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Showing posts with label Gerrit W. Gong. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gerrit W. Gong. Show all posts

Friday, August 14, 2026

Ultimately, neither in humans nor in AI can we promote the greater good simply by relying on “do not ...” guardrails or constraints

Discipleship is a covenant journey. AI is a tool. When we rely on the Spirit, practice wisdom, and choose trusted sources, technology can help us deepen our relationships with God (Thou), self (I), others (They), and the natural world and environment (It).

In our conversation, I invited us to first set guidelines for how you will use AI, so AI does not get between you and your personal relationship with God.

Second, write down three truths about who you are: a child of God, a child of the covenant, and a disciple of Jesus Christ. Place them somewhere visible; each time you see them, pause and remember.

Third, send one thoughtful message that you write yourself or visit in a personal and meaningful way a family member, friend, roommate, or neighbor.

Fourth, spend meaningful time in nature. Silence your notifications.

Offer a prayer of gratitude for the beauty and testimony of all the things that denote the natural order and the loving purposes of God, the Great Creator.

In a world of accelerating technology and artificial intelligence, may we never lose the divine intelligence that matters most: the voice of God. May we listen for His whisper amid the noise. Love one another beyond algorithms, and steward creation and the environment with reverence.

In conclusion, to chart our best future in an age of artificial intelligence, we need what the poet W.B.

Yeats called our “deep heart’s core.” Ultimately, neither in humans nor in AI can we promote the greater good simply by relying on “do not ...” guardrails or constraints, particularly at this critical juncture in AI capacity and potential. We owe it to ourselves to prioritize AI, which increases opportunities for what I call an “AI gift of human possibility.” An authentic AI gift of possibility can expand human agency and dignity; prioritize learning and enlarge human character; and empower individuals to find dignity, place, and purpose as each contributes to the greater good. I want AI to be morally grounded and to have a moral compass. I want AI which inspires and enables anyone, anywhere, to have the possibility to become anything. We should design AI to help give this gift of possibility to all.

Step outside digital reality into physical reality. Be spiritually present in the moment.

Can we use AI to deepen experience with nature?

Yes.

A chatbot can suggest hikes, parks, seasonal activities. It can create a nature scavenger list. It can identify plants or insects. But the real exploring happens when we go exploring.

Step outside digital reality into physical reality. Be spiritually present in the moment. Invite friends or family, but put your device away. When we step outside, we step into God’s classroom.

Nature teaches patience as seeds grow, humility as storms pass, and joy as sunlight warms the earth. These lessons are not downloaded, they’re lived. As we reverence in and care for creation, we honor the Creator. Every breath of fresh, crisp air can spark gratitude. Intentionally choose moments that gladden the heart and lift the soul.

Technology can inform us, but without the Spirit, it cannot transform our nature or our being.

Let us wisely use AI and technology tools to deepen faith and spiritual understanding, strengthen relationships and families, and instill reverence and gratitude for God’s creations.

Excessive screen time also comes at a high opportunity cost.

Excessive screen time also comes at a high opportunity cost. Imagine all the things we could do with that time. So, as the saying goes, please make time to “touch grass.” If you find you’re more comfortable on your phone than with people, or that it’s keeping you from the delight, serendipity, and spontaneity inherent in God’s nature, now’s a good time to change.

Find again the serenity, calm, and assurance that come when we re-immerse ourselves in the order and beauty of creation. Let quiet, natural places put our daily personal concerns in perspective. Watering a plant, nurturing a garden; they can restore equilibrium. It can uncrowd an apartment. It can unclutter a mind.

Watch the leaves dance with the first kiss of light. Pause as the sun paints the clouds with God’s palette. Listen to the stories the constellations tell as they wheel through the expanses of the heavens. It takes conscious effort to slow down. God’s goodness can enrich our souls.

Today’s noisy, cluttered, polluted world can make it hard to “be still and know that I am God.” We curate life to be “insta-perfect,” even though we know insta-perfect is neither insta nor perfect. Only when we turn off the kitchen fan do we remember how noisy it is. Sometimes slowing things down, those things that matter less, helps us find the things that matter most. In an age of AI, what tech insiders warned earlier is even more true now. If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.

Digital exchanges are at best a poor substitute or, at worst, a counterfeit for what we live through our senses, hearts, and minds.

Beauty, says author Marilynne Robinson, is the “signature of God.” An important way to know God is to discern his signature in creations made to gladden the heart.

Imagine you’re preparing for a wilderness hike. You light a single candle as you assemble your maps, food, sleeping bag, tent, and so on.

Because of the light in the room, you do not notice the candle. Now imagine you turn off the light in the room. Now the candle shines clear and bright. It illuminates the room. It was not that the lit candle was invisible before, it was that the room’s artificial light obscured the lit candle’s natural light.

In some ways, we need to be in nature, away from the artificial light and the artificiality which crowds so much of modern life. There we can see God’s light, not as a single candle, but, as E.B. White put it, as “the combustion of stars.”

Digital screens can serve us, but they can’t substitute for the testimonies of nature and the natural world. AI cannot replace sunlight, wind, and natural wonder. Digital exchanges are at best a poor substitute or, at worst, a counterfeit for what we live through our senses, hearts, and minds.

Our physical and spiritual senses and abilities are God-given, in part so we can experience time, space, and physicality, including the stunning, revitalizing beauty of our physical world and environment.

In our personal lives, please use AI for logistics and drafts, but not as a substitute for trusted relationships.

In our personal lives, please use AI for logistics and drafts, but not as a substitute for trusted relationships. Set boundaries.

If you feel tempted to confide more in a chatbot than in a friend, a parent, or leader, may I invite you to reach out today, now, to a real person who knows and loves you?

Trust in God and those around you who do know and love you. God knows you better and loves you more than you know or love yourself. This is the reason He gives us each other. That can never be said for an AI chatbot.

I love that we may feel alone in the world until family history and genealogy deeply connect us with family we may have never known.

 AI can help us plan activities, translate messages, organize our schedule. But then let us spend our best energy with people. Computer-assisted tools can help connect us with family, past and present, what we call family history or genealogy. I love that we may feel alone in the world until family history and genealogy deeply connect us with family we may have never known.

Faith, Dignity, and Human Flourishing: Hearing God's Voice in an Age of Artificial Intelligence Elder Gerrit W. Gong June 7, 2026.

We move into a gray area when we think AI can counsel us on personal questions

Compassion, kindness, optimism—they require lived experience and authentic relationships. Faith and authenticity are manifest when we commit that no one sits alone. “No one sits alone” means no one sits alone spiritually or emotionally. Especially no one should sit alone, lonely or emotionally dependent, with an AI chatbot. Monologue with an AI algorithm is different than dialogue with a human friend or family member.

We move into a gray area when we think AI can counsel us on personal questions, like which job to take or who to marry or where to find God. My heart goes out to those who confide for hours in AI chatbots, thinking those AI chatbots listen or know them; AI chatbots do not. Some AI chatbots only run algorithms designed to encourage more human screen time.

If we’re not careful, we may inadvertently allow algorithms to define us.

Artificial intelligence can manage inventory; spot consumer purchasing trends; tweak, monitor, and send personalized advertising messages to millions of people. Some want AI advice on matters of human judgment and interest, including things of the heart.

But in it all, please begin by knowing God’s plan for you. You are not a random data point in an unfeeling algorithm. You’re a beloved child of God, a child of the covenant, a disciple of Jesus Christ.

Your eternal worth is not calculated by likes, trend lines, or predictive analytics. No machine can measure your divine potential. Each individual matters. All of us are unique. If we’re not careful, we may inadvertently allow algorithms to define us.

Research shows some people overtrust AI. This is because we may think a chatbot knows more about the world than we do, or because we may think a chatbot does not have human problems. Technology cannot tell us who we are or what we should do. Our individual moral agency means we can choose, with God’s help, our path and priorities. God invites us to act in faith, choose wisely, and grow through lived effort and experience.

With God’s help, we can chart a path of personal growth and discipleship that algorithms will never fully comprehend. Let AI inform, but you decide with the Lord. Your identity and your agency are sacred.

Faith, Dignity, and Human Flourishing: Hearing God's Voice in an Age of Artificial Intelligence Elder Gerrit W. Gong June 7, 2026.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

Learn who God truly is through His Word and Spirit.

Learn who God truly is through His Word and Spirit. Sometimes it may feel like heaven is quiet. Learn to hear God’s voice through inspiration. God is not a chatbot or search result that answers questions what it thinks we want to hear.

God knows our intents, the hopes and longings of our hearts, the anguish and joys of our souls.

He listens, He hears, He answers. God creates and entrusts us with opportunities and experiences to work, learn, create. In my faith, we believe “the glory of God is intelligence, or, in other words, light and truth.”

Three gospel-centered guideposts can guide our personal use of AI.

Three gospel-centered guideposts can guide our personal use of AI.

First, rely on the Spirit. Let technology support, not supplant, revelation, personal study, and covenant living. There is no substitute for “studying it out” in your own mind and feeling the Lord’s spiritual confirmation in your heart and mind.

Second, practice wisdom. Apply wise judgment informed by doctrine and our own lived experience.

Third, choose trusted sources. Anchor understanding in scripture, prophetic counsel, and reliable information. I’m inviting us to be thoughtful and intentional about our use of AI as a tool on our journey of discipleship.....

AI is not and cannot be God. AI can answer questions, but it cannot answer prayers. It may organize thoughts, but it cannot offer covenant relationships or blessings. Platforms and technologies cannot substitute for authentic, divine, and human connection.

While AI can be a useful tool for online research, editing, translation, and other tasks, we should not use AI to create or write our initial drafts or final versions of our spiritual messages.

If AI can help your work, please consider using it. But please recognize the difference between AI helping tutor you to enhance your understanding and you simply having AI do your homework with little benefit to your learning. If we let it, AI can let us slip into being lazy, dependent, perhaps dishonest. Please do not let AI replace you in work that would otherwise help you stretch and grow. And please do not take credit and claim as your own work what you know AI has primarily done.

When we apply the principle of individual growth through our work and effort, AI can enhance, deepen, enliven our creativity and capacity. As a tool well used, AI can help us. This is especially true when we’re doing and growing through our efforts and work, specifically in a religious setting. We do not grow spiritually if we let AI write our talks or lessons or do our seminary or institute homework.

While AI can be a useful tool for online research, editing, translation, and other tasks, we should not use AI to create or write our initial drafts or final versions of our spiritual messages.

The more we work with intent, diligence, and effort, the more and better we benefit from and through our work.

The more we work with intent, diligence, and effort, the more and better we benefit from and through our work.

Frenzied to build a physical tower, men wept more when clay bricks were broken than when human beings making the bricks died.

 Genesis chapter 11 recounts the time when men with one language and one speech said, “Go to, let us build us a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. ... Therefore is the name of it called Babel.” In this biblical account of the Tower of Babel, we understand God’s displeasure at the human arrogance of men who thought they could build a physical tower to rival heaven. 

A Jewish chief rabbi adds an interpretation from the Midrash, the traditional commentary on the Torah. This reading of the Midrash says, “Frenzied to build a physical tower, men wept more when clay bricks were broken than when human beings making the bricks died.” When men promoted material things like clay bricks and towers above the lives and values of human individuals, it is no wonder the God of heaven grieved.



Reminded of this teaching: 

AI does not represent, as a human soul does, the coming together of divine Spirit and physical body.

AI, as mathematical algorithms and machine, may display significant reasoning capacities as a sophisticated computer may, and AI may reflect some elements of persona and personality. But AI does not represent, as a human soul does, the coming together of divine Spirit and physical body.

 Faith, Dignity, and Human Flourishing: Hearing God's Voice in an Age of Artificial Intelligence Elder Gerrit W. Gong June 7, 2026.

Each of us has personal moments of reflection, reverence, even transcendence. We feel present. We feel purpose and connection. This occurs in part because all things denote and bear record of their Creator.

 We begin at the beginning. “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. ... And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good.” You may or may not consider yourself spiritual or religious, but each of us has personal moments of reflection, reverence, even transcendence.  We feel present.  We feel purpose and connection. This occurs in part because all things denote and bear record of their Creator. Put another way, God is God. Some talk too glibly about AI “becoming God” or “godlike AI.” Even if AI training changes or if we achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence) or ASI (artificial superintelligence), we know reasoning, even superhuman reasoning, has limitations. Man is not, and certainly divinity is not, defined solely by reasoning. 

AI is not and cannot be God. AI can answer questions, but it cannot answer prayers. It may organize thoughts, but it cannot offer covenant relationships or blessings. Platforms and technologies cannot substitute for authentic, divine, and human connection.  


The Ultimate Purpose of AI


I want AI and related technologies to change our world for the better; to narrow digital divides; to expand human flourishing; and to enhance faith, moral clarity, human meaning, and possibility.

I see artificial intelligence not only as a massively consequential technological development, but also as a profoundly significant moral opportunity to reflect on who we are and to determine how we act in today’s world. In this transformative era, I invite us to remember signpost truths.

As children of a loving God, we possess moral agency and the capacity for covenant community. We’re responsible and accountable for our choices. Our choices shape our judgment, character, and personal growth. We each have divine worth and dignity. Compassion and integrity are hallmarks of human trust, and for believers, manifest the way, the truth, and the life offered by discipleship in Jesus Christ. When we truly understand who we are, we can approach AI and other new technologies with greater confidence, purpose, and wisdom.

Wednesday, July 8, 2026

How Revelation Can Come

 I conclude with another lesson from Elijah. In a dark moment, Elijah laments to the Lord:

“The children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away.

“And [the Lord] said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake:

“And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice” (1 Kings 19:10–12).

That’s often where we stop reading—with the “still small voice”—but while the voice was still and small, the Lord continued to give Elijah the assurance, comfort, guidance, and instruction he sought and needed (see 1 Kings 19:13–16).

This is the Lord’s promise: As we seek with genuine intent to listen and hearken, He can whisper by His Spirit to our heart and mind. He can speak through His voice and the voice of His prophets. He can prompt with fresh inspiration in the dreams of the night and in the day’s first light

June 2026
Liahona
Gerrit W. Gong

Monday, April 13, 2026

Scriptures studied in multiple languages and cultural perspectives deepen gospel understanding.

Scriptures studied in multiple languages and cultural perspectives deepen gospel understanding.

October 2025
General Conference
Gerrit W. Gong


Gospel Culture

 Conversion in Jesus Christ requires us to put off the natural man and worldly culture. As President Dallin H. Oaks teaches, we are to give up any tradition and cultural practice that is contrary to the commandments of God and to become Latter-day Saints. He explains, “There is a unique gospel culture, a set of values and expectations and practices common to all [the] members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.” Gospel culture includes chastity, weekly attendance at church, abstaining from alcohol, tobacco, tea, and coffee. It includes honesty and integrity, understanding we move forward, not upward or downward, in Church positions.

October 2025
General Conference
Gerrit W. Gong

No One Sits Alone

The spirit of “room in the inn” includes “no one sits alone.” When you come to church, if you see someone alone, will you please say hello and sit with him or her? This may not be your custom. The person may look or speak differently than you.

October 2025
General Conference
Gerrit W. Gong