What in the AI world?

Artificial intelligence (“AI”) has been a hot topic for the past few years, but only recently did I sense God gently drawing my attention to it. Just last weekend, a friend mentioned an AI (“artificial intelligence”) workshop designed for parents with young children. Then, earlier this week, I came across a Mandarin talk show in Singapore talking about AI and children (starting around 12:45). While searching for that video, another video on parenting and AI appeared on my feed, and it’s from a Taiwan Christian show.

Interestingly, just this past month, I decided to experiment with AI in my writing, especially in crafting emails. Before that, I never really had much interest in using it, even during the popular trend of transforming photos into Studio Ghibli-style images. As I engaged with AI, I had a revelation and gained deeper insight into a question someone had asked me one or two years ago. The essence of the question, “So, what will you do if AI starts replacing your writing jobs? Pastors and their sermons, too.“

I think my answer then was, “AI cannot hear from God. We can hear through prayer and meditation of the Word, and only God can give fresh revelation and insights for us to write and preach fresh manna.”

This still stands today. Speaking of which, blogpastor.net wrote a few insightful posts about the church and AI. I have quite a bit to say about AI in the Christian faith, but I’ll leave it for another day.

I was amazed by how much AI could help me when it returned a polished, professional-sounding version of my email in seconds, something a personal assistant could have done with more time. I could now save time editing my sentence structure and just pour out my ideas freely, and let AI edit. Then, I saw how I am like the editor-in-chief with the AI. The editor-in-chief is the highest-ranking member of a publication’s editorial team — someone who manages the team of writers and editors to determine the look and feel of the content and decide what to publish.

So came the revelation, if one can think more like a boss or top management, one is less likely to be replaced by AI. One that leads, curates, and innovates with fresh ideas, discernment, and originality — qualities that I believe come from God’s inspiration. AI can copy faster and across a wider range than any human, but it still needs direction from humans. And you need to be that human to direct AI and not compete with it.

Even though I’ve only used AI for less than a month, it already recognises the themes I write about. It responds with prompts like, “Would you like to explore how this concept could be woven into your blog?” or “…build this into a longer reflection on creativity, parenting, or faith?”

This is what people said about training the AI. Then I saw the parallel to parenting, how we train our children when they are young.

Train up a child in the way he should go,
And when he is old he will not depart from it.

Proverbs 22:6 (NKJV)

Right now, we’re training AI and one day, it will “grow up” with adult-level intelligence. This is the kind of advancement towards the apex of intelligence that deeply concerns many insiders in the AI industry: Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or superintelligence—one that could surpass human capabilities across every domain.

Ironically, while we’re training AI to become more intelligent, much of today’s technology seems to be training our children and even the adults in the opposite direction. It encourages passive consumption through entertainment and activities that are, quite literally, labelled as “brain rot.” At the same time, the constant bombardment of entertainment, social media and notifications is dulling our spiritual sensitivity to hear from the source of wisdom, God, amidst the noise.

AI can help us to understand the Bible theoretically, but there’s something we humans have that AI can’t help us with — imagination. We can use our imagination to understand the bible through imaginative prayer, a meditation method that I learned from Catholics during my retreat at Lifesprings.

Ignatian contemplation is a form of Imaginative Prayer where one moves from thinking to feeling to being. This is God revealing Himself to us through the sights, sounds, characters, feelings of the particular gospel stories. If we will allow ourselves to become children again and plunge wholeheartedly into this seeming world of imaginative prayer, we might be delightfully surprised to discover Christ in greater depth here than in all our theological reflection and speculation.

As Fr Kevin O’Brien, S.J. recalls, “Ignatian contemplation is especially suitable for the Gospels – we can accompany Jesus through His life by imagining scenes from the Gospel stories. Contemplating a Gospel scene is not simply going back in history to remember it, but it is letting God take our imaginations and reveal something to us.”

Preparatory steps:

• Choose a Gospel text for your prayer (narrative or descriptive).
• Ask God to open your heart and guide your imagination.
• Be still for a time and know that God’s presence is within and all around you. Be aware that the Holy Spirit is guiding you.

Recommended Gospel passages:

• Jesus at Nazareth Luke 4:16-30
• Healing of a paralytic Luke 5:17-50
• Healing of the blind man Luke 18:35-43
• Agony in the Garden Luke 22:39-62
• Trials and hope of the Apostolate 2 Cor 4:7-11

Excerpt from www.catholic.sg/ignatian-contemplation

This method of reading the bible gave me fresh revelations of Bible stories I’ve read many times, for example, the story of Jesus healing blind Bartimaeus. It reignited my interest in the Bible at a time when I felt I was going through the motions with Bible reading. So I highly recommend you give it a try.

I also prefer to write down the bible verses and meditations rather than typing them because it helps me process my thoughts and emotions better. Research does back this up — writing by hand during meditation or reflection activates deeper brain pathways, enhances emotional processing, and improves focus more effectively than typing.

Even as typing replaces writing in daily life, handwritten text continues to have a place in our increasingly virtual world. Calligraphy—once the main form of writing—is now a meditative practice that nurtures focus and calm. So I think its descendant, handwriting, has a similar effect.

Also, writing by hand doesn’t feed the AI and let it learn since it’s offline. 😉 So you get to gatekeep that (spiritual) intellectual property.

How are your thoughts and relationship with AI like? Let me know in the comments.

Endnote

Before I had the revelation that led me to write this post, I felt prompted to expand Shema Rhema’s product range to include lined journals. As I wrote this post, I saw the why behind it — as an invitation to encourage others to write and journal about their quiet time and meditations. It’s a beautiful reminder that His plans often unfold ahead of ours.

This expansion primarily came about because I didn’t want Shema Rhema’s booth to appear too empty for the upcoming Christmas markets in Singapore. There, you’ll be able to find Shema Rhema’s products in person—no delivery fees needed 😉. I’m planning to give out some freebies too, so follow Shema Rhema on Telegram, Instagram or Facebook.

• Christmas at Faith 2025 (XAF2025): 12-13 Dec 2025 (Fri-Sat)
• Christmas@Cathedral: 19-21 Dec 2025 (Fri-Sun)
• Christmas in Queenstown: 5-7 Dec 2025 (Fri-Sun) (Made a difficult decision to give up my spot here, but do head over and be blessed!)

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