So, going back to this question I asked

about good people living a good life,

it it it seems to be the case that the

the Bible suggests that if you don't

believe in God, even if you lived a good

life, you go to hell. And hell is

described as not a nice place.

So, I I was thinking about the most kind

person I know that's lived her life to

be unbelievable, passed away. She didn't

believe. Does that mean she's in hell?

>> Well, you can't answer that. Let me just

say something here that

what scripture reveals is a very

interesting thing. That the only people

to whom Jesus talked about hell were

religious bigots

who were in danger of it.

>> [snorts]

>> He didn't talk about it to ordinary

folks who are struggling with

believing and trusting God and all the

rest. That's point number one.

>> What is What What are you What are you

implying there, sorry?

>> Well, what I'm implying there is that

we paint hell as something

ogre-like.

God stuffing and demon stuffing

bodies into hell when actually

I think Lewis got it right here, you

know, when he talks about this. That

hell is absence of God and it's chosen.

If a person doesn't want God in their

life, and I've known people like that,

and they choose it, God will give them

what they chose. Otherwise, God is going

to have to force his way into their

lives and they don't want him.

>> [snorts]

>> And here is the amazing thing to my mind

about Jesus and his attitude. He would

go places, he would heal people, he

would bring peace into their lives and

all the rest of it, but when folk saw

what he did and said, "Go. Leave us

alone." he went.

He didn't force his way into their

lives. And it seems to me that the one

example in the New Testament of a person

who

did not live a good life and neglected

the poor around him and ended

[clears throat]

in that place, there is no evidence that

he wanted out of it. What he said was,

"Please send Abraham to my brothers that

they don't come to this place." There's

no indication that he wanted out of it.

And I think this is a grim reality here

that when we use these words, we need to

be immensely careful.

You can choose

not to have God and God will honor that

choice and that is hell.

>> [snorts]

>> One of the things that I'm I grew up

believing because of the the Bible was

that if you repented

>> Yes.

>> which is, you know, to ask forgiveness,

admit your sins, etc., acknowledge God,

believe, then your sins would be

forgiven.

>> Mhm.

>> So, if someone was a serial killer for

their whole life and then repented at

the end of their life, would they be

forgiven and allowed into heaven? And I

guess this kind of links to the question

I just asked, which is if someone was a

doctor for their whole life

curing childhood cancer, but they didn't

believe,

they would theoretically be going to

this place described as hell.

>> Yeah. We can argue about cases like that

all the time. Neither of us is God. And

the way God deals with these people.

After all, next to Christ on the cross

were two thieves. Well, they were

terrorists, actually. They both

murdered, apparently. And one of them

railed [clears throat] against Jesus and

shouted and all this kind of thing and

the other

uh

simply said to him, "I deserve to be

here. Remember me when you come into

your kingdom." And Jesus turned to him

on the cross and said, "Today you will

be with me in paradise." And so that man

>> letter?

>> Yes. He in that sense, yes. And the

Apostle Paul, you know, was a murderer.

There are deep mysteries here. It's just

amazing.

I'll never forget looking through the

door of a Russian

uh security death row. I'd never been in

a death row before, and the stink, it

was just like a nightmare.

And because I was the only one of the

Brits who could speak Russian, I went up

to the door.

And a chap came over and looked at me,

gaunt and all this, and he was just

awaiting execution.

And what he said to me was this. He

said, "I deserve to be here." He killed

12 women or something. I can't remember

which.

And then his face just burst into a

uh what I can only describe as a ghastly

smile.

And he said, "I met Jesus here, and he

forgave me."

And you just

you go away with a very

burdened heart, I think.

And he said, "My colleague lying over

there is the same."

What do you make of it? I don't think

we're going to find out.

>> I don't know. I feel like I'm wired to

try I try and have to solve these

problems,

these big questions. I have to like

figure them out, or they'll just sit

there causing increasingly more

confusion, which pops me right on that

agnostic fence.

>> Yes, I would encourage you to

concentrate on the one that you think is

most important.

One at a time. And I I don't know

because

>> [gasps]

>> I've only met you. I think what you're

doing by

talking to people from different

backgrounds and so on, I'd love to be

able to say, "Here's where you must

look." But each one of us is so complex,

and what will answer the question for

you might not answer it for the person

sitting next to you.

>> Mhm.

>> [clears throat]

>> But don't stop exploring, I would say.

But I don't think you will.

>> No, I won't. That's for sure. Cuz I find

the the curious pursuit of truth in and

of itself a rewarding pursuit

irrespective of whether I ever find the

answers.

>> That's the key. A speech that made a

deep impression on me was given by

Alexander Solzhenitsyn when he was

pushed out of the Soviet Union. Do not

compromise with at least with lies. Live

not by lies. I think our generation

needs to hear that because one of the

great and tragic capacities of AI is the

spread of lies, deep fakes, all the rest

of it.

I've been subject to it myself in the

last month.

>> When you think about the impact that AI

is going to have on human purpose, we

talk a lot about job losses and

>> Yes.

>> um you know, white-collar workers,

entry-level roles. And then really like

everything else, if if you have a long

enough time horizon, it's conceivable

that many of the roles we all do today,

including maybe even as a podcaster,

um I think Spotify announced this month

that you're going to be able to generate

your own podcasts with AI.

Um

what is the high-level sort of

philosophical point we need to

understand about meaning and how to live

a good life uh in a world where some of

us might lose our jobs and have to

contend with change in a way that we've

not experienced before?

>> I think we just have to I mean, I have

children, grandchildren, all the rest of

it. And one of my sons has begun to ask

questions, "Dad, AI looks as if it's

going to replace my job."

>> [snorts]

>> Well, he's tech-savvy and he will rise

to it, I suspect. But all industrial

revolutions did this, but this is going

to do it on a scale never before seen.

And the tragedy [clears throat]

is

uh I was talking about this in South

Africa, and they said, "It's all very

well to tell us to reskill people,

but if you don't have the educational

infrastructure to do that,

you'll just force a much bigger divide

between the rich and the poor." They're

really worried about it.

I think the important thing, which is

why I wrote my books, is to inform and

get people thinking and get them

talking.

>> What is the conversation you want them

to be talking about?

>> I think it's a very wide-ranging

conversation. You know, there are

existential

things for people they're afraid.

>> Should they be?

>> Well, they should be afraid of some

things. I think the creeping advance of

totalitarianism is something that could

and go for us all.

If we're not very careful, it's

creeping, creeping, creeping and it's

being ruled out in parts of the world,

particularly China, but not only. I read

a very interesting report by Chinese

watcher

saying

"Beware you in the West, because the

only difference between us and you is

you've got all the technology, but not

yet a central government imposing it."

Not yet. Beware.

And I think we have to beware because we

are sleepwalking into this.

Sir Anthony Seldon, I don't know whether

you've come across him. He's a an

education is very highly regarded by

various governments. Has written a book

about AI as affecting education.

And of course, it's having a devastating

effect, as you know.

What is an essay?

Everybody's using AI and it's hard to

recognize whether it's AI or not now.

So that we're into a whole new world or

coming rapidly into it.

How do we know what is true and what

isn't?

A few weeks ago

I was contacted could a publisher

produce a transcript of a recent lecture

I'd given because they liked it so much.

Never heard of it. I looked it up,

discovered a website describing itself

as Lennox Logic.

And it was a picture of me, but it was

deep fact all the way through and AI

generated

material that I would never have said,

all politicized and everything else.

>> Is it conceivable that maybe, you know,

so much of this technology has promised

that it would make us more human and so

much of it failed. It made us more

isolated and lonely.

>> Oh, yes.

>> Is it conceivable that if a technology

comes along like AI, it will render us

um

useful for the things that humans are

uniquely positioned to do?

>> Yes.

>> As in, you know, being with each other

in the real world and relationships. And

is it conceivable that maybe we were

never meant to sit in front of screens

tap-a-tapping buttons and

>> Oh, I think that's absolutely true.

What's already exercising many people's

minds

in that direction.

>> And could that be a better life?

>> Well, how would I judge that?

>> I I guess when we Yeah, it's a good

point. Um

you know, I was thinking about this. I

was thinking, is this like the moment

where we kind of regress back to

how we used to live, our true maybe

human nature? Is that Is that what

happens here where, I don't know, we

spend more time with each other in the

real world and we

cuz that's what you know, that's very

human. And my Maslovian needs of

connection and touch and

>> Yeah, yeah. Well, you can you

you can demonstrate that. Look at these

groups of parents who have uh said to

their kids, "Look, we're going around

the country for a week

and we're taking your smartphones away."

And they grumble and say, "No, no, no."

And they come back after a week having

rediscovered nature. They don't want to

use their smartphones very much. Totally

transformed by touch and taste and

feeling. You see,

AI is a machine.

It doesn't have any of our five senses,

which are all connected with our

consciousness. It doesn't see.

It doesn't hear.

It doesn't taste.

>> When you say it doesn't

>> touch. It doesn't see.

>> Well, it can it can be programmed to

recognize patterns, but it has no

awareness of what the process of saying

is.

>> Does it need it?

>> Well, that's not the point. What I'm

saying is it's

distinctively human that we understand

what saying is. We know what saying red

is.

>> Do we?

>> The machine Yes, I think we do. I mean

we can philosophize all around it, but

it's a conscious experience

and consciousness from a scientific

perspective is called the hard problem.

No one knows what it is.

>> We don't understand it.

>> Yes, we can't you can't replicate it.

>> So, how do we know if

AI is conscious?

If the output is the same I I can point

an AI at this and say what is it and the

AI will say it's a mug and I can get a

human to walk in here and say what is

that and they'll go a mug.

Now, the output is the same.

>> Yes, but the understanding is not there.

>> And why does that part Why is that

critical?

>> Well, because there's a huge difference

in being a machine and responding to a

program created by others

and being aware of what you're doing

consciously. That's a totally higher

level of being.

>> I agree, but what does that matter in

this context?

>> Well,

>> One another way of asking these

questions actually visualize by what I

have in front of me here because one of

the big big debates around AI is is it

creative.

>> Yes, I know.

>> So, here we have a picture done by

a human.

>> Yes.

>> Here which is you know, picture of a

family and a dog and a and then we have

another picture here which is done by

AI.

>> Yes.

>> And we have another picture here which

is done by a different AI.

>> Yes.

>> Now, there's a debate that AI can't be

creative.

Now,

can AI be creative?

>> Well, if you call what's in front of you

as creative, then it can be.

But, it now comes down to the very big

question of what you actually mean by

creative.

>> [laughter]

>> Yeah.

>> You see, it can create things. It can

put things together that

haven't been in that form before, but

it's not aware of doing it. It doesn't

know that those are children.

Because it doesn't know.

>> But if I ask it what is that, it would

say a child.

>> Yes, but it doesn't know.

Like we know.

>> And does And this It goes back to the

same question, which is does

which is like what the process?

Why does the process [snorts]

matter if the output is identical?

>> Well, let me just say that that view is

exactly the view that Alan Turing took

at the beginning. And if you look at

what's often referred to as the AI

Bible, uh Peter Norvig and his

colleagues, he said, "Look,

we are not trying

to create a conscious machine. We

wouldn't even know what that meant."

>> Yeah.

>> We are happy

with the imitation game.

And that's good enough for us. We're not

trying to do it. But you see,

the conscious side involves all that

appreciation of life and nature and

beauty and so on that we can see some

meaning in, but also there's another

thing.

There's a consciousness

of other people.

And there's God consciousness. I don't

think AI anywhere near that. Machines,

there are certain things they cannot do

even potentially that the human mind can

do. So, there's no way a machine is ever

going to be able to simulate a human

mind completely. But that's difficult.

That's difficult mathematics and all the

rest of it, and it's highly

controversial.

>> Why is it an important conversation to

have that

it is conscious or not conscious when

the the output is is the same.

>> Yes, I I can see the question, but if

you want to live in a reductive universe

which ends up being meaningless, well,

then you can go that way. There's not

nothing to stop you. But it seems to me

there are enough indicators

within nature, within science, within

our human experience

that tell us there's a bigger world.

And this is the right and left brain

stuff. We're back to McGilchrist again.

He would He would His stuff on AI is

very strong. He thinks it's really

dangerous because it's ruining

all this side of the brain and the

richness

of human experience and it's in danger

of destroying it.

He actually invites people to come and

fight with him.

>> [snorts]

>> So in such a world, what is it that

makes humans um what is it that makes us

special?

Is it that those human things we talked

about relational

>> Oh, I think so. Yes, absolutely. And the

fact that you and I can have a

conversation like this.

>> You could have this conversation with

AI.

>> Not the same way. AI is pretty thin

still. You can have a conversation of

sorts, but remember who's responsible

for its capacity? Humans.

It's something made in the image of

humans and that's a dangerous thing. I'd

prefer

I'd prefer to remain with something made

in the image of God.

>> It's interesting cuz we almost we're

getting to a point where there's going

to probably be some like ethical

questions around

>> Oh, they're already here.

>> But I mean around robotics.

>> Oh, everywhere.

>> You know in the same way that many of us

feel quite empathetic towards like

trees.

>> Yes, yes.

>> And we feel empathetic towards animals.

>> Yes.

>> Um now trees haven't got a brain, but

just cutting down a tree needlessly, I

think would annoy a lot of people

because it's

>> It would annoy me.

>> Yeah, it would annoy me, too. And I

think it's almost going to get to a

point where like

you know,

people are going to start asking similar

questions around

>> Robots.

>> Which is

It's an interesting question.

>> It is. It is.

>> Let me ask you a final question then,

which is what is the the most important

thing we haven't talked about that we

should have talked about as it relates

to

all of the work in these tangential

subjects.

>> Oh, I can't answer that. That

>> [laughter]

>> Perhaps the most important thing is

finding the trigger that will help you

to take a step forward into

into faith, into the Christian faith.

And

I would just encourage you to keep

asking your questions in the open way

you've done, and I have regarded it an

honor to

have this discussion, and I hope very

much it won't be the last one. But age

may prevent that. But thank you very

much.

>> We have a closing tradition where the

last guest leaves a question for the

next not knowing who they're leaving it

for.

And the question that's left for you

in a world with so many challenges, what

can we do to restore hope and trigger

engagement?

>> Give people a real basis for hope that

transcends this world.

And the only place I know where to find

that

is in Christ and in Christianity.

>> John, thank you. One of the one of the

most compelling

arguments for uh

God that you've presented and your way

of seeing the world and being

is not actually necessarily anything

you've written in your books or not not

necessarily anything you've said. It is

it is actually

you.

>> [laughter]

>> And uh you you you have a certain peace

and contentment

that I rarely see in people that I

interview, but I often see and I've

almost always seen

in the Christians that I've interviewed.

And this is a interesting phenomenon for

me. I interviewed Wesley Huff recently.

Do you know Wesley Huff?

>> Yes. Yes. Canadian.

>> Yeah.

>> Wesley is a bright cookie.

>> Yeah, he was very much he gave me the

same feeling as you. Just like feels

like a really happy person. Very sort of

content, rounded, well

>> There are not many of us.

>> Yeah, but it seems to be a trend that

you know, a lot of the Christian

apologists that I've interviewed have

that

anchoring that

>> Yeah.

>> so many of us are looking for.

>> There's a real sense of that.

You know,

I sit in front of many people and of

course they often ask me questions I

don't even understand, but

in life, that peace is very important to

me. And also, what we started with.

When I look at you,

I see someone who's of infinite value

made in the image of God. And so what I

say to you or think about you is hugely

[snorts] important to me.

And I wish you well.

>> Thank you. If you love The Diary of a

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