Originally published in Radical Optimism.
Rachel said something to me recently that landed with more weight than I expected: “I don’t know anyone who feels good about AI.”
I have been thinking about that ever since, because I suspect she is describing something many people feel but rarely say plainly. The emotional default right now is not curiosity. It is dread. And if your main exposure to AI is headlines, social media, or a friend forwarding the latest alarming story, that reaction makes sense. This week it’s fear over the cybersecurity implications of Anthropic’s Mythos model, which isn’t even publicly released yet. Fear travels fast, especially when a technology seems invisible, powerful, and connected to the things that make life feel stable: work, truth, creativity, and our kids’ futures.
Rachel and I started Radical Optimism partly because we have watched despair become a kind of cultural habit. Doom gets rewarded. Cynicism feels sophisticated. Hope can feel naive. But we are not interested in naive optimism. We are interested in the kind of optimism that can survive contact with reality.
Our own family has had plenty of contact with reality. Rachel’s rare spinal cord tumor and the paralysis that followed did not invite shallow platitudes. It invited either despair or something deeper.
Over time we have learned a hard but clarifying lesson: hard does not mean bad, and there is no reason to despair.
We believe we live in a cosmos with purpose, we are loved by God, and we are not at the mercy of chaos or trend lines. That spiritual foundation does not make problems disappear, but it changes how we meet them. I want to bring that same posture to AI.
This post is for normal people who do not spend their days reading technical reports, who are not trying to become “AI power users,” and who are mostly hearing negative news and worried opinions. My goal is not to convince you that everything will be fine. My goal is to help you feel steadier, see more clearly, and take one small step toward agency.
A lot of the anxiety around AI comes from imagining it as something like a new form of personhood. People picture a robotic mind: wanting, deciding, manipulating, replacing. That picture may make for good science fiction, but it is not the most helpful way to understand what most people are encountering today.
For everyday purposes, you can think of modern AI as an extremely capable pattern tool. It has learned from massive amounts of human created material, and it can generate drafts: text, images, summaries, and suggestions. When it is used well, it reduces friction and speeds up ordinary tasks. When it is used poorly, it can mislead, distort, or amplify with whatever incentives sit behind it.
The key point is this: AI is not a person. It does not have a soul. It does not carry moral responsibility. It does not deserve reverence. It should not be treated like an authority in your life. It is powerful software, and powerful software should be handled with wisdom.
That alone can lower the temperature. Many people are afraid because they are imagining a new kind of creature when, instead, it’s just a new kind of tool.
When I look at AI through a Christian lens, I keep returning to a few basic truths that help me avoid both hype and panic.
First, Christians have a reason to expect humans to make powerful things. We are made in the image of a Creator. We build, invent, discover, and cultivate. The impulse to create tools is not a modern accident. It is part of what it means to be human in a world God made. Technology can be used in ways that honor God and serve our neighbors. It can also be used in ways that do the opposite. But the basic act of making is not inherently anti Christian. This comes from the foundation of the creation story in Genesis 1 detailing man’s purpose: God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”
Second, Christians should be the least surprised people on earth that power gets misused. The Bible is clear about the human heart. We should expect that AI can be used to exploit workers, manipulate attention, concentrate power, and spread lies. That is not AI “becoming evil.” It is people being people, now with a stronger instrument in their hands. This is why wisdom matters. It is why community norms matter. It is why incentives and policy guardrails matter.
Third, and most important, Christians do not have to treat technological change as ultimate. We live in a cosmically purposed universe where God loves us and is in control. We believe Jesus has overcome the darkness and promised redemption and restoration. That does not mean everything will be easy, and it certainly does not mean we should be passive. It does mean fear does not get to be the boss.
If you listen to the public conversation for more than five minutes, you will usually hear two dominant voices. One is the doomsayer, warning that AI will take your job, break your kids’ brains, dissolve truth, and hand control of society to whoever has the biggest servers. The other is the salesman, insisting that AI is basically a miracle: it will 10x your productivity, fix your business, cure your inefficiencies, and finally make you “competitive,” if you just adopt it fast enough and buy the right tools. In that story, the only sin is hesitation, and the only virtue is speed.
What’s interesting is that both voices, in their own way, treat AI as ultimate. The doomsayer treats it like a demon you cannot escape. The salesman treats it like a savior you cannot afford to miss. The Christian voice should sound strange precisely because it refuses both forms of surrender. It says: yes, there are real risks, because humans misuse power. Yes, there are real benefits, because God gives good gifts even through imperfect hands. And no, we do not have to panic or bow down. We can pursue wisdom, set guardrails, and use tools to serve people, while remembering that our hope is not in a technology and our dignity is not threatened by one.
It is worth naming the deeper fear underneath a lot of AI fear. Many people are not primarily worried about a technical system. They are worried about what this moment suggests about their place in the world.
They worry they will be replaced. They worry they cannot keep up. They worry powerful people will use this against them. They worry truth is collapsing. They worry their kids are growing up in a world they barely recognize. Those are not silly worries. They are human worries.
Christianity speaks directly to them. Your value is not your productivity. Your dignity is not granted by an employer, an algorithm, or a trend. You are not a cog that can be swapped out without meaning. You were made for love, courage, patience, creativity, worship, friendship, sacrifice, and the kind of presence that no machine can replicate. AI can imitate words about those realities. It cannot live them.
In a world where more tasks are automated, the things that are irreducibly human become more precious, not less.
You do not need to become an AI expert to use AI wisely. You need a few rules that keep you oriented.
Treat AI as an assistant, not as an authority. Use it to draft, summarize, brainstorm, or organize, but do not let it become the voice you defer to. If you notice yourself thinking, “Well the AI said…,” pause. That is the moment you are tempted to outsource judgment.
Keep your name on the final product. AI can reduce friction, but it should not replace responsibility. If you send the email, you should read it. If you submit the form, you should understand it. If you share the claim, you should verify it. A healthy relationship with AI keeps you in the driver’s seat.
Protect what is private and precious. Do not paste sensitive personal information into tools you do not understand. A simple gut check helps: if you would not want it read aloud in public, do not put it into an AI chat box.
These are not complicated rules, but they go a long way toward replacing anxiety with agency.
If your only association with AI is doom, I recommend trying one small, low stakes use that simply makes normal life easier. The point is not to “embrace the future.” The point is to remove the aura of mystery and replace it with a realistic sense of what it can and cannot do.
Now is a great time to get started because all the best tools are still free to use. I like using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Grok. Meta just released a new model yesterday. If you want to upgrade the capability of one or two of these, subscriptions start at $20 a month typically. After you pick your tool try out the tips below.
One simple use is the dreaded email you have been avoiding because you do not want to sound harsh or unclear. You can ask an AI tool to draft a polite, firm message, and then you edit it until it sounds like you. For example: “Draft a kind, clear email to my landlord explaining that the sink has been leaking for two weeks. I want it fixed this week. Keep it brief and polite.”
Another genuinely helpful use is translating jargon into normal English. Modern life is full of confusing letters, insurance language, school communications, medical billing, and complicated policies. You can paste the text (excluding private details) and ask: “Explain what this means in plain English and list the actions I should take next.” You still verify the important parts, but you are no longer stuck.
A third use is preparing for a hard conversation. Many of us know what we want to say but struggle with tone, sequencing, and clarity. You can ask for a suggested outline and a few phrases that reduce defensiveness. For example: “Help me plan a conversation where I apologize for being short tempered this week. I want to take responsibility without making excuses.” This is not outsourcing repentance. It is lowering friction so you can do the human thing well.
A fourth use, especially for parents, is learning support without shame. Kids often need repetition, and parents often need help at the end of a long day. You can ask for practice problems, explanations, or gentle quizzes. For example: “My 10 year old is learning fractions. Give ten practice problems that start easy and get harder, with an answer key.” You remain the parent. You are simply getting assistance.
A fifth use is the quiet admin work that comes with serving your community. If you have ever organized a volunteer signup, a meal train, a church announcement, or a neighborhood event, you know the coordination can be draining. AI can draft a warm announcement, a schedule, or a checklist. That can free more energy for actual people.
None of these uses require you to go full AI booster. They are modest ways to turn a scary abstraction into a practical tool.
Because AI can sound confident while being wrong, it helps to keep a short checklist in your mind.
If the tool is making factual claims without sources, treat it as a draft, not as a fact. If it sounds confident but vague, double check. If the topic involves health, money, law, or safety, consult a real professional. If it seems to push you toward outrage or fear, be skeptical about what incentive might be shaping the output. And if you would not put your name on what it wrote, rewrite it.
That is not paranoia. It is discernment.
If you take nothing else from this post, take this: you do not have to choose between being gullible and being afraid.
A lot of our public conversation about AI is designed to push us into one of two surrender positions. The doomsayer wants you to feel powerless, as if the future is a runaway train and the only honest emotion is dread. The salesman wants you to feel anxious in a different direction, as if you are falling behind and the only way to be safe is to adopt everything immediately and never ask hard questions. Both postures hand over your agency. Both treat AI as ultimate.
Christian faith gives us a steadier third option.
We can be clear eyed about risk because we know the truth about the human heart. We can also remain hopeful because we live in a universe where God is not absent, where meaning is not fragile, and where redemption is not a marketing slogan. We can do the slow, unglamorous work of discernment: learning enough to see clearly, insisting on guardrails, refusing to outsource our responsibility, and using tools in ways that genuinely serve people. This is not a call to “embrace AI.” It is a call to refuse fear as a lifestyle.
If you want one simple practice for this week, here it is: choose one small, low stakes area of friction in your life and let AI help you reduce it, while keeping your name on the final output. Draft the email you have been avoiding. Translate a confusing paragraph into plain English. Create a checklist for a task that keeps slipping through the cracks. Do something modest and human. Notice what happens to your anxiety when the fog turns into something concrete.
In the comments, tell me your most ordinary AI worry, the one that actually keeps you up, not the sci fi one. Is it about your job, your kids, truth online, privacy, overwhelm, or simply the feeling that the world is accelerating past you? I’ll respond with a practical next step you can take, and a Christian frame that makes room for both realism and hope.
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