Doug DeVos and his associates are creating more religious justifications for using AI

Last month I posted an article entitled, AI and data centers are not a problem if God is involved, says Doug DeVos and his fellow believers. In that article I stated:

“In his concluding remarks Doug DeVos says, “This will be a challenge, not least because so many Americans have fallen away from faith. But that should only stiffen our spines to fight for AI done right.” Like the billionaires behind the recent data center push in West Michigan, we need to recognize the DeVos family has more in common with the tech billionaires than they do with working class families that will struggle to survive in greater number when AI/Data Centers come to dominate more of our economy and our lives.”

Well, Doug DeVos is at it again, specifically through his online journal called Believe!, which is named after his late father Rich DeVos. In the April 10th online Believe! journal there were two articles that further developed a Christian view of AI.

The first article, entitled Why AI Needs Faith, was written by Pat Gelsinger who is the  Executive Chair and Head of Technology at Gloo. Glesinger, who used to be CEO at Intel, wants to make it his mission to advance Christian principles in Silicon Valley.

In order to achieve this goal Glesinger is committed to two things.

First, AI models must be trained to understand faith with the same seriousness they apply to science, history, or literature. Not to preach, but to accurately and respectfully engage with the worldviews users actually hold.

Second, there must be benchmarks that measure this rigorously. Without measurement, there’s no accountability. Without accountability, there’s no improvement.

Ok, so what Glesinger wants is to create AI systems to understand the nuance of religious beliefs, which are not based in fact or logic. In addition, some how AI will be better because it understands Christian beliefs and inserts these beliefs into how AI will function and that will magically make AI less harmful?

The second article is even more absurd, which is titled, What the Biblical “Battle of AI” Teaches Us About Faith in the Age of AI Agents. This article was written by Mark Johnson, who is a co-founder and partner at Michigan Software Labs.

Johnson begins his piece asking the question – As we use these AI agents, are we still serving as agents of God? His answer is:

Just as each technological era reshapes how we work and connect, it also tests whether we will obey God amidst change. We don’t just need to decide how we use these new tools. Even more than that, we need to ensure that we seek His direction first.

In most of the rest of the article Johnson uses bible quotes to justify using AI and at one point compares the roads that the apostle Paul used to spread the “good news” with AI. Johnson argues that the are both just tools, then states:

Our challenge is to recognize this while making the most of this amazing tool. God’s plan for his people has always involved technology. He equips His people with resources – roads, printing presses, the Internet, now AI – and asks us to steward them faithfully.

What I find interesting about these DeVos associates and fellow believers is that despite all of their appeals to morality and obedience to God, they never raise the question of using AI as a threat to humanity, of displacing workers, nor the creation of data centers, which have immense ecological, economic and social implications that threaten communities and ecosystems alike.

Therefore, when Doug DeVos says that he wants good Christians to run and manage AI and Data Centers – not secularists – we should be looking at what the DeVos family of Christians and his associates have been doing for decades and discern whether or not they have a moral leg to stand on in regards to the consequences of AI and its use in the world. Anyone who believes that the DeVos family made billions because they are obedient to God while thousands of families in the Grand Rapids area are struggling to survive has a pretty fucked up notion of faith.