The start of the 2023 school year in Jefferson County, Kentucky, did not go very well. Almost 100,000 students in Louisville were told to stay home for the first six days of the school year after the school system’s new AI-controlled transportation system stranded them for hours. The district administration was bound to close their schools by Kentucky law, which guarantees equal access to education for all and prohibits schools from opening if there is access for some but not others.
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Due to the critical shortage of bus drivers, the school had turned to AlphaRoute Engineering to develop a nearly $200,000 AI-controlled system that would redraw the routes so that fewer drivers were needed. Due to unknown glitches in the new system, there were significant delays in the morning, and many students were left stranded. That included a 5-year-old, who was supposed to be dropped off at 5:20 p.m. but had not yet arrived home by 7:00 p.m., leaving her parents worried sick. Calls to the bus depot did not get through due to the high volume.
Although JCPS Superintendent Marty Pollio apologized for the glitch and promised that things would improve, he faced much criticism during public hearings. Parents pointed out that apologies were insufficient and wanted to see greater guarantees of their children’s safety.
Why this should concern us
Why should a glitch in the routing system of a public school district in Kentucky concern us? Because of the reason why it was put into place. JCPS faces a critical shortage of bus drivers due to low wages and a decline in recruitment, which is now a nationwide problem. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 25 million pre-high school children depend on buses to take them to school and back home. More districts will likely rely on artificial intelligence (AI) to help them map routes and stagger school start times to compensate for the driver shortage. Judging from what happened in Louisville, that would put children at significant risk of being missed by the system, left stranded or subjected to long pickup delays.
Although those bugs can be worked out and better communication for parents can be facilitated, turning to AI is another step toward taking control over children away from parents. This time, the control does not go to school staff but to AI – software and machines that control when children are picked up and dropped off.
If this becomes a success, school systems will see no harm in turning to AI to make up for the critical shortage of teachers as well. Already, that is being pushed as the new normal in professional online forums. AI homework help such as ChatGPT, Backpax, and Caktus AI offer students help with homework and promise better grades. It won’t be long, and robots will also teach your children in the classroom. Tech advocate groups are quick to point out that robots will never replace teachers but can be used as teachers’ aides to take attendance and guide students to resources for research. China has already allowed AI in the classroom.
The concern to pray over is four-fold:
- The more we rely on AI, the more human skills like problem-solving are being undermined. Already, our reliance on AI for directions, banking, calculations, and a host of other things that have become part of everyday life has reduced the use of our mental capacity significantly. That is contrary to God’s design for humans.
- Reliance on AI undermines human communication and interaction. God designed us to be social, to interact with each other on all levels of everyday life, and to face problems together. In the case of the JCPS transportation issue, the school turned to an engineering firm to solve the problem that would have provided an opportunity for the entire school community to work together. Solving problems together makes us stronger and more resourceful as a community. Relying on AI to do that for us undermines that resourcefulness.
- Reliance on AI undermines parenting. Turning to AI for homework help takes away part of parents’ participation in their children’s education and an opportunity to bond over homework help. Relying on AI to plan bus routes and help manage classrooms takes even more parent control and involvement away from schools. That, too, is the opposite of the role God has designed for parents (see Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 6:4 et al.).
- Replacing even some of the human factors in education socially isolates children more than they already are. Principals have stated that there is a desperate need for volunteers to come and sit with students on breaks to provide adult interaction and that children are hungry for that. The daily onslaught of social media, digital information, and imagery has made them lonely. People were created for fellowship, not isolation (see Genesis 2:18).
The gradual introduction of AI into every sphere of human life is taking baby steps toward underusing and yielding the God-given faculties of our brains to machines. God has created people to be brilliant. But that brilliance comes from using and exercising our brains continuously. The more mentally lazy we get, the more our minds become out of shape.
That is exactly where Satan wants us. The battle he wages is over our minds because it is the most God-like part of us. With it, we choose, communicate, pray, meditate on Scripture, gain knowledge and wisdom, evaluate what we do, and learn lessons to avoid repeating mistakes. The more he can keep our minds in darkness, the more the human race will continue on a path to destroying itself. And the more he can get us to rely on artificial things, the less we will recognize and trust the Real Thing – God. In a real sense, artificial intelligence is a form of replacing truth with lies and lures us away from God.
So let us invite God to throw monkey wrenches in Satan’s plans by exposing their faults and lies, causing alarm with parents, children, teachers, and other human beings affected by AI so they may take stock and return to the Author of Life rather than the author of artificial life.
“Father, we invite you to expose what is hidden in darkness by bringing it to light. Open people’s eyes to the hidden dangers of AI and what it can do to destroy humanity. May the events in Kentucky reach the eyes of many parents across our nation and shock them into realizing the dangers of yielding parental control and human responsibility to software and machines. May it result in a wave of parents working to take back responsibility and authority over their children and seek biblical wisdom in educating them. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.”
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Remco Brommet is a pastor, spiritual-growth teacher, and prayer leader with over 40 years of experience in Europe, Southeast Asia, Africa, and the U.S. He was born and raised in the Netherlands and pastored his first church in Amsterdam. He moved to the U.S. in 1986. He and his wife, Jennifer, live north of Atlanta. When not writing books, he blogs at www.deeperlifeblog.com and assists his wife as a content developer and prayer coordinator for True Identity Ministries. Jennifer and Remco are passionate about bringing people into a deeper relationship with Christ. Photo Credit: Marcelo Cidrack on Unsplash.