A.I. and the A.O.

~ oliveswan

Artificial Intelligence

The last few years, discussions about and applications using AI exploded. Every computer program has an AI component.*

Having step-children that enjoy drawing and art, discussions about AI happen often at our house. When we discuss AI, we mean Large Language Models (LLM) that can be used either as a very powerful algorithm when searching online or computer or within programs. Generative AI is when these LLMs are given prompts to create things such as text or artwork.

Recently, we discussed the drawbacks of generative AI because it is ultimately powered, not by a soul, but a reward system. For an understanding of the AI reward system, I found the following information at https://plum.xoxoday.com/glossary/ai-reward-system

“How do AI reward systems work?

AI reward systems work by following these steps:

  • Initialization: The AI starts with a goal but little knowledge on how to achieve it.
  • Interaction: The AI interacts with its environment, which could be a physical space (like a robot navigating a room) or a digital framework (like a software managing financial transactions).
  • Feedback: After taking an action, the AI receives feedback through rewards or punishments. Positive rewards indicate that the action taken was beneficial towards achieving its goal, while punishments (or negative rewards) suggest the action was detrimental.
  • Learning: The AI uses this feedback to learn over time which actions yield the highest rewards. It adjusts its strategy or policy based on past actions and their outcomes to maximize future rewards.
  • Optimization: Through continual interaction and learning, the AI optimizes its behavior to make decisions that earn the highest cumulative rewards.” [emphasis mine]

Notice these last two points. AI optimizes for rewards, not truth or reality. Anecdotally, we have stories of AI hallucinating citations in legal briefs, giving wrong information in AI summaries, and other deceptions. When it works well, it’s an algorithm organizing information for the users.

Even if AI is purged of the falsehoods, it still cannot provide actual intelligence. Because it cannot provide what a human can.

Human insight.

Creative Intelligence

Humans create art. Not just illustration or design. Art needs creativity. It also needs craft and skill. A human makes experience and knowledge work together to produce something. The AI doesn’t have experience. It’s powered up and linked online to find patterns. AI images are basically fancy color by number.

True art and creativity try to share a message instead of just regurgitating facts. A human sees beyond the surface level of things, and great art says something about the human condition. It’s often an attempt to find truth or reality…or something even deeper.

I came across Dorothy L. Sayers’s The Mind of the Maker, an extended essay in which she discusses the creative process and how it helps us understand the Trinity. Throughout, in fact, she draws upon many examples of artistic creation and uses them to explain the nature of God.

Spiritual Intelligence

There’s nothing necessarily wrong with rewards. Much like cheap grace, it’s a beginning. But it’s not the ultimate end. The ultimate end is spiritual insight. Knowing God, not just accepting Him. This is transformational. It’s the spark of creativity.

Two things are true.

  • Non-Christians can create good art. Some of the greatest art and creativity has come about from non-believers.
  • Secondly, not all Christian art is good art. It can be derivative, trite, and badly done.

As we start 2026, this is my plea to Christian artists.

You are created by a creative God. You are created in His image. We have all been given a divine command: to work and to steward the resources of this earth well. This includes creativity!

Let us use this insight — not only given to us as humans, but as quickened believers — to create. To build our skills and hone our crafts.

God created man in his own image and likeness, i.e. made him a creator too, calling him to free spontaneous activity and not to formal obedience to His power. Free creativeness is the creature’s answer to the great call of its creator. Man’s creative work is the fulfilment of the Creator’s secret will. —N. BERDYAEV: The Destiny of Man.

We are the stewards of beauty, truth, and goodness.

Let us not hide our lights under a bushel. Put aside the temptation toward despair, cynicism, and laziness. Let us do our best even as we recognize our best won’t be the same for all of us. Let our art point to the One who can truly move, teach, and delight us: our Savior Jesus Christ.

He is the Alpha and Omega. He is the Creator at the beginning, and all our art should glorify Him until the end… and through eternity.

My AI standard is this: I do not use Generative AI to write my blog posts or books or edit them. I stand by my voice, my mistakes, and my flaws. It’s not always easy to figure out if images are AI generated. I try, as best I can, to use human-created illustration for my blog and author page.

Special thanks to my husband, Brad, who provided insight into this post. Also helping out, two of my step-children, Rose and Bo, for their input into generative AI that inspired this post.

Other Readings

Sayers, Dorothy L. The Mind of the Maker, Ebook accessed 1/11/2026 at https://www.fadedpage.com/showbook.php?pid=20140909

Wolfe, Gregory. “In God’s Image”, National Review Online, May 27, 2005, accessed 1/11/2026 at https://web.archive.org/web/20050528032929/http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/wolfe200505270758.asp

Leave a comment