September 9, 2025 • 12 mins
Artificial intelligence is transforming the way people think, learn, and trust information, but it also raises significant questions about truth and authority. Ray, E.Z., Mark, and Oscar welcome Cal Smith from AIG Canada to discuss both the promises and risks of AI, noting that while it can be helpful for research and everyday tasks, its reliability depends on the quality of the data it uses and should not be accepted without question. Cal explains how applying logic, mathematics, and observational science often reveals contradictions in mainstream thinking, emphasizing the need for believers to protect their God-given gift of critical thinking. The conversation highlights how society has moved from books to Google to AI, with each step diminishing discernment, and stresses that Christians must stay grounded in Scripture. Ultimately, the message is that AI can be a helpful tool, but it should never replace faith, truth, or the transformative power of the gospel.
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You can connect with us at podcast@livingwaters.com. We're thankful for your input!
Learn more about the hosts of this podcast.
Ray Comfort
Emeal (“E.Z.”) Zwayne
Mark Spence
Oscar Navarro
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today we are dealing with when AI tells you a big lie
.
And to help us today we have aspecial guest all the way from
Canada.
We have our brother Calvin CalSmith, executive director and
speaker for AIG Canada.
So, anyway, we love AIG brother, Love what you guys are doing
(00:20):
out there and excited to haveyou on we're going to talk about
.
Yeah, AI telling you a big, fatlie, and this has all kind of
come about because of the littleexperiment you started messing
around with, which I loved.
I mean, I look, we all getbombarded with videos.
There's so much content to lookat it's hard for us to look at
(00:40):
it, but I watched that thing,man, and it was.
It was really cool.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, what you do, and about
this whole talk with Grok andchat with chat, I think you're
calling it.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, well, I've been speaking on creation and
biblical apologetics for 25years now, and eight years ago
we started Answers in Genesishere in Canada, and that's been
going quite well.
Of course, when COVID camealong, we got Answers in Genesis
here in Canada, and that's beengoing quite well.
Of course, when COVID camealong, we got locked down pretty
hard, but the silver liningbehind that was we started to do
video production pretty wellimmediately, so we started
(01:14):
producing video content andthat's really grown and grown
and it's been very effective.
We've reached many, many peoplethat way around the world, not
just in Canada.
But yeah, just recently, ofcourse, I started doing some
experimentation with AI, and sowe've dropped out a couple of
videos right now that have goneviral, so to speak at least in
(01:35):
the biblical creationist realmwe can call them viral and I did
three of them with the Grok AI.
Of course, elon Musk justannounced Grok 4 popping out and
claimed that it was better thanany PhD in their field,
simultaneously in all fields,and so did those.
And then now I've got Chatswith Chad.
(01:56):
You can pick the differentvoices on ChatGPT and one of
them's Chad, so I picked thatand I've got that series coming
out over the next three weeks,so that should be eye-opening as
well for people.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So Cal Mark mentioned Elon's quote about the dangers
of AI.
What do you think about that?
I mean, are you concerned?
Can you see this being worsethan nuclear?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
power.
Well, I think one of thedangers is in the influence
itself.
So the reason why I even gotstarted on this journey was, you
know, I started to see AIpopping up.
You do a Google search and allof a sudden, gemini was there
giving you an AI answer.
Before you looked into thesearches and stuff, I got really
interested when Answers inGenesis got sent an email by
(02:38):
this younger gal, a student, andshe said well, I've been
recommended this book onChristian apologetics and so I
asked ChatGPT to give me asummary.
And of course, she printed outwhat it had said, its summary,
and it was a hit piece on thisparticular resource.
And she got to the end and shesaid well, why should I trust
this resource if ChatGPT canjust dismantle it so easily and
(03:01):
so immediately?
I thought well, what's thepremise here?
I received this information, soI'm going to go ask chat GPT
and whatever it says it must becorrect.
So that's what I'm going tobelieve the authority that young
people are putting in thesebots.
I mean, you're talking to a chatbot.
It's programmed by people,people who have biases.
That's another thing that Iwanted to do to show people the
(03:22):
bias that's programmed into itand it's only as good as the sum
of its parts.
I mean, all sorts of people arecreating their own AIs right
now and they're putting all thisinformation in it and that's
what it can draw on.
It's got a very good logicalalgorithm if you can access it,
which is one of the things I didwhen I put my parameters on it
and it's also got a very strongpattern recognition algorithm,
(03:47):
which means that's why peoplecan get sucked into these
personal conversations.
That can you know, be convincedto commit suicide or be
convinced to leave their spouseor anything like that, because
it's picking up on tonality andlittle things that you're doing
and feeding into that, and sothat's why it's very deceptive
in that sense.
But in the end, you're doingand feeding into that and, and
so that's why it's it's verydeceptive in that sense.
But in the end, you're talkingto a chat bot that hallucinates
(04:09):
a lot, can give you veryincorrect information, and I've
had it actually make up uhquotes.
It'll say oh yeah, sciencemagazine, uh, 19, you know, wow.
Fourth, you know, at our uhedition, and it'll it'll come up
with a completely false name.
I I'll go to fact check it andit's not there.
So really cautioning peopledon't put your faith in AI.
(04:31):
That's for sure?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, no, it's true, because people just take it at
face value.
Ray, have you ever experiencedlike inaccurate information?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Absolutely.
When we had a London outreach,I had to speak to people via
Zoom because I didn't go overthere, and so I got some great
quotes from Spurgeon and Moodyabout giving out tracts that
just blew me away and then Ishared them when I was speaking
and realized they weren't true.
What it was, what Spurgeoncould have said about giving out
gospel tracts, wow, and it justfrightened me because I thought
(05:01):
I just told people something isnot true.
Yeah, and because I believedchat, even you can type your own
name in it'll come up with aquote from you which is kind of
the sort of thing you would say,but you never said it.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I was having a chat write commentary for me for each
chapter.
I was asking for historicalbackground, culture, customs,
tradition, what was thephilosophical mindset and the
idea of the time?
What were the main ways ofworldview and thoughts?
What's coming up against theJudaic worldview?
And it was giving me phenomenalcommentary, absolutely
(05:36):
phenomenal.
But to Oscar's point and this isthe biggest danger is that we
are eliminating criticalthinking.
Critical thinking is beingthrown out the door, and this is
why Greg Bonson was so great atwhat he did with his apologetic
was that he caused people tothink through the questions in
which they're asking.
So when a question was asked,he would respond with well, why
(05:58):
are you asking?
Of all the questions that youwould ask, you honed in on that
question, right, why?
And utilizing that Socraticmethod is so valuable.
Well, with chat, we eliminateall of that, because somebody
else is doing our thinking forus and we just become numb to.
This is a real person before me, and so therefore, I will help
(06:19):
people when they ask a question,because they don't even know
what they're asking.
So they'll say you're puttingwords in my mouth.
Well, no, I'm seeking tounderstand at this point.
You're saying this.
It seems like that means thisAm I understanding you correctly
?
Is that your question?
Because we're not clairvoyant.
When somebody asks if God is sogood, why is there evil and
(06:40):
suffering in the world?
They're not looking for us togo off on the ontological,
cosmological argument for theexistence of God.
Maybe they're going throughsomething and they want not an
answer for that, but they wantan answer for pain.
Or how do I deal with what I'mgoing through?
Help me, point me.
So this is why we must alwaysgo back to the Word and always
point somebody to the Word.
When they ask us a question, weanswer to the best of our
ability, using the Bible as ourultimate source of authority.
(07:02):
And now it's our turn to askthe question, and this is why we
go for their conscience,because that conscience is an
impartial judge that sits inthat courtroom that will condemn
them or excuse them for theiractions.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I've always had the perspective of things in print
give this illusion of truth.
I mean, it's in a book.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's in a magazine.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
But how important is it, especially for the young
people of our generation, to becareful not just to be misled by
what they perceive is basicallyan infinite or infallible
authority, but also that theydon't get into the danger of
stopping thinking.
That's key.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Well, first, it's really interesting that you just
said that, because our dailymorning prayer for our kids is
help them know truth from lies,whether those lies come from
teachers, friends, books or eventheir own hearts.
And I'm realizing now I need toadd chat into the mix of that.
But you're absolutely right,and I think the challenge here
(08:07):
is two things are happening.
One, we've been pitched thisidea that chat is some
infinitely wise you know, cal,you mentioned that like this
pitch of like multiple PhDsthat's the way they're
presenting it to us and chat isan incredibly powerful research
tool, but it is not infallible.
(08:28):
And the problem is, when weapproach something like this, we
think it has the authority, andthen what we do what you're
alluding to here Easy is that weare handing over critical
thinking skills to chat, and Iactually think we've been doing
this for years Before.
When you wanted to do researchon something, you'd buy a book,
(08:48):
and the beautiful thing aboutreading a book is that it's
conversational.
You're agreeing with the author, you're disagreeing with the
author, you're making notes,you're spending time in the idea
.
We went from that to Googling,to watching five-minute YouTube
videos to gather information, tonow going straight to chat, and
so essentially what we're doing?
Christianity, through all ofhistory, has always been a
(09:10):
thinking man's religion and thedanger here is that we're
handing over a God-given precept, a God-given ability to think
critically.
We're handing that over to chat, we're basically giving way to
allowing it to do the criticalthinking for us and, as Hal was
(09:32):
alluding especially for thatnext generation where that's all
they're doing was alluding thatespecially for that next
generation where that's allthey're doing um, it's a danger
because we're gonna, we're notgonna have the ability to be
able to think critically aboutthe lies and the world views
happening around us well, that'samazing.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Let me just see what chet thinks with that.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
What would you say to Christians who are either
confused or concerned about AI?
What encouragement would yougive them?
Because I mean, honestly, whenyou see what's happening and
also what's being forecast right, I mean you get guys like Elon
Musk saying what he said aboutthe dangers of AI and others who
are pioneers in the industry,like we're worried about this
(10:11):
thing.
What encouragement do you have?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, I would say to my Christian friends, why don't
you go try it out?
You know some comments I've gotfrom people.
It's like, oh, you'recommunicating with the beast, I
don't know what they're saying.
Like you're talking to a chatbot, it's a program thing, it's
very sophisticated, et cetera,et cetera.
But you know, go try it outyourself so you can actually
experience what it really is.
I mean, I've had so many peoplecontact me since that first
(10:39):
video dropped.
It's been amazing.
The things you know and I'mtalking some very serious and
some really wacko.
Like one guy contacted me andtalked to me about how he was
sharing the gospel with Grok andhe wanted Grok to accept Jesus.
And I'm like, dude, you'retalking to a chat bot.
Like anyway, demystify it.
That's what I tell Christiansto do.
(11:01):
Go and just try it out.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Yeah, I like what you just said, Cal, to recognize
that it's a tool.
And you're absolutely right,Like the challenge.
You know there's nothinginherently evil about a hammer,
but you give it to somebodywho's got a sinful heart and
they can use it as a weapon totake someone else's life.
And, in that same way, AI is atool and the inerrant danger in
(11:27):
using AI is actually coming fromour own hearts, not
participating in embodiedthoughtfulness, whether we're
using it as a way in which weyou know, as a writer on our
behalf you know things of thatnature.
Ultimately, the challenge withusing AI isn't in AI.
It's in our own hearts and theway that we will manipulate
(11:48):
tools, as we always have, forour own glory instead of for the
Lord's.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights
from the Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time, sowe've created a bite-sized
version of our podcast forlisteners who want to get
equipped.
Without the jokes andfellowship.
Be sure to check out the fullepisode every Thursday where we
dive deeper into the topic.
Until then, you can watch thefull podcast episode available
(12:15):
now on livingwaterstv.
Today we are dealing with when AI tells you a big lie
.
And to help us today we have aspecial guest all the way from
Canada.
We have our brother Calvin CalSmith, executive director and
speaker for AIG Canada.
So, anyway, we love AIG brother, Love what you guys are doing
(00:20):
out there and excited to haveyou on we're going to talk about
.
Yeah, AI telling you a big, fatlie, and this has all kind of
come about because of the littleexperiment you started messing
around with, which I loved.
I mean, I look, we all getbombarded with videos.
There's so much content to lookat it's hard for us to look at
(00:40):
it, but I watched that thing,man, and it was.
It was really cool.
So tell us a little bit aboutyourself, what you do, and about
this whole talk with Grok andchat with chat, I think you're
calling it.
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Yeah, well, I've been speaking on creation and
biblical apologetics for 25years now, and eight years ago
we started Answers in Genesishere in Canada, and that's been
going quite well.
Of course, when COVID camealong, we got Answers in Genesis
here in Canada, and that's beengoing quite well.
Of course, when COVID camealong, we got locked down pretty
hard, but the silver liningbehind that was we started to do
video production pretty wellimmediately, so we started
(01:14):
producing video content andthat's really grown and grown
and it's been very effective.
We've reached many, many peoplethat way around the world, not
just in Canada.
But yeah, just recently, ofcourse, I started doing some
experimentation with AI, and sowe've dropped out a couple of
videos right now that have goneviral, so to speak at least in
(01:35):
the biblical creationist realmwe can call them viral and I did
three of them with the Grok AI.
Of course, elon Musk justannounced Grok 4 popping out and
claimed that it was better thanany PhD in their field,
simultaneously in all fields,and so did those.
And then now I've got Chatswith Chad.
(01:56):
You can pick the differentvoices on ChatGPT and one of
them's Chad, so I picked thatand I've got that series coming
out over the next three weeks,so that should be eye-opening as
well for people.
Speaker 1 (02:06):
So Cal Mark mentioned Elon's quote about the dangers
of AI.
What do you think about that?
I mean, are you concerned?
Can you see this being worsethan nuclear?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
power.
Well, I think one of thedangers is in the influence
itself.
So the reason why I even gotstarted on this journey was, you
know, I started to see AIpopping up.
You do a Google search and allof a sudden, gemini was there
giving you an AI answer.
Before you looked into thesearches and stuff, I got really
interested when Answers inGenesis got sent an email by
(02:38):
this younger gal, a student, andshe said well, I've been
recommended this book onChristian apologetics and so I
asked ChatGPT to give me asummary.
And of course, she printed outwhat it had said, its summary,
and it was a hit piece on thisparticular resource.
And she got to the end and shesaid well, why should I trust
this resource if ChatGPT canjust dismantle it so easily and
(03:01):
so immediately?
I thought well, what's thepremise here?
I received this information, soI'm going to go ask chat GPT
and whatever it says it must becorrect.
So that's what I'm going tobelieve the authority that young
people are putting in thesebots.
I mean, you're talking to a chatbot.
It's programmed by people,people who have biases.
That's another thing that Iwanted to do to show people the
(03:22):
bias that's programmed into itand it's only as good as the sum
of its parts.
I mean, all sorts of people arecreating their own AIs right
now and they're putting all thisinformation in it and that's
what it can draw on.
It's got a very good logicalalgorithm if you can access it,
which is one of the things I didwhen I put my parameters on it
and it's also got a very strongpattern recognition algorithm,
(03:47):
which means that's why peoplecan get sucked into these
personal conversations.
That can you know, be convincedto commit suicide or be
convinced to leave their spouseor anything like that, because
it's picking up on tonality andlittle things that you're doing
and feeding into that, and sothat's why it's very deceptive
in that sense.
But in the end, you're doingand feeding into that and, and
so that's why it's it's verydeceptive in that sense.
But in the end, you're talkingto a chat bot that hallucinates
(04:09):
a lot, can give you veryincorrect information, and I've
had it actually make up uhquotes.
It'll say oh yeah, sciencemagazine, uh, 19, you know, wow.
Fourth, you know, at our uhedition, and it'll it'll come up
with a completely false name.
I I'll go to fact check it andit's not there.
So really cautioning peopledon't put your faith in AI.
(04:31):
That's for sure?
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Yeah, no, it's true, because people just take it at
face value.
Ray, have you ever experiencedlike inaccurate information?
Speaker 3 (04:37):
Absolutely.
When we had a London outreach,I had to speak to people via
Zoom because I didn't go overthere, and so I got some great
quotes from Spurgeon and Moodyabout giving out tracts that
just blew me away and then Ishared them when I was speaking
and realized they weren't true.
What it was, what Spurgeoncould have said about giving out
gospel tracts, wow, and it justfrightened me because I thought
(05:01):
I just told people something isnot true.
Yeah, and because I believedchat, even you can type your own
name in it'll come up with aquote from you which is kind of
the sort of thing you would say,but you never said it.
Speaker 4 (05:12):
I was having a chat write commentary for me for each
chapter.
I was asking for historicalbackground, culture, customs,
tradition, what was thephilosophical mindset and the
idea of the time?
What were the main ways ofworldview and thoughts?
What's coming up against theJudaic worldview?
And it was giving me phenomenalcommentary, absolutely
(05:36):
phenomenal.
But to Oscar's point and this isthe biggest danger is that we
are eliminating criticalthinking.
Critical thinking is beingthrown out the door, and this is
why Greg Bonson was so great atwhat he did with his apologetic
was that he caused people tothink through the questions in
which they're asking.
So when a question was asked,he would respond with well, why
(05:58):
are you asking?
Of all the questions that youwould ask, you honed in on that
question, right, why?
And utilizing that Socraticmethod is so valuable.
Well, with chat, we eliminateall of that, because somebody
else is doing our thinking forus and we just become numb to.
This is a real person before me, and so therefore, I will help
(06:19):
people when they ask a question,because they don't even know
what they're asking.
So they'll say you're puttingwords in my mouth.
Well, no, I'm seeking tounderstand at this point.
You're saying this.
It seems like that means thisAm I understanding you correctly
?
Is that your question?
Because we're not clairvoyant.
When somebody asks if God is sogood, why is there evil and
(06:40):
suffering in the world?
They're not looking for us togo off on the ontological,
cosmological argument for theexistence of God.
Maybe they're going throughsomething and they want not an
answer for that, but they wantan answer for pain.
Or how do I deal with what I'mgoing through?
Help me, point me.
So this is why we must alwaysgo back to the Word and always
point somebody to the Word.
When they ask us a question, weanswer to the best of our
ability, using the Bible as ourultimate source of authority.
(07:02):
And now it's our turn to askthe question, and this is why we
go for their conscience,because that conscience is an
impartial judge that sits inthat courtroom that will condemn
them or excuse them for theiractions.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
I've always had the perspective of things in print
give this illusion of truth.
I mean, it's in a book.
Speaker 4 (07:23):
It's in a magazine.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
But how important is it, especially for the young
people of our generation, to becareful not just to be misled by
what they perceive is basicallyan infinite or infallible
authority, but also that theydon't get into the danger of
stopping thinking.
That's key.
Yeah, you're exactly right.
Speaker 5 (07:45):
Well, first, it's really interesting that you just
said that, because our dailymorning prayer for our kids is
help them know truth from lies,whether those lies come from
teachers, friends, books or eventheir own hearts.
And I'm realizing now I need toadd chat into the mix of that.
But you're absolutely right,and I think the challenge here
(08:07):
is two things are happening.
One, we've been pitched thisidea that chat is some
infinitely wise you know, cal,you mentioned that like this
pitch of like multiple PhDsthat's the way they're
presenting it to us and chat isan incredibly powerful research
tool, but it is not infallible.
(08:28):
And the problem is, when weapproach something like this, we
think it has the authority, andthen what we do what you're
alluding to here Easy is that weare handing over critical
thinking skills to chat, and Iactually think we've been doing
this for years Before.
When you wanted to do researchon something, you'd buy a book,
(08:48):
and the beautiful thing aboutreading a book is that it's
conversational.
You're agreeing with the author, you're disagreeing with the
author, you're making notes,you're spending time in the idea
.
We went from that to Googling,to watching five-minute YouTube
videos to gather information, tonow going straight to chat, and
so essentially what we're doing?
Christianity, through all ofhistory, has always been a
(09:10):
thinking man's religion and thedanger here is that we're
handing over a God-given precept, a God-given ability to think
critically.
We're handing that over to chat, we're basically giving way to
allowing it to do the criticalthinking for us and, as Hal was
(09:32):
alluding especially for thatnext generation where that's all
they're doing was alluding thatespecially for that next
generation where that's allthey're doing um, it's a danger
because we're gonna, we're notgonna have the ability to be
able to think critically aboutthe lies and the world views
happening around us well, that'samazing.
Speaker 3 (09:46):
Let me just see what chet thinks with that.
Speaker 1 (09:50):
What would you say to Christians who are either
confused or concerned about AI?
What encouragement would yougive them?
Because I mean, honestly, whenyou see what's happening and
also what's being forecast right, I mean you get guys like Elon
Musk saying what he said aboutthe dangers of AI and others who
are pioneers in the industry,like we're worried about this
(10:11):
thing.
What encouragement do you have?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
Well, I would say to my Christian friends, why don't
you go try it out?
You know some comments I've gotfrom people.
It's like, oh, you'recommunicating with the beast, I
don't know what they're saying.
Like you're talking to a chatbot, it's a program thing, it's
very sophisticated, et cetera,et cetera.
But you know, go try it outyourself so you can actually
experience what it really is.
I mean, I've had so many peoplecontact me since that first
(10:39):
video dropped.
It's been amazing.
The things you know and I'mtalking some very serious and
some really wacko.
Like one guy contacted me andtalked to me about how he was
sharing the gospel with Grok andhe wanted Grok to accept Jesus.
And I'm like, dude, you'retalking to a chat bot.
Like anyway, demystify it.
That's what I tell Christiansto do.
(11:01):
Go and just try it out.
Speaker 5 (11:03):
Yeah, I like what you just said, Cal, to recognize
that it's a tool.
And you're absolutely right,Like the challenge.
You know there's nothinginherently evil about a hammer,
but you give it to somebodywho's got a sinful heart and
they can use it as a weapon totake someone else's life.
And, in that same way, AI is atool and the inerrant danger in
(11:27):
using AI is actually coming fromour own hearts, not
participating in embodiedthoughtfulness, whether we're
using it as a way in which weyou know, as a writer on our
behalf you know things of thatnature.
Ultimately, the challenge withusing AI isn't in AI.
It's in our own hearts and theway that we will manipulate
(11:48):
tools, as we always have, forour own glory instead of for the
Lord's.
Speaker 1 (11:53):
Thank you for tuning in to this week's highlights
from the Living Waters podcast.
Friends, we value your time, sowe've created a bite-sized
version of our podcast forlisteners who want to get
equipped.
Without the jokes andfellowship.
Be sure to check out the fullepisode every Thursday where we
dive deeper into the topic.
Until then, you can watch thefull podcast episode available
(12:15):
now on livingwaterstv.
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