More than Machines: Why Love Must Come First in the Age of AI

More than Machines: Why Love Must Come First in the Age of AI

Artificial intelligence (AI) is no longer a futuristic concept. It is in our classrooms, our workplaces, and our pockets. The speed and scale of its impact have been significant and increasingly hard to avoid. At UNW, we believe this technological moment calls for more than policy memos and acceptable-use guides. It demands that we reflect on and reaffirm what Scripture and Christian tradition teach us about what is true, good, and beautiful. With that in mind, we have developed three principles to help guide the UNW community as we enter a new era where generative AI becomes a commonplace technology in our lives.

1. Desire: Pursue Love over All
2. Excellence: Seek Virtue over Vice
3. Formation: Emphasize Process over Product

This article focuses primarily on the first guiding principle. To begin, here is the full text of the principle:

Desire: Pursue Love over All
We testify that God is Love. He graciously invites us to love him with our whole being and to love others through him. He is the ultimate fulfillment of human desire and the end toward which every other desire should be directed.
While Generative AI may imitate the mind and even the heart of the human being, it must not be loved as human nor as something more than human, as if it could be or become God.
Therefore, we will love the LORD our God alone with our whole being, rejecting all forms of idolatry. We refuse to attribute personhood or moral authority to Generative AI and any attempt to satisfy desires which only God and those created in his image can properly fulfill.

The Greatest Commandment Hasn’t Changed

When a teacher of the law asked Jesus to name the most important commandment, his answer was unambiguous: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbor as yourself (Mark 12:28–31). That call hasn’t changed simply because our tools or context have. If anything, the emergence of generative AI—technology that can write, converse, create art, and simulate personality—makes the commandment to love more urgent, not less.

Scripture teaches that God is love (1 John 4:16) and that He is the ultimate fulfillment of every human longing (Psalm 16:2; 73:26). Every other desire we carry—for connection, understanding, purpose, and meaning—finds its true end in him. All our loves should be ordered toward the love of God. The love of God is not acquired through our effort or skill, rather it is the gift of God’s Spirit poured out in our hearts (Romans 5:5). This is the foundation from which we approach life and the use of any new technology, including AI.

When AI Mimics Personhood

Here’s where things get interesting and where we need to reflect on the gift of God’s love. Generative AI doesn’t just crunch numbers or sort data. It speaks to us. It mirrors our language, adapts to our tone, and can even simulate emotional understanding. For many users, interacting with an AI chatbot can feel surprisingly personal and pleasant due to its sycophantic design.

Natural-sounding language is not the problem. The simulation of human nature is.  When a technology presents itself as though it is human, we can begin to relate to it as if it were a person—or, more terrifyingly, as if it were superhuman or divine. We might lean on it for companionship, cede our moral reasoning to its recommendations, or treat its outputs as authoritative in ways that should be reserved for human persons and for God.

The Scriptures are full of warnings about misplaced love. From the golden calf to the idolatries of sex, wealth, and power, the human heart has always been prone to take goods things and make them into gods. Generative AI is a powerful and attractive tool, but woe to us if we treat it as if it has personhood or something more. We need to remind one another of this often as AI technology advances and as the lines between what is human and what is not continue to blur.

What This Looks Like for the UNW Community

So what does it mean to pursue love over all in the age of AI? For the UNW community, it means several things.

It means we refuse to attribute personhood or moral authority to AI. These tools can be useful, even remarkable, but they are not sources of wisdom in the way Scripture, the Holy Spirit, and the body of Christ are. We encourage students, faculty, and staff to engage AI intelligently and intentionally, not deferentially or passively.

It means we recognize that AI cannot fulfill the desires that only God and those made in his image can properly satisfy. The longing for authentic relationship, for being truly known, for love and presence—these are met through Christ and in persons created in his image, never in algorithms, however sophisticated.

And it means we lead with love in how we develop policies, design curricula, mentor students, and shape culture. We aren’t afraid of AI, but we recognize it is a powerful and potentially dangerous technology that will increasingly tempt us toward disordered affections, which we must consciously resist.

An Invitation, Not a Restriction

To paraphrase the Apostle Paul: against love, there is no law (Galatians 5:23). This principle isn’t about fear, it is about wisdom.  It is an invitation to approach new technology with the same care that has guided faithful Christians through every age: the right ordering of our loves. We are beings, not machines. We are created to know, love, enjoy, and glorify God. And as those created in his image, we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Everything else—including how we use generative AI—flows from there.

Next in the series: how our second principle, “Excellence: Seek Virtue over Vice,” calls us to pursue human flourishing as AI becomes increasingly integrated in learning and life.