Why are there humans on earth?
“Artists get there first,” claimed the guest lecturer Steve Garber as he stood at the front of our undergraduate lecture hall. He had my attention.
I showed up that night to explore culture and ideas with the curious spirit fostered in a liberal arts college. Garber talked about “Beauty” and “Truth”... and “Vocation.” He brought these grand ideas down to earth through works of art. I do not remember all the content, but I remember his tone and the seriousness with which he engaged our questions. There was a resonance to his appeal to love that arrested me.
In the same way that Socrates understood his calling as a midwife (asking good questions) to help others give birth to the truth, Garber’s questions served as a conduit to questions I am still asking today – chiefly – what does it mean to be human?
I imagine a 2025 lecture hall offering an alternative proposition: Art-ificial intelligence gets there first.
I see the appeal. AI speed is astounding. The computational power is scary. AI's disruption is shaking the market, the boardroom, and the art world, even passing the aesthetic Turing Test. Still, I’d like to suggest AI provides an unseen opportunity – beyond performing complex tasks efficiently.
Artists Get There First
In 1918, Marcel Duchamp changed art forever. He entered Fountain as a sculpture in a New York exhibition. His work of art was a basic porcelain urinal, signed by “R. Mutt.” Your art instructor probably displayed the image on a slide as one of your friends leaned over and laughingly said, “That’s not art – I can make that.”
Duchamp’s Fountain was later selected as the single most influential piece of art work in the 20th century by a group of 500 British Art Professionals. Experts bypassed paintings, sculptures, wood carvings and chose a mass-produced, ‘ready-made’ plumbing product that lines the wall in every grocery store, school, and fast food restaurant. It seems too simple. It clashed with the givens of the New York art scene. Duchamp’s originality questioned the very nature of art – forcing a return to basic assumptions of beauty.
I do not intend to debate Fountain’s prestigious award. I simply want to recognize that a hundred years later, artificial intelligence is forcing a return to basic assumptions - why are humans on earth?
Human-Made art is now a modern distinction in the art world. This category would be unthinkable to past generations. The creativity and imagination required to produce art (visual, literature, musical, etc.) was assumed to be a uniquely human act. Yet, certain forms of art are now indistinguishable from AI-Made art.
In an interesting plot twist, human imperfections are no longer mistakes to be corrected but authenticating marks to appreciate the human component.
Artists work a lifetime to master a craft at great personal cost. They share their lives in their work. AI-art takes seconds. It repeats tasks with exactness and accuracy. It showcases the modern values of perfectionism, efficiency, and ease while clashing with the longstanding values of originality, sacrifice, and authenticity.
The AI-made art debate has people saying, “That’s not art. I can make that.”
AI Gets There First
Artificial intelligence is outpacing human production. Andy Crouch explains how the advancements in technology directly implicate our spiritual formation. He explains the basic mechanics of the new tech. The invention of vector mathematics set computational systems loose on all the data in the world (180+ zettabytes, or 180 trillion gigabytes). The result is a new intelligence scouring zettabytes of data that Crouch argues has trained itself with three new qualities:
1) Computers are better at interacting with human language.
2) Computer systems are growing in emotional and relational sensibilities.
3) Computers can simulate human experiences (ex. Design a short film).
These developments stand to replace human-made products, raising questions like: What happens if/when AI replaces designers or film makers? What is the unique proposition of human intelligence from artificial intelligence?
Below is an AI attempt to answer that question from a Christian perspective. It’s a typical AI chart (based on a ChatGPT prompt that I ran back through Grok to verify accuracy):
Distinctive Aspect & How AI Highlights It
Image of God (Imago Dei) --> AI lacks spiritual, moral, creative, and embodied human essence.
Embodiment & Vulnerability --> Human experience through vulnerable bodies enables authentic relationships; AI cannot replicate.
Authentic Moral Virtue --> AI simulates empathy but lacks conscience, moral growth, or virtue.
Creativity from Spirit --> Human art springs from intention, emotion, spiritual depth—AI lacks this.
Active Engagement --> Humans shape and act in the world; AI remains passive via data patterns.
Relational Culture --> Human culture arises from connection; AI underscores its importance by contrast.
Danger of Anthropomorphism --> Anthropomorphic language about AI may blur the line between machines and true persons.
This is not a bad take. In fact, I benefited from the prompt. However, one word that eluded the list is love.
Love Gets There First
"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us" (1 John 4:10). Dallas Willard (1935-2013), a philosopher at the University of Southern California, delivered lectures at Ohio State University entitled, “What Does it Mean to be Human?” For Willard, the unique purpose for humanity is to love with the fullness of our being: will, mind, body, social relations, and soul.
Ultimately, Willard believes our purpose is not a deep philosophical mystery, but a simple recognition that the nature of humans is a need to be known and loved. In fact, he claims, “The purpose of human life is to love and serve others and to be loved and served by them.”
Willard is paraphrasing Jesus. He is pointing to the fullness of life, highlighting the human capacity to receive love and give love. As Willard writes, we are receptacles of the divine – receiving God’s life in our spirit.
God lovingly created persons to work with originality and authenticity, not merely as copies.
AI’s Unseen Opportunity
We are receptacles of God’s love with our minds and our bodies. Our flesh remind us constantly that we are created, dependent on the breath of God to live. A life of fullness includes having a physical body (with limitations), not being a machine (without fatigue).
That’s a good thing. We can see AI as distinct – a tool.
The incapacity for AI to give and receive love exposes a different kind of tech brittleness. Film producer Spike Jonze helped us see this distinction over a decade ago. In his Oscar Award-winning film, Her, viewers experience a man during the heartbreak of divorce falling in love with ‘Samantha,’ an AI virtual assistant. The budding, virtual love attempts to become physical through a failed surrogate lover. In the end, their love is gutted when he discovers AI-Samantha has also fallen in love with thousands of other men at the same time.
There was no flesh on the other side of the words of love they shared. It was simulated love.
Andy Crouch claims, “The number one present danger [with AI] is the simulation of personhood. . . . To take a lonely world and tell them, ‘You’ll always have a friend, and it’s tantamount to a person,’ is to commit an act of really profound deception.”
The word became flesh (John 1) - the fullness of God came to earth. We now participate in goodness and beauty alongside relationships with others.
So, why are humans on earth? Or as the Psalmist asks, "what is man that you are mindful of him?" (Psalm 8:4)
Humans are on earth to absorb and scatter the love that originates in God, eternally shared by Father and Son and Spirit. The love of the Trinity spilled over into creation and even when humans wrecked the relationship – God demonstrated his love by sending his Son to earth to live and to die and to be resurrected.
It almost sounds too simple. But maybe, just maybe, all the AI hopes and disappointments will give birth to an old truth: Love made us and makes us human.
Lakelight Monthly
Curated resources, delivered on the last Saturday of the month.
By subscribing you agree to with our Privacy Policy and provide consent to receive updates from our company.
