervan, 2024), Collin Hansen, Our Secular Age: Ten Years of Reading and Applying Charles Taylor (The Gospel Coalition, 2017), as well as a number of popular blogs/Substacks by Rod Dreher, Paul Kingsnorth, and O. Alan Noble.
[63]. For a brief summary, see Logan Hoffman, “Everything Enchanted: Humanity is desperate for transcendence, but where can it be found?” Christian Scholar’s Review, Christ Animating Learning blog, November 12, 2024.
[64]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 255.
[65]. To Jane: “The voices of those who have not joy rose howling and chattering from every corner of her being. ‘Take care. Draw back. Keep your head. Don’t commit yourself,’ they said. And then more subtly, from another quarter, ‘You have had a religious experience. This is very interesting. Not everyone does. How much better you will now understand the Seventeenth-Century poets!’ ” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 316. To Mark: “Gradually he realized that he had sustained some sort of attack, and that he had put up no resistance at all; and with that realisation a quite new kind of dread entered his mind. Though he was theoretically a materialist, he had all his life believed quite inconsistently, and even carelessly, in the freedom of his own will,” Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 266.
[66]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 265–66.
[67]. The biblical authors often use the term angel (angelos in Greek or mal’akh in Hebrew) as a catch term to refer to a variety of types of spiritual entities, whether good (Matthew 4:11; Hebrews 1:13–14) or bad (2 Peter 2:4; Revelation 12:9). Examples include messengers (Genesis 18:2, 10; 19:1), ministers (Psalms 103:20–21; 104:4), watchers (Daniel 4:13, 17, 23), mediators (Job 33:23), cherubim (Genesis 3:24; Exodus 37:9), and seraphim (Isaiah 6:1–3).
[68]. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, 176.
[69]. For discussion on the creation mandate, see William Edgar, Created and Creating: A Biblical Theology of Culture (IVP Academic, 2017). Edgar summarizes, “Embedded in this human activity is (at least in germ form) the development of agriculture, the arts, economics, family dynamics, and everything that contributes to human flourishing, to the glory of God,” 167. See also N. Gray Sutanto, “Cultural Mandate and the Image of God: Human Vocation under Creation, Fall, and Redemption,” Themelios 48, no. 3 (2023): 592–604.
[70]. Tor states, “We will fill this world with our children. We will know this world to the centre. We will make the nobler of the beasts so wise that they will become hnau [conscious, intelligent beings] and speak: their lives shall awake to a new life in us as we awake in Maleldil [the Creator]. When the time is ripe for it and the ten thousand circlings are nearly at an end, we will tear the sky curtain and Deep Heaven shall become familiar to the eyes of our sons as the trees and the waves to ours.” C. S. Lewis, Perelandra (1943; reprint, Scribner, 2003), 211.
[71]. Surely the Christian would say the same of other areas, too, such as culture, literature, music, economics, and science. What should be used for good is often tainted by the sinfulness of the human heart.
[72]. When the materialist raises the possibility of conscious or sentient AI, he or she is not suggesting that the machine—the mind—has a soul, at least not in the historic Judeo-Christian sense. The central thesis of Christian anthropology is that humans are created in the image of God, the imago dei (Gen 1:27). We are not just a mind, but an embodied soul (Genesis 2:7; Psalm 8:5–8; Matthew 10:28; John 4:24; 2 Corinthians 5:8). We are far more than mere computing or reasoning machines. See Gregg R. Allison, Embodied: Living as Whole People in a Fractured World (Baker, 2021). Allison summarizes, “We human beings are complex people, consisting of both a material aspect and an immaterial aspect,” 14. See also Anthony Hoekema, Created in God’s Image (Eerdmans, 1986), who writes of the human as an “embodied soul” or a “besouled body,” 216.
[73]. This is evidenced often through racist and morally inappropriate content. For example, see Zachary B. Wolf, “AI Can Be Racist, Sexist and Creepy. What Should We Do About It?” CNN, March 18, 2023, https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/18/politics/ai-chatgpt-racist-what-matters. Also, see Lisa Hagen, Huo Jingnan, and Audrey Nguyen, “Elon Musk’s AI Chatbot, Grok, Started Calling Itself ‘MechaHitler,’ ” NPR, July 9, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/07/09/nx-s1-5462609/grok-elon-musk-antisemitic-racist-content.
[74]. Mark Harris, “Inside the First Church of Artificial Intelligence,” WIRED, November 15, 2017, https://www.wired.com/story/anthony-levandowski-artificial-intelligence-religion/. On this topic, see Greg M. Epstein, “Silicon Valley’s Obsession with AI Looks a Lot Like Religion,” The MIT Press Reader, November 22, 2024, https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/silicon-valleys-obsession-with-ai-looks-a-lot-like-religion/.
[75]. Hill, “They Asked an A.I. Chatbot Questions.”
[76]. Schwartz, C. S. Lewis on the Final Frontier, 92. Schwartz attributes this to Lewis’s use of the “the unsettling resources of Gothic tradition,” 92.
