To gain additional insight into the economic upheaval AI might cause, I sought the guidance of AI itself.

Introducing ChatGPT Plus

We’re launching a pilot subscription plan for ChatGPT, a conversational AI that can chat with you, answer follow-up questions, and challenge incorrect assumptions.

Specifically, I asked ChatGPT, “Which industries are suffering because of AI?”

The brainy bot replied…

AI and other advanced technologies are disrupting and transforming various industries, causing some companies to face challenges in adapting to these changes.

For example, the retail industry is being disrupted by the rise of e-commerce platforms that leverage AI-powered recommendation engines and personalized marketing strategies to offer consumers a more convenient and personalized shopping experience. Similarly, the transportation industry is facing potential disruption as autonomous vehicles become more prevalent, which could impact companies that rely on human drivers.

The finance industry is also undergoing a transformation as AI is being used to analyze vast amounts of data and improve decision-making in areas such as risk assessment, fraud detection, and customer service. However, this has also led to concerns about job displacement and the potential for AI to reinforce bias and discrimination.

But this broad answer did not provide any particularly insightful details, like the detail that AI is already imperiling the jobs of fortune-cookie writers and warehouse workers.

It’s true; as the New York Times reports…

The fortune-writing industrial complex… is on the brink of a major upheaval. Or, as a cookie might put it: Beware—the machines are coming for your job.

OpenFortune Inc., a New York-based company that supplies printed messages to well over a dozen fortune-cookie factories around the world, says it has started using ChatGPT technology to potentially generate a near-limitless inventory of new messages…

By some estimates, three billion fortune cookies are made by factories around the world every year. Nearly all are written by a handful of fortune-cookie factory owners, their families or small teams of copywriters.

Or at least the messages were written by a small team of copywriters. AI is starting to push some of these copywriters out of the cookie factory and into the soup kitchen.

AI is also impacting the logistics industry. Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN), for example, is actively developing AI-enabled robotics in its warehouses to perform tasks that humans currently do.

And while Amazon asserts that its AI-powered endeavors will create over “700 new categories of jobs,” the giant logistics firm recently announced 27,000 job layoffs.

Connect those dots however you like.

Even more ominously, AI is not only threatening our jobs, but it is also threatening our humanity. That’s because AI can produce work that seems “manmade” but isn’t. It can produce everything from love letters to original paintings to rap music, including songs that “borrow” the voices of deceased rappers.

But no matter how creative AI technologies like ChatGPT may be, they never become human. They are intrinsically soulless. They provide artistry without art; knowledge without wisdom; logic without reason; and ethics without morality.

As such, they could become a toxin in the watershed of accumulated human knowledge and experience.

Over time, AI might produce such unfathomable volumes of “synthetic” art, literature, and media that it corrupts the essence of what we know as humanity. As a result, AI’s excesses will almost certainly cultivate a cultural longing for non-AI products and experiences.

That backlash is underway already. Technology in general has sparked a longing for the “human element” in various products and experiences – a desire for a deeper connection with the world and a sense of nostalgia for simpler times.

The country singer, Miranda Lambert’s song “Automatic” touches on this theme by lamenting the rise of technologies that have eliminated the tactile experiences and personal connections that enrich our humanity.

In the hands of Godless leaders, AI will further bring chaos and lawlessness to humanity. For Christians standing upon the Word of God Jesus tells us what to expect from a world that has rejected God and His commandments.

“Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.” Matthew 24:9-13

In fact, before Jesus second coming, Paul tells us that a man of lawlessness (Antichrist) will appear. Knowing his time is short Satan takes control of this individual and declares himself to be God.

“Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to him, we ask you, brothers, not to be quickly shaken in mind or alarmed, either by a spirit or a spoken word, or a letter seeming to be from us to the effect that the day of the Lord has come. Let no one deceive you in any way. For that day will not come, unless the rebellion comes first, and the man of lawlessness is revealed, the son of destruction, who opposes and exalts himself against every so-called god or object of worship, so that he takes his seat in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.” 2 Thessalonians 2:1-4

We are approaching the prophesied “end times”. Many of the prophecies are being fulfilled in our time. The major “end times”prophecy was fulfilled over 70 years ago now: the miraculous rebirth of the nation of Israel. It is the centre of all the other “end times” prophecies so watch Israel and the surrounding nations. If you have not seen it take a look at my recent post Turkey – the origin of the Antichrist.