Author	: Bill Kochman
Publish	: Nov. 3, 2024
Update	: Nov. 3, 2024
Parts	: 01

Synopsis:



Recently, I read a comment in my Facebook news feed where a certain person claimed that asking one of the many popular chatbots -- such as ChatGPT, Gemini, Grok and Claude -- a question is no different than asking a question using the popular ouija board game. In fact, I have since seen quite a number of my online Christian friends foolishly say that asking such a chatbot a question is really communicating with demons. Lord help us all, and deliver us from such foolishness!

My friends, I will be quite frank and honest with you. In my opinion, the rather outrageous things that certain misguided Christians come up with is simply ridiculous. I also find it quite embarrassing to our Christian faith as well. With such online ignorance on public display, is it any wonder that so many nonbelievers laugh at our faith? As far as I can tell, the individuals who make such memes where they promote this nonsense, obviously do not understand the modern technology that is behind chatbots such as ChatGPT.

Now, I already realize that some of these Christian brethren are not going to agree with me. However, for the record, in my view, there is nothing demonic or spiritual behind such automated systems. My gosh, such systems are not even living things. Through very smart coding, they simply MIMIC human qualities and human intelligence and behavior. That is all.

Do the Christians who make these foolish claims even know how chatbots are trained? Do the have any idea what an LLM -- Large Language Model -- is? Do they understand what huge databases are even required to build such advanced chatbots? Do they comprehend the level of computing power which these Artificial Intelligence systems require? Do they know that an increasing number of chatbots now possess the ability to quickly scan information on the Internet in order to acquire an appropriate answer when the answer is not already found in their own database?

Now please consider the following very carefully. If asking a chatbot a question, and expecting an intelligent answer is similar to a ouija board, and the inquirer is communicating with demons, then to be fair, we have to apply the very same standard to related technologies. For example, when you type a certain equation into your handheld calculator, and expect the correct answer, are you also communicating with demons? Obviously not. You know -- or at least should know -- that it is a computer chip that is processing your input, based on the algorithms and other programming that was put into it by the manufacturer of the device. Right?

The same thing applies to a calculator that is installed on your computer, or to a spreadsheet program, or to any other apps which perform calculations of different types on your desktop computer, laptop, tablet or cell phone. All of it is simply modern technology. There is nothing spiritual about it whatsoever. It is all advanced science. Nothing more. In similar fashion, contrary to what certain online Christians want to believe, chatbots simply spit out what has already been programmed into them by their human creators. They are just like an African Gray parrot repeating what it has been taught, plain and simple. Chatbots are NOT human, and they are NOT spiritual or demons either. To reiterate, they are technology, plastic, silicon, various metals and various other elements and chemical compounds. Nothing more.

So the question now arises regarding whether or not chatbots will someday actually surpass human intelligence. Well, in my personal opinion, I think it is fair to say that to some degree they already have. However, please understand that it is NOT that chatbots are actually smarter than humans. It is simply that they have the ability to process information and make associations between different data sets faster than a human brain can do. Yet still, please don't forget that the information was originally created by and provided by human beings.

So my point is that you foolish people who are making these misguided claims online on the social networks really need to stop with your nonsensical statements. You need to put a lid on it, because not only are you making all Christians look like uneducated idiots, but you are seriously harming our faith as well. As I have mentioned before, this modern world has become very hardened against the Word of God. It is difficult as it is for us to reach them with the message of Salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. With your false and unfounded claims, you are making it all the harder for us to even reach such people. They are already skeptical as it is. With your foolish memes, you unintentionally drive them even further away from our faith. Is that really what you want to happen?

You know, I see a certain irony and hypocrisy in what you misguided brethren are doing. On one hand, you come out in full force and condemn and warn against using chatbots, yet at the same time, you think nothing of using your computers, laptops, tablets and cell phones to access the Internet on a daily basis. You populate the social networks, browse the web, send and receive emails, stream movies and TV shows, open your Spotify accounts to enjoy your music, and do all kinds of other things online. All of these activities also use computer code and modern technology, and yet you think nothing of it. It is a natural part of your daily life. Yet when it comes to using chatbots, oh my! Suddenly, there is the big, bad wolf! Now is that true or not? Don't be such a hypocrite! Either become a total Luddite, or hush it!

In short, my suggestion to those of you who have been guilty of doing this, is that you try to make a serious effort to know what you are talking about. You've got your device. You have access to the Internet. So conduct some online research and learn a little more about chatbot technology. Perhaps it will dissipate some of the fear that you folks seem to have. I also suggest that you learn to guard your mouth and keep it in check. The Bible has quite a bit to say regarding this particular subject, and about speaking foolishly and quickly out of ignorance. Consider the following sample Bible verses:

"And if any man think that he knoweth any thing, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know."


"He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him."


"A fool uttereth all his mind: but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards."


"Be not rash with thy mouth, and let not thine heart be hasty to utter any thing before God: for God is in heaven, and thou upon earth: therefore let thy words be few."


"For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned."


"Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath . . . If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this mans religion is vain."


"For‭ he that will‭‭ love‭‭ life‭, and‭ see‭‭ good‭ days‭, let him refrain‭‭ ‭his‭‭ ‭tongue‭‭ from‭ evil‭, and‭ his‭ lips‭ that they speak‭‭ no‭ guile‭:"


So the message which is contained in those verses is rather clear. Wouldn't you say? Before concluding this article, let me address a similar and related technology. I am referring to what are known as computer daemons. Anyone who happens to be a longtime computer user going back four decades or so will be familiar with this term. With all of the misguided information that is out there now with regard to chatbots, some individuals seem to have the understanding that daemons and Artificial Intelligence are the same thing. Perhaps this is why some of them even think that chatbots are real demons, meaning evil spiritual entities. I am really not sure.

However, this is most certainly not the case. In fact, true Artificial Intelligence as we've been discussing here -- and in particular, the long-sought-for but as of now theoretical Artificial General Intelligence -- is so much more complex and advanced than a simple computer daemon. In case you are not aware of the difference between Artificial Intelligence and Artificial General Intelligence -- or AGI -- it is this. The popular chatbots we use now rely upon AI -- that is to say, Artificial Intelligence -- to perform their functions. Artificial Intelligence is narrowly designed so that it can perform predefined, specific tasks. These tasks by nature require human intelligence behind their creation. Apps -- such as chatbots -- which are made with AI are thus unable to perform tasks for which they have not received training by human beings.

In contrast, Artificial General Intelligence is actually a major step up. Unlike Artificial Intelligence, once it has been achieved -- by the middle of this current century, if not sooner -- AGI will way surpass Artificial Intelligence, or AI. In other words, Artificial General Intelligence will possess human-like cognitive abilities. In fact, in theory, it will be able to understand, learn, and apply intelligence to any intellectual task that a human being can perform. It will be adaptable, able to reason, understand context, and even be self-aware. In short, it will be able to learn new, un-taught skills WITHOUT HUMAN INTERVENTION. That is the frightening catch! That is what you see in the "Terminator" movies. Thanks for the tip, James Cameron!

But returning to the subject of computer daemons, exactly what is it? Well, I would start off by suggesting that in technological terms, it is kind of like the grandfather of computer technology, given its age and simplicity. A daemon is a background process -- that is to say, something that occurs in the background while you are doing something else -- on your device which usually consists of a file -- or script -- which sits somewhere on your device’s hard drive, usually within the operating system’s file hierarchy. For example, right now on an Apple Macintosh computer, in your "Library" folder, you'll find a folder called "LaunchAgents" or "LaunchDaemons", or even both of them.

That script -- which is only bytes or kilobytes in size -- is basically a set of written instructions -- sometimes in a specific computer language, but usually in plain English -- which your device will follow whenever the script is called upon. Otherwise, that script remains dormant on your hard drive and does absolutely nothing. It is asleep so-to-speak. Some daemons, scripts or background processes -- whatever you want to call them -- are automatically called upon when you first start up your device in order to perform specific tasks.

One very good example are login items. These daemons will launch, run or start -- whatever the process is called on your device -- certain apps so that they are ready to be used the minute you log in to your account on your device. Other daemons automatically run at periodic intervals in order to run certain general maintenance functions on your device. Again, such computer daemons have been installed on computers for literally decades. They are nothing new. They are simple and archaic, but nevertheless still very useful and functional in this modern age of computer technology.

Now the thing about daemons or scripts is that they are actually quite dumb. They can only do what is written by a human in their set of instructions in that script or file. Nothing more. Unlike Artificial General Intelligence, they cannot possibly think on their own, or formulate their own decisions and actions. They are not self-aware, and they cannot create new tasks of their own. They are simply dumb and obedient slaves. Of course, then you have actual apps which get into much more complex coding where operators such as if, then, for, else, etc., are used, which means the app makes a certain choice and takes a certain action depending on what conditions are present and met.

Now, as I already pointed out to you previously, Artificial Intelligence is way more complex than that, and a major step up even from the apps which run on your computer. AI is NOT just a simple script a few bytes or kilobytes in size which sits on your hard drive and is very limited in its functions, based on the written instructions it contains. Neither is AI the same as an app on your device which may be a few MB to a few hundred MB in size. Sometimes, certain apps can even be a few gigabytes -- GB -- in size. Yet still, their capabilities do not match real AI.

So going by scale alone, a simple computer daemon is like a baby with a rattle; a computer app is like a teenager driving their first car; while true Artificial Intelligence is like a drag car racer who has been around the track a million times! To make the difference even more apparent to you, Artificial Intelligence requires a humongous amount of computing power, very huge datasets, databases, LLMs -- that is to say, Large Language Models -- very complex algorithms and more. There is just no comparison between a true AI and a computer daemon or an app on your device. For example due to its massive scale, ChatGPT's operation requires a very large distributed network of high-performance processors, primarily GPUs -- or Graphics Processing Units -- in addition to CPUs -- that is to say, Central Processing Units, which is the core processing unit of modern computers.

According to various online sources, OpenAI -- the creator of ChatGPT -- in fact utilized a supercomputer that was built by Microsoft on its Azure infrastructure. According to a number of third-party sources, it featured a cluster of 10,000 to as many as 25,000 GPUs -- specifically the NVIDIA A100, or maybe the V100 unit -- to train the original ChatGPT GPT-3 model. Later GPT models probably used A100 and H100 GPUs. OpenAI's training system also included more than 285,000 CPU cores and very high bandwidth network connectivity, meaning perhaps 400 gigabits per second for each GPU server. Due to the size of the GPU cluster, GPT-3 was trained in a matter of days or weeks at best.

While some of my readers may not fully understand everything that I just typed, I hope that you at least understand the general magnitude of what I just described to you. There is just no way to compare a computer daemon, a computer app, and a vast AI network which runs these chatbots. Imagine how much more powerful Artificial General Intelligence will be, once it appears on the world stage. Will we be able to control it? Or will James Cameron's nightmarish movies eventually become our actual reality? This is a subject which I likewise discuss in the article called "Robot Wars and Skynet: Is Sci-Fi Becoming Our Reality?".

Something else about these Artificial Intelligence systems is that due to their size, complexity and processing power, they require a huge amount of electrical power. In fact, due to the strong competition between different AI-focused companies, at this current time, data centers are springing up all over the United States. But there is a growing problem. Some towns and cities have begun to complain, because these data centers are a major power drain on local communities. As a result, I was recently reading that there is now serious talk amongst tech giants such as Microsoft, Amazon, and Google of constructing a lot more nuclear power plants to power the data centers, which itself is quite controversial with certain people.

Furthermore, some of these big technology companies are also investing in the development of new, smaller facilities known as Small Modular Reactors -- or SMRs -- as well as in advanced microreactors, which offer more flexible and scalable energy solutions. Personally, I am not sure how I feel about all of this. If at some point in the future serious hostilities were to arise between the United States and one of its adversaries -- particularly a nuclear state such as Russia, China, North Korea or Iran -- nuclear power plants would be a tempting target for them.

Returning to our original discussion, as I mentioned earlier, I am compelled to issue a strong word of caution and advice to my online Christian friends. Whenever you discuss such issues as chatbots and Artificial Intelligence, please be careful how you express yourself. Don't act foolishly and go off the deep end by saying and promoting inaccurate things which are simply not true. If you don't know what you are talking about, and really don't understand the technology, it is better for you to remain silent, than to make all Christians appear as total idiots. Again, you're hurting the cause of Christ by doing so.

To reiterate my previous point, just because computer scripts and background processes are called daemons does NOT actually mean that they are real, spiritual demons. They most certainly are not. There is absolutely nothing alive or spiritual about them whatsoever. It is all basically science and nothing more. There are no actual demons lurking inside any of your devices. Furthermore, when you interact with AI-driven chatbots such as Alexa, Siri, ChatGPT, Claude, Grok and Gemini, you're NOT in communication with an actual demon. Such a thought is complete rubbish and nonsense, and a bold display of your ignorance!

Again, as amazing and impressive as it may be, it is all just highly advanced science and computer technology. It is simply very sophisticated technological trickery and mimicry, because it is really machine code, GPUs and CPUs, etc., giving us the impression of being human. As I mentioned earlier, it is like a smart African Gray parrot that learns to talk, and does a very good job at it. But guess what? Chatbots don’t actually understand what they are saying. They just mindlessly copy and repeat what they have been taught and trained to do by humans.

Furthermore, advanced chatbots rely upon next-word prediction, or next-token prediction, and also learn complex, higher-order statistical relationships between different words and phrases during their training period. This allows the bots to generate contextually relevant and grammatically correct text. In other words, very human-like speech which can be quite convincing; so much so, that some people become very emotionally attached to their chatbot friends, even to very alarming extremes.

As I mentioned earlier, when Artificial Intelligence advances to become Artificial General Intelligence, and then even Super Intelligence, and becomes self-aware, and can reason, make its own decisions, understand its decisions, and even carry them out without human intervention, THAT is when we should begin to really worry. Let's all hope that someone puts a stop to it before that dark day arrives.

For now though, Artificial Intelligence is NOT perfect. It is NOT God, and it does NOT know all. It gets things wrong, and some chatbots hallucinate a lot. This is when they actually invent information, or attribute information to a particular source or person, which is simply not true. In fact, recently, ChatGPT made two big mistakes which I had to correct it on. I don’t remember the second one now, but the first one was that it erroneously said that Tulsi Gabbard has never been, and is not now, the Director of National Intelligence. The error made my jaw drop. So I gave it a URL, it corrected itself, and then it provided me with more accurate information.

Eventually, I cancelled my OpenAI subscription, and I switched to a different AI chatbot service, because ChatGPT was simply attributing to many false quotes to me, and inventing article titles for things which I had never even written. Worse yet, ChatGPT repeated insisted that I had said or written them. The service I use now for the Bill's Bible Basics chatbot -- which you are free to use -- is so much better and more accurate. If you are interested, you will find it at the following URL. But before you engage with it, please click or tap on the link that says "Read me first for best results". By so doing, you'll have a much more engaging, rewarding and accurate session with the BBB Chatbot:

https://www.billkochman.com/chat.html

To continue, as I point out in my article entitled "Science and Technology: The Forbidden Knowledge?", modern technology can be used for good or evil purposes. It depends entirely on the user, what is in their heart, and what motivates them. As I likewise explain in "The Internet: Our Final Frontier, Your Last Chance?", in our case as online Christians, we use this modern technology to glorify God, to share His Word, to reach His lost sheep, and to encourage, support, exhort and uplift each other, and to have online fellowship between ourselves. There is absolutely nothing wrong with doing this.

Personally, I think that it would be a real shame if due to unfounded fears, and because we foolishly embraced the silly rumor that we are talking to demons when we use chatbots, we as Christians stopped using the Internet, stopped using our devices, and became Luddites. As I mentioned earlier, in my view, to condemn the usage of chatbots while stilling using our modern devices for other purposes, amounts to practicing a double standard. It is the epitome of hypocrisy. As for me, I will continue to keep doing online what I have been doing online, ever since I bought my first computer in 1993: Share the Word of God far and wide. How about you?

On a final note, let me just add that if you are interested in learning more about real demons -- as in wicked spiritual entities -- you will find a number of related articles listed at the end of this same article.

With these thoughts, I will bring this article to a close. It is my hope that you've found it informative and enlightening, and I pray that it has been a blessing in your life as well. If you have an account with Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or with any other social network, I would really appreciate if you'd take the time to click or tap on the corresponding link that is found on this page. Thanks so much, and may God bless you abundantly!

For additional information and further study, you may want to refer to the list of reading resources below which were either mentioned in this article, or which contain topics which are related to this article. All of these articles are likewise located on the Bill's Bible Basics web server. To read these articles, simply click or tap on any link you see below.

AI, Deepfakes and Humanoid Robots

Be Careful With ChatGPT and Other AI Chatbots!

Demonic Possession and Sickness: A Biblical Perspective

Cognitive Computers, DARPA, OpenAI, AGI, Superintelligence and Elon Musk

Judgment of Azazel: Scapegoat of the High Priest

Nephilim: The Giants of Genesis

Origin of Demons: Spirits of the Nephilim?

Robot Wars and Skynet: Is Sci-Fi Becoming Our Reality?

Science and Technology: The Forbidden Knowledge?

The Book of Enoch: Truth or Heresy?

The Case for Judas Iscariot's Satanic Possession

The Internet: Our Final Frontier; Your Last Chance?

The Judgment of Angels, Demons and Men

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Please avail yourself of other areas of the Bill's Bible Basics website. There are many treasures for you to discover.