Christians will need to think deeply about how to respond as our culture shifts, from a time of information choice and overload to information control, and especially the crisis of trust that it brings. It certainly will require of us a level of discernment. This, in turn, requires a solid grounding in truth, specifically the truth about reality and the truth about the human person.
As the brilliant philosopher Newman once said to Jerry in an episode of Seinfeld, “[Y]ou remember this. When you control the mail, you control … information!” Of course, no one would suggest that the U.S. Postal Service has that sort of power today, having been duly replaced and far exceeded by digital gatekeepers. A recent case in point was something noted by several people who searched online about the recent assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump.
The Heritage Foundation shared a screenshot on X of their Google search. Having typed “assassination attempt on t,” the search engine auto filled “Truman,” “Teddy Roosevelt,” and “the Pope.” James Lindsey asked Meta AI, “tell me about the assassination attempt on Trump,” and the reply was, “I can’t assist with that.” The same program did, however, offer a thorough (and positive) run-down of the Kamala Harris campaign when asked. Others reported that searching Google for “Trump Rally” returned results of a Kamala Harris rally, as did searching for “Kamala Harris rally.” Media giants quickly chalked up these incidents, as well as a few others, to the accidental quirks of AI algorithms, but not everyone believed that explanation.
Historians love to name periods of time. Students of history will recognize descriptors such as the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, or the Gilded Age. When future historians write about our age, they will find it is already named. We live in the Information Age, a time in which information shapes life in unprecedented ways, and in which the sheer amount of information is overwhelming.
Information, even at the present scale, is rarely neutral. Information contains, argues, assumes, and otherwise delivers ideas. Thus, the Information Age might also be called the Age of Competing Ideas.