Romans 8: Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Me?

Introduction

"On one hand, every day I get new ideas about problems we could solve with AI. On the other, I keep reaching the point where I want to throw all my devices out the window, take my family and go live off the grid in the forest." Patrik Eskandar, who works in IT, doesn't hide this tension. The question "Will AI replace me?" affects him too, and he knows it affects a lot of people.

He says up front that there are entire master's degrees on artificial intelligence, and that he won't cover data protection or the question of resources. His message at Vineyard Bern is meant as an impulse, "a beginning," so that the Church stays in conversation about a subject that will keep coming back.

After showing how fast things are moving and what AI really is, he asks the question behind the question: what defines your worth? His answer rests on Romans 8: you are a child of the Father. He closes with three practical markers and an invitation to bring your heart back to rest.

Outline of the message

1. A technology moving at full speed

On November 30, 2022, ChatGPT became available to everyone. Its boss wrote: "This will change everything." Skeptics saw only a blank page with a text field, like Google.
The novelty lies elsewhere: for the first time, you talk to a computer in natural language and it answers in natural language. Knowledge becomes even faster to reach, and tailored to what you want to hear.
Then everything follows quickly: sources are cited, and then whole tasks are delegated. The preacher hands an Excel spreadsheet to AI to get a chart, a summary and a list of errors: "It's like an intern working for me." It still needs correcting, but he delegates.
Live, he asks a chatbot called Claude to create a full-screen Flappy Bird game, using a supplied photo as the avatar. Thirty seconds later, the game works. This is called "vibe coding." No need for a programmer or thousands of francs: from idea to finished product, everything moves very fast.
Video follows the same path: the famous clip of actor Will Smith eating spaghetti, obviously artificial in 2023, looks like a movie scene in 2026. "It's frightening."
It took the telephone 27 years to reach one million users, the automobile 12 years, Netflix three and a half years, and ChatGPT 5 days.
Every technology replaces another: the telephone replaced letters, the car replaced carriages, Netflix replaced DVDs and tapes. Hence the question: what will AI replace? Will it replace us?

2. Nobody knows the timeline

"I would love for someone to come and tell me: Patrik, here's the AI timeline, in two years it will be like this, so invest in this course." That plan doesn't exist.
In the media, two camps clash: those who predict the AI bubble will burst, and those who joke that you should always say "please" and "thank you" to AI so that it remembers your politeness the day it takes over.
"I can't promise you how this will go. Nobody can. I can tell you it will be different." Some jobs will die, others will be revolutionized, and new ones will be born.
Humanity has already lived through this with the arrival of the Internet. Today it has become normal: "I opened the Internet about fifty times today and I'm not worried. We will grow with it."

3. Understanding what AI is, and its limits

The term appeared in 1956, to describe things as simple as a thermostat, a traffic light or a calculator. In 1997, the world chess champion lost to a computer.
AI is already everywhere: traffic forecasts, the spam filter that learns from the messages we mark, credit card fraud detection, Netflix suggestions, Face ID, DeepL, photo search. "All of that is artificial intelligence. It has been around for a long time."
What has been new for about five years is generative AI: text, images, voice cloning, app creation. It seems threatening because it seems very human.
The principle, simplified: like the phone keyboard that suggests the most likely next word, generative AI calculates, word after word, the most likely continuation, fed by books, half of the Internet and forums.
The important point: "AI doesn't know what it doesn't know." It states things with great conviction and will never say "I don't know."
Example: at a restaurant with his wife, he wondered what their daughter would look like as an adult. They asked ChatGPT to create the "Arab version" of a photo of his wife. The result showed a woman wearing a headscarf, because the Arab world is about 90% Muslim. It's the most probable answer, not understanding. Looking at the image, he exclaimed: "There's my daughter in the future. No, in the name of Jesus!"
Another example: "I need to get my car washed, the car wash is 100 meters away. Should I drive or walk?" Answer: walk. AI, trained to give eco-friendly answers, didn't understand that the point was to wash the car. "It's not good at reading between the lines."
Keep this in mind: AI is not as objective as it seems. Check the facts.
There are also wonderful possibilities: Bibelserver offers Nikodemus AI, fed with theological documents. You can ask it how the world of that time understood the adoption Romans 8 talks about.
A song entirely generated by AI, which his daughter loves, gave him goosebumps. But AI only produces the perfect, with no dissonance at all. The spontaneous moment of this morning's worship, with a soprano voice laid over it, "AI will never do that." It will always stay flat, always correct.

4. The question behind the question: what defines your worth?

The subject of AI exposes an old problem in our society: we define our identity by performance. That is why the threat feels existential: "If I'm replaced, I'm nobody."
The preacher spent the year meditating on this verse, which seems more relevant to him than ever: "For you didn't receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'" (Romans 8:15). In his version, the Spirit has made us "sons and daughters."
"Being a child breaks this logic of performance. With the Father, we have the right to simply be."
He distinguishes work from vocation. "AI will never have any influence on your calling, because what God says about your life is true and remains true, whatever happens with AI." You are called to be a child of God, to stand where God has planned for you, anointed for a mission. Work and calling can go together, but work never defines your worth.
He doesn't downplay the fear. When his boss asked him how he was going to integrate AI into his team, he answered that he was hesitating, because it could replace them all. His boss replied: "If you don't do it, you will all be replaced."
It is our task as Christians: to face this subject, to move forward, to be able to take part in the conversation.

5. Trusting God for your future

The invitation at the heart of all this is the message of Job: do I trust God? Do I believe he wants good for me? "It's a decision to be taken again and again: God, I don't understand, but I trust you."
What God sees over your life hasn't changed with AI.
The sentence to remember, according to him: "If I'm afraid of the future, it's because I imagine a future in which God is not present." But God is there, and there will be grace for every season.
Matthew 6, proclaimed during the service: do not worry about your livelihood. Look at the lilies of the field and the birds of the air, they are fed and clothed. "That's not new." God provides, even with the arrival of AI.
Even before his three markers, he recommends: have a tea or a coffee, go for a walk with God, talk to him about all this and pour out your heart before him.

6. Three markers for the right use of AI

Knowledge or wisdom. The right use of AI uses it for knowledge and seeks wisdom where it is found. "I want to be a wise man, not just someone who knows." He notices it in certain people, his parents for example: they have wrestled with God and with their own story, and you can feel it.
AI is so efficient at reaching the goal that we unlearn how to wrestle. It can write a complex, moving theological text in two seconds, "but because I didn't wrestle to get it, I unlearn." Those who wrestle have wisdom, and wisdom begins like this: "The fear of Yahweh is the beginning of knowledge" (Proverbs 1:7). It means living constantly before God. "We are the first generation to have access to so much knowledge, but certainly not the wisest generation."
Who is shaping me? Every interaction, with people, social media, the Internet or AI, shapes us, whether we want it or not. Instagram knew his wife was pregnant before his own parents did. The algorithm knows exactly what interests you.
A study of hundreds of thousands of YouTube videos found, since 2023, a rise in words that ChatGPT loves, such as "delve." "What I talk about a lot shapes me."
"Any use of AI in which I let it guide me rather than the Holy Spirit is questionable. AI is not a substitute for the Holy Spirit." He tells how he pulls out his phone so quickly to ask AI that he hears the Holy Spirit asking him: "Why didn't you ask me?"
Relationship can't be outsourced. "Any use of AI that spares me the relationship is questionable." AI can take over tasks, but the relationship must remain the relationship.
At first, he started discussing his questions with AI: it gave good advice, he wasn't ashamed, he wasn't judged. Then he realized it wasn't right. "I want to work through what concerns me with humans, not with AI." Everything that touches identity must come from the Holy Spirit or from the people around you. Pastoral care, deep processes and psychological questions stay between humans.

7. Bringing your heart back to rest

Every week brings new breakthroughs. "My heart doesn't keep up." After a professional conference on AI, where speakers described how it is used in Asia, he would gladly have thrown his laptop out the train window.
"I'm not here to give you false hope. A wave is coming, things will change. But I trust God, who has a plan for me. My task is to bring my heart back to rest."
His discovery: control was never in his hands, even before ChatGPT. Thinking you can master tomorrow, including at work, is an illusion. Covid can arrive overnight and everything changes. The principle stays the same: trust the God who wants good for us.
He quotes Augustine's prayer, 1,600 years old: "You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you."
"AI doesn't have the last word. Fear doesn't have the last word. The Father does."
He invites everyone to put a hand on their heart and concludes with a prayer: "I believe, help my unbelief (Mark 9:24). You are greater than everything, certainly greater than AI. That is why today I choose to let myself fall into your arms."

Key takeaways

Nobody knows the AI timeline. Jobs will change, as they did with the Internet, and we will learn to live with it.
AI calculates the most likely answer: it doesn't know what it doesn't know. Check what it claims.
Your worth does not come from your performance. According to Romans 8:15, you received a Spirit of adoption: with the Father, you have the right to simply be.
If the future frightens you, it's because you imagine it without God. There will be grace for every season.
Use AI for knowledge and for tasks, but seek wisdom from God, let the Holy Spirit shape you and keep relationships between humans.

Personal application

To what extent does your worth depend today on what you produce at work?
When you think about your professional future, is God part of the picture, or do you imagine it without him?
Who do you turn to first when you have a question: your phone or the Holy Spirit?
Are there intimate or painful subjects that you confide to a machine rather than to a trusted person?
When will you take a moment this week to walk with God and tell him what worries you?

Verses cited

Frequently asked questions

Will artificial intelligence replace my job?

Patrik Eskandar, who works in IT himself, promises nothing: nobody knows how this will evolve. He only states that jobs will change, that some will disappear and that new ones will appear, as when the Internet arrived. Above all, he reminds us that fear of the future is born when we imagine a future in which God is not present.

What defines my worth according to Romans 8?

The debate about AI brings out an old habit: defining your identity by performance. Romans 8:15 reminds us that we did not receive a spirit of bondage but a Spirit of adoption, who makes us cry "Abba, Father." Being a child breaks the logic of performance. AI has no hold on your calling: what God says about your life remains true.

How can a Christian use AI wisely?

The preacher gives three markers: use AI for knowledge but seek wisdom where it is found, in the fear of the Lord; consciously choose who shapes you, because AI is not a substitute for the Holy Spirit; never entrust the relationship to it. It can take over tasks, but pastoral care and deep questions stay between humans.