When you hear the word ‘robot,’ do you think of WALL-E or R2-D2 from Star Wars? Maybe Rosey the Robot from the Jetsons comes to mind? Or perhaps robots conjure something more menacing like The Terminator. While these popular robots may loom large in our minds, they are far from the actual robots that we interact with on a daily basis.
While robots were once relegated to sci-fi films and cartoons, our daily life has suddenly become inundated with them. Advances in artificial intelligence (AI) has led to many consumer applications for robots living and working amongst us. In this rapidly changing world of AI and chatbots, it can be hard for parents, pastors, and youth ministry leaders to keep up. In order to serve our youth well, it is important to know something about AI and chatbots and how we might bring God’s Word to bear on these new technologies.
While AI may seem entirely new and novel, it has been around since the 1950s. A very basic definition of AI is machines that are capable of replicating human intelligence. AI systems are fed massive amounts of data—often in the form of language and text—resulting in machine learning that appears eerily human. Even though AI has been around for decades, it has undergone several radical shifts in recent years. Most recently, AI has become capable of generating text, images, and audio that fits very specific user prompts.
A particular form of AI—chatbots—have become especially popular and widely used as of late. Chatbots are AI applications that mimic human conversation; you can have a conversation with a bot and hardly know that you are talking with a machine. Generally speaking, users interact with chatbots by typing in a question or prompt as the bot responds back in a way that mirror human conversations. Popular examples of chatbots include ChatGPT, Google’s Gemini, Claude, Character AI, and Replika.
How do most people use chatbots? According to research published by Harvard Business Review in 2025, people are increasingly using chatbots for personal interactions. The leading usages for chatbot interactions related to therapy and companionship, organizing one’s life, and looking for purpose. These are all deeply personal ways of interacting with chatbots. In previous years of research, people were using chatbots for more productivity related needs such as idea generation, searches, and text editing. It would seem that our interactions with chatbots are getting more and more personal and relational.
It can be overwhelming for parents, pastors, or youth ministry leaders to try to keep up with developments in AI, chatbots, and how youth are using these technologies on a daily basis. However, three general guiding principles can be helpful.
Bots Mirror Humans
As people interact with chatbots, it is tempting to think that they are human or sentient beings with their own thoughts, feelings, and consciousness. Always remember that chatbots merely reflect human thoughts, feelings, and consciousness. A good way to think of this as being like a mirror—bots mirror humans because they have been trained on human data. The book of Proverbs gives us a helpful word to ponder here: “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man” (Proverbs 27:19). Whatever we like or dislike in bots, we must remember that it’s a lot like looking at ourselves in the mirror.
Bots Make Mistakes
People sometimes approach chatbots and AI as being omniscient and all-knowing. People assume that if they have a question without a clear answer, then a chatbot will know the answer. Young people may be tempted to think that a chatbot can offer better counsel than a parent, pastor, youth ministry leader, or trusted adult. It is important to remember that bots are not all-knowing. Our human experience is marked by mystery and curiosity, walking by faith and not knowing all things: “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12). Bots do not have all the answers—but, thanks be to God, we know the One who does!
God Over Bots
It is tempting to overly idealize bots and think that they have all the answers and are somehow superior to human relationships. However, there is another temptation in all of this: we can sometimes be tempted to be overly fearful of this new technology and what it might do. As we interact with young people and help guide their usage of AI and chatbots, it is essential that we guard against undue optimism or pessimism. We do not approach the world—or technology—as those “who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). Instead, we fix our eyes on Jesus and his victory over sin, death, and the devil. With the hope of Jesus at the center of our lives and relationships, we can approach this world of chatbots and AI knowing where our ultimate hope is to be found!
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