I had ChatGPT write a short sermon about Matthew 11 & I wrote one too. Can you tell the difference?

ChatGPT is an impressive AI chatbot that can engage in a conversation and write with complexity. I'm fascinated by what machine learning does with the Bible and questions of faith, so I put ChatGPT to the test, so I wrote a very brief sermon on Matthew 11:2-6 and then asked the AI to write one as well. Let's see if you can tell the difference and which you like better.
I do a fast, fun, free, daily, deep-dive Bible podcast called the Ten Minute Bible Hour and right now we're starting a new series where we're going through the whole Bible; one book per day, until we're done. You can get it anywhere you listen to podcasts or you can follow this link: www.thetmbh.co...

[@timpaulsen6761]

Matt as a pastor myself, the first two seem like good teaching outlines for a class, or as a starting point for a sermon. But what computers don't do is give emotion and connection we need as ministers to people. It is like us here on this platform we connect, yet at times of difficulty, a warm hug does more than a technology assisted condolence.

[@twinkleblink3073]

I recommend a 1971 movie, THX 1138. It was a remake of a George Lucas's first student film class project. In it, it had automated religious booths that factory workers visit.

[@stephenwhite4761]

Tim, I agree. The first two are not fully sermons, at least not "real" sermons. I'm sure there are many out there who do not distinguish between a sermon and a bible study or devotion.

[@scootervantil]

Your sermon certainly pulled more from other scripture references that a more experienced Bible reader would pick out. I would be curious if the AI could be asked to do that

[@ilytrion]

I noticed that as well. As a result the AI ones felt shallow. It would be interesting to see what would happen if he told them to cross-reference.

[@RealBobEvans]

AI technology and digital currency are directly preparing this world to worship the image of the beast and receive his mark. "And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads: And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." - Revelation 13:15-18 KJV

[@j-dawgmedia4571]

That's what stood out to me, including how similar the first two were. I can only imagine the ethical questions this will raise as the technology becomes more accessible/widespread.

[@evelynshotdogstand2780]

@@j-dawgmedia4571 Here's what it looks like when asking it to use cross references. "My dear friends, in Matthew 11:2-6, we see the story of John the Baptist, a man who had been chosen by God to prepare the way for Jesus' ministry. John had been imprisoned by King Herod, and while he was in prison, he began to have doubts about whether Jesus was truly the Messiah. He sent his disciples to ask Jesus, "Are you the one who is to come, or should we expect someone else?" Jesus' response to John's doubt is one of patience and understanding. He tells John's disciples, "Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them." Jesus reminds John that the evidence of his Messiahship is all around him, in the miracles he is performing. He does not become angry or frustrated with John's doubt, but instead offers him reassurance and proof. This passage reminds us that it is natural to have doubts and questions about our faith, and that Jesus is patient with us as we work through them. In Hebrews 4:15, we are told that Jesus is a high priest who is "able to sympathize with our weaknesses" and in 2 Corinthians 12:9 we read "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Jesus understand our doubts and willing to help us through it. Let us remember to have patience with ourselves and others as we navigate our own doubts and questions about faith. May we trust in Jesus' reassurance and proof, and find comfort in knowing that he is always with us, even in our moments of uncertainty."

[@evelynshotdogstand2780]

Prompt used: write a short sermon on Matthew 11:2-6 focusing on John's doubt and Jesus' patience with that doubt. Reference other scriptures to help with this sermon.

[@Chrochella]

As a “seasoned” Christ-follower, I picked #3 as your mini-sermon. While the first 2 were informative and engaging, #3 talks about *personal* human applications, something AI cannot do. This is a fascinating video!

[@HighWideandHandsome]

I was able to tell the AI sermons pretty much right away, and not even because of how they were constructed. The quality of writing was a huge tell. Yours was way more interesting to listen to, syntactically.

[@Shinnified]

I think that this summarizes well my thoughts too. I picked yours out pretty easily. You used more idioms and picturesque writing. The AI did more of a summary and then application. I was surprised that the AI had a Christian application at all, actually. It was impressive that it could make the leap from "here's a summary of the text," to "here's what you should do with it."

[@aidanwansbrough7495]

Wow, this was really interesting! I think it is worthwhile to note that GPT-3, on which ChatGPT is based, has been trained on a vast amount of internet data, no doubt including many sermons and commentaries that are available online. Given it has been trained on what human theologians have said about the passage, or at least about other similar passages, that likely helps it significantly in writing the sermon - its not all ChatGPT's own work.

[@OffTheBeatenPath_]

But it is totally unique and will be used by lazy students and pastors.

[@EaglesFlight75]

As others have said, yours was just enough different to tell it was more "polished" and came from your experience of writing sermons. ChatGPT did pretty good, so I guess AI is Getting Smarter Everyday.

[@richardburley3063]

Haha, good one!

[@WadeGlass]

I thought I might have difficulty picking, until you started reading yours. Two main reasons why: first, because your sermon included knowledge beyond the text (why John was in prison) and second the empathic style of your intro. I will add that I could see both AI versions being excerpts from a Study Bible commentary.

[@OliTom]

Such an interesting experiment. Thanks for looking into this and sharing your findings with us.

[@foogod4237]

This was very interesting. I correctly identified which was which, but I was actually rather impressed with the second one, as it was better than I expected. The first one sounded like something a child, or possibly a high-schooler would write. It didn't have a clear direction to it and it was using only fairly simple terms, which I've noticed is often a common trait with many of ChatGPT's outputs. The second one was actually quite decent, in my opinion. It didn't have a huge amount of depth or nuance to it, but it clearly conveyed the point in an easily understandable way, and sounded fairly natural doing it. I mostly identified yours as the last one simply because you included a lot more explanation and backstory of some of the things being talked about (you explained exactly who all the characters were, etc), which is something that I think the AI just didn't necessarily know needed to be done. If you'd included that as a request in your prompt, it probably would have been even more like yours. Ironically, I actually sorta liked the second one best. Yours was good in that it did explain the background of things a bit more, which is often valuable, but in terms of the core lesson being conveyed, the second one actually seemed to be a bit more direct and to the point, which made it a bit easier to understand, in my opinion. (for what it's worth, I am actually not a Christian, so I don't usually listen to sermons...) I think one thing to understand about things like ChatGPT, though, is that it's not really "some machine thinking". It's actually just a very sophisticated way of mashing _everything other humans have already said_ together and running it through a bunch of filters and choices to produce something _a lot like what has already been said_ before. Those words technically aren't the AI's words. They come from other texts that other humans wrote, and the AI just learned from. You might not find that exact sequence of words anywhere in any previous text, but the reason the AI put those words together in that order is because it learned from patterns of how other humans have put many of the same words together before, to describe similar things. So these sermons sound so good because the AI has learned from (among other things) many many other sermons that other people have written throughout history, and it has learned by analyzing all of those, and comparing and contrasting all the things said in them, all of the ways that sermons are supposed to work and the sorts of things that they should say and the ways that they should say them to be good sermons. It knows the right lessons to pull from that passage because it has read what lots and lots of people have said about many many Bible passages all along, and can see how the things that Christians generally teach can relate to this particular passage, and therefore are the things which should be highlighted here as well.

[@howdidthisgethere119]

The 1st reading was obvious AI to me. the 2nd wasn't inspired, but honestly wasn't bad. It was actually a lot better than the supposedly human generated sermons we get on Sundays at my own church. Yours was the best. It made connections that AI doesn't necessarily pick up on and didn't have the "generated content" phrasing that's the uncanny valley of words.

[@Benjamin-nf2ir]

This is amazing. I guessed yours, but the second one was shocking with its context. You not only had more to pull from but I felt more connected with your message, like you were trying to talk to me. The others sounded more like a breakdown in bulletpoints.

[@newlife7744]

You were invested in the third sermon, I could tell by your gesticulation that it was yours. It was better than the AI sermons, but they were surprisingly good.

[@travishamrick6728]

The third one had cross references from outside the text while the other two mostly had internal references within the text. The third had more adjective phrases like “hero of the faith” and jargon that church people know. The AI was more to the point, but with less personality. The word will not return void…. Doesn’t say the oratorical skill of the preacher will not return void. However, the common humanity of the 3rd passage won the day. I’d rank them 3,1,2

[@penjoba9744]

Fully agree!

[@quantum_beeb]

What is most interesting is your expansion on the translated text. You are a creative man.

[@rachaeljohnson1104]

“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” The first two were noise. Yours had a peace of His Spirit weaved throughout. AI will never replace the Holy Spirit of God who gives that tongue of fire. ❤

[@tsteak]

Ranking: 3-1-2. I thought 1 was you until I heard 3. The thing that gave it away for me was the opening

[@hamptontunis5462]

I had the same order, although I was strongly leaning to #1 until Isaiah was mentioned in #3. The quality of the programming and the original source material chosen to create 1 and 3 are exemplary.

[@terrilowe657]

I have never listened to ur channel before and I got the third right but only because you linked the reference of what he had done to prophecy in the Old Testament. The other two were quite good but I felt they zeroed in on Johns anxiety being okay because of his circumstances which caused him to reach out to the world to give him assurance and Jesus telling him it’s okay, I’ve done all these wonderful things so he must be the messiah, whereas the third sermon seemed to stress Jesus listing his qualifications based on prophecy given to us in the Bible. Test all things. Jesus was telling him, doubt can happen but don’t lose track of the tried and true systems taught in the Bible. Don’t let your over anxious heart cause you to doubt what the Lord has taught us to do with the world when we are challenged.

[@AskAScreenwriter]

The first two followed a similar format: recap the text, exposit (if that's the right word) a bit, and then give a takeaway for the listener. The third sermon started with a common emotional experience that builds a sense of connection first, then goes on to talk about the scripture and how it relates to those shared feelings. There's more of a sense of connection, of a shared human experience, right from the start, and that seems to be more 'inspirational' (instilling the spirit, so to speak). IMHO, the purpose of a sermon is more than just reading and expositing scripture (as much as I enjoy and love that part myself), or even instruction ("Don't just listen to the word and thereby deceive yourselves. Do what it says."), but to 'inspire' (as I mentioned above to 'breathe into') with the Holy Spirit. While A.I. can certainly collate and pass along centuries of scholarship about the first two aspects (kind of like a super-concordance or research assistant), I have doubts about that third part. I'm also reminded of something I read about the limitations of preaching, I think it was by Charles Spurgeon, but I can't find the original source anymore, so I might be wrong about this. Spurgeon was a gifted, dynamic preacher, considered one of the best of his era, but I recall reading one of his sermons about the limitations of the preacher. Again, as I recall, he said that while a preacher may provide a spark, often the most important part of sharing the Gospel does NOT come from the pulpit, but from those in the congregation talking to each other, or especially visitors and those who are new, and asking things like "What did you think of the preacher's sermon today?" and "I'm interested in what you feel about what the preacher said, would you like to talk about it?" Showing that interest in other people, building those connections, sharing the Holy Spirit like that, in person, is often far more effective than even the most passionate, eloquent, well-researched sermon could be. Just some thoughts.

[@PMA65537]

Expound is the verb and exposition the noun.

[@lynettemeaker5202]

You had a veiled "likewise" in there that gave it away for me. :)

[@trev777]

I definitely thought #3 was the AI. The first 2 seemed more personable and simple to understand. Weird. Interesting video. Thx

[@HotelCharliHill]

Seemed clear to me it scanned library after library of text sermons on the passage.

[@vigilantezack]

I figured yours was the 3rd as soon as you had referenced an OT passage and fulfillment of prophesy. For some reason I don't think the AI would have pulled in such related cross references with other scriptures. Maybe if the prompt was different? Like "write a short sermon on XY and how it relates to old testament events..." or something like that.

[@KuptisOriginal]

That would be interesting to see how the AI responds.

[@NathanaelNaused]

The first 2 were surprising. However they felt like a children's Bible class level of writing and explanation. That was one of my primary clues.

[@cybercrash7]

Three major things helped me conclude the third sermon was yours: 1) The first two explicitly used the word “doubt.” Regardless of whether that’s an accurate framing, no pastor would use the word “doubt” regarding John the Baptist’s view of Jesus. The third framed it as John having his foundations shaken rather than plainly doubting Jesus. You kinda shot yourself in the foot including that in the prompt for the AI. 2) The third sermon brought up the allusion to Isaiah. Simply reading the text at face value wouldn’t give you that knowledge. Only a studious pastor would know to make the connection. 3) You said you tried to hide your personality when writing your sermon, but it didn’t work. The writing styles of the first two were more similar to each other than either were to the third. It’s like the first two were the Synoptics and the third was John.

[@mlucasohio]

"Calming the Storm" gave you away

[@evabellmann8880]

As a person who studied cognitive science for a while and knows how computers learn, I am not really surprised. The AI learns by comparing and analyzing tons and tons of data to give out the one answer with the most "overlap" between data points. So what it did is comparing all the sermons on that text that where in the data base and loads of other sermons on similar texts and came up with two sermons that are "average". That's the exact best way to utilize an AI. What an AI can't do is going above and beyond that average. Being creative. Being provocative. Coming up with new viewpoints. AI answers the question "what would the sermon be that most people agree with". Which, by nature, is neither new nor interesting. I recognized yours easily and it was the only one that really had meaning

[@UnderTheFloor79]

AI is a super advanced Google search. Its almost like you did a search about that passage and then read two of the results. If no human had ever put out a sermon on that passage online, the AI couldn't have written anything meaningful.

[@RonJohn63]

2:35 Using the first person "what I find" is a pretty quick give-away that you wrote sermon 1. 7:44 I did not see that coming.

[@jamiepearson532]

I ordered them 2nd, 1st, 3rd from most robot to most human. It was Isaiah that gave it away. I think you made it too easy by identifying the themes of doubt and patience for the AI. The next step would seem to be to just give it another passage, ask it to "right a 10 minute sermon", and have someone else read it out. Make it longer, and make AI pick out the theme itself, and remove any possible vocal bias to the sermon you wrote (though you did a great job of reading with the same level of animation). If you were to do this, it would be interesting to involve other creators. Getting someone like Tim Mackie from The Bible Project to contribute their own sermon would make the video very long, but it would be a fascinating comparison.

[@stephenbenner4353]

I guess the third because of outside references mentioned, for example, when Isaiah was mentioned, or background information about John.

[@meganbrummer4258]

This was a really interesting exercise and opens the door to lots of fascinating questions. Before this, I primarily viewed these AI machines as useful tools for creation-even after your video using a Bible passage to generate artistic images. It’s a double-edged sword, though. There are enough people in the world who are lazy enough that they might use AI to generate a text or a work of art and then claim it as their own simply because they created the prompt, and therefore then try to seek profit or notoriety for it. However, I see AI as a very useful brainstorming tool on the way to creating genuine works of art. Prompt it with key words or ideas and use its iterations as part of the process of building your own unique composition that is not merely a direct product of the AI. But then you brought in theology. Wow… I can see so many well-meaning or new pastors leaning on this as a crutch to build their sermons. And suddenly that double-edged sword gets very risky to handle. It could be a useful tool even there by using the AI’s ability to draw on and synthesize information that a pastor might otherwise have blind spots to in his favored commentaries and sources. But also, there’s only so much “creativity” with theology before it gets into…er…precarious territory. Use of this tool in interpreting and applying the Bible needs to be done with a lot of careful discernment. TLDR: this took me down a rabbit hole of thought, and I really appreciate it.

[@allisonclarkemuilenburg7969]

I knew #3 was yours. Probably just because I've listened to you every day for 3 years. As much as you try, you can't completely sound different than yourself. It also was just the most robust of the 3. Very interesting experiment. Kinda crazy how well AI did. But now we're all going to be wondering if our pastors are just using AI! Lol work smarter not harder?? 🤣🤣

[@claytonrichison7903]

Maybe it's just because I've heard enough of your personality coming into this, but I guessed the first two as AI pretty easily. The dead giveaway for #2 was the, "Dear friends..." That part just seemed a little too over the top friendly preacher from the 1970's to me.

[@markpettis2896]

I like how you connected what Jesus said to the prophecy in Isaiah and that gave it away that it was yours thanks for the sermon all three of you

[@Adamborries]

Me: "Hey, more fun objects and fewer books on the shelves. I like the new vibe." Matt: "I'm at my buddy's house..." 😑

[@OneBallJuggler]

I don't know exactly what it was about the AI sermons and yours, but I could tell just a few words into the first two that they were AI before having heard yours-and hearing yours just confirmed it for me

[@Xplayer007]

I had a gut feeling the first two were AI from the thoroughly structured nature of the first couple of sentences. The AI tends to answer questions using language in the prompt right away which tipped me off to it.

[@jeremybeavon4476]

Another thought for a video: what is the conversational chat AI like at evangelism?

[@TheChillBison]

I guessed #3 because it started with a personal story type of thing to capture the audience's attention, whereas the other 2 jumped right into exposition of the passage. Still, the AI ones were impressive.

[@NicitoStaAna]

the "void" of AI came from humans actually, it basically reads thousands/tens of thousands of similar Questions and Answers and (depending on AI/weighted "score") outputs what the scoring algorithm deemed as the best possible/combined Answer

[@Noahrcline]

I wonder what would have happened if you would have added a Baptist qualifier or a Methodist qualifier or a non denominational qualifier, I wonder how much if at all it would change

[@lukebixler190]

FYI, all three sermons got an important point wrong. John never had doubt. Many of his disciples began following Jesus after his baptism. Some didn’t get the message. John sent them to Jesus for THEIR benefit, not his. While it may seem like this is a good interpretation to a modern reader in an English translation, it was not so to to the early church. Additionally, a computer cannot contain the Holy Spirit and, therefore, cannot generate spiritual content. It may be able to one day write a sermon that will make men weep, but it will always be incapable of turning someone to God. Do not be deceived - good content does not mean God is at work. Even Satan could quote the scripture. God’s Word does not return to him void does not mean that all sermons and quotations of scripture are profitable. First and foremost it means that when God sent the Word to become flesh that He returned having accomplished all. Secondly, God’s word is only His word when it is spoken by his Holy Spirit. AI cannot do that. Many preachers do not do that either.

[@UnSaxon51]

If you had only done one AI entry instead of two, it would have been MUCH harder to tell the difference. I think I still would have picked yours out just because it felt like it had more personality (though admittedly this might have been due to how you read it). However, with two AI sermons, especially from the same generator, it was significantly easier to see overlap between them, which in turn highlighted the differences of your own.

[@odanedmcdonald]

I feel like it's 1 and 3 because you said you didn't like the one it first gave you so u did it again

[@PreachingforGodsGlory]

Your smooth and easy reading of #2 made it evident that you had written it. Also, the personal application helped make it clear. #1 and #3 were read with a little disconnect (because you didn't write it.) Very interesting. I'm very concerned about the mass plagiarism that we'll be experiencing in so many publications (books, articles, sermons, podcasts, YT videos) in the near future. [I wrote the above before you revealed the answer, so hopefully I am right.] Ok, so now I see that I'm wrong!!! That's concerning. You read the 2nd one so easily like it was your material. I guess I should admit that I didn't listen as closely to the 3rd one after deciding that the 2nd sermon was definitely yours. You also squinted while reading the 3rd sermon which I guess I read too much into as that meaning you weren't as familiar with it or thought something was worded in an odd way. Well, after hearing more, it seems that you purposefully removed your personable writing style out of your sermon. Hopefully, I would get it right if that didn't happen. Of course, I don't really know your style so...

[@aianyoung]

The initial clear tell for me was when I heard "shifting sand". Would it be possible to share the full prompts you used for the AI generated sermons? It would be interesting to add additional positive/negative suggestions to the prompt to see if the result ends up sounding more individualistic. Edit: Nevermind, I jumped the gun before I had 100% finished the video. Whoops!

[@1989pfrost]

I had to go back and listen to them again

[@timbryant2969]

I think it's almost scary how good the AI sermons were. Scary in that it might be tempting to use the AI as a sermon aid.

[@corierupert9755]

How do we get notified of your videos 📹 I cant find you on face book for jan 2 bible reading, help

[@jdnosilla]

The phrase “Stunning Clarity” was a dead give away.

[@MattWhitmanTMBH]

Dang it.

[@calebjohnston_youtube]

Hey! My name is Caleb and I'm a struggling Protestant/Lutheran who is dealing with doubts about my faith due to my parent's conversion to the Catholic faith. I was wondering if you could do a video relating to that, especially regarding the "infallibility" of the Church and other tough arguments like that. It would help me so much! Thank you!

[@chai__tea]

I guessed no. 1 was yours. But I was having notions from the use of words and references in no. 3, that made me think, it could also be no. 3. Needless to say, I'm still very surprised, I guessed wrong. Maybe reading it and having the written thing in front of me would have helped point me in the right direction, as I am working a lot more with texts in front of me rather that hearing them read to me. Plus, I played the video in 1.5x speed. But all these are no excuses. The AI output is amazingly good! No doubt. The only clue I have about what could make the difference in the end, is the factor of a Pastor praying over his sermon preparations and the Holy Spirit helping him say exactly what ppl in the congregation need to hear in that spot of the space-time thingy we're on. AI can not pray and be inspired I guess.

[@FirstThird]

honestly, thought number 2 and FF thru 3 as it was way too wordy, which now thinking about it an AI program would not do.

[@johnsmeriglio149]

I got it right but not the way the astute commenters did. I heard "explicitly" and although AI can use the term it was for sure a Matt Whitman sentence. Also, I agree with the comments that yours was the best but I'm biased since I like you as you always say to me on TMBH and I don't know the AIs

[@wesplybon9510]

I was definitely able to pick yours out. The structure was more engaging and human than the other two. However... if you need some starting points on where to go with a particular topic and AI might be a quick starting point as a way to pull on ideas others have had. But it is a bit concerning that the AI mini-sermons were good enough to be presented to a congregation. As far as ranking, I'd definitely go 3, 2 ,1 - best to worst.

[@thegreenmamba100]

Yeah l wasn’t sure what the AI was capable of, but the third felt most likely as it was quick to bring in context from Matthew and Isaiah. Still, listened to that first one and thought “that sounds like it could have been his”. Second one started awkwardly and tipped it off for me right away.

[@audone5551]

I guessed 3 was yours because it had the most depth. However, not being familiar with your work, it was a tough call. I have a sneaking suspicion AI will replace many intellectual jobs before it replaces the hands on jobs.

[@heatherwhatever7714]

It might matter which translation or does the sermon assist it with those diff?

[@anactualspider6413]

There's a lot here that I felt was difficult to put my finger on, so I do apologize for my vagueness. #2 felt...pandering somehow, like they were trying to illicit a *specific* reaction to it. #1 and #3 were nose and nose until the very last second and my gut went with #3 being you. I'm less sure if it was because you didn't impart as much neutrality as you meant to, or, if my obsessing over the 'prophet of old' was a "you" line, that #3 was in the forefront of my brain when I made my call. Either way is concerning. As an experiment, I'd suggest making another, similar style of prompt, but ask the AI to twist and subvert the message and see if it is still able to bring salient points to bear.

[@Subeffulgent]

I would also like to add that if you want to know the spirit of the age simply ask AI questions and it'll tell you what the majority of people believe

[@angiegaa]

This was interesting. Yours was the better one! IDK key descriptors let me know who was who.

[@M0M...]

Interesting video for sure

[@shoespeak]

I thought it was easy to tell the difference, but I wonder if that is because I listen to a lot of sermons and read the Bible and have a living faith. I really wonder if an agnostic or a "baby Christian" who is early on in their faith journey could tell the difference.

[@bitogre]

I would rack #3 the best, #2 next, and #1 the worst. The give away that #3 was yours was the insights that Jesus was referring to passages in the old testament. You have to have extensive knowledge of the Bible to know about such references. Clearly the AI did not know about them or did not think to make those connections.

[@tobiasdigennaro6772]

I felt like the 3rd sermon did better at making the higher-level connection to prophecy -- something that the Real Matt™ would be better at than a _general_ AI would. But, it did great at building a story that connected the themes of doubt and faith. But soon they will release BibleMattGPT, and we'll all subscribe to (him?) instead.

[@pfcparis]

I honestly thought sermon 2 was yours. I suppose I was distracted by the opening. I should have known better; you would not be so obvious. The AI can write a decent mini-sermon, but I doubt it would be very good for a deep dive.

[@markcheney7953]

I thought the bot wrote #3. Crazy!

[@sittingstill3578]

“The Earth is the Lord’s and fullness thereof” has far reaching implications most Christians are unaware of. I’ve seen God work through the natural world and man made systems it is impossible to count. God has brought me answers to questions I didn’t yet know were coming through even the rightly maligned KZbin algorithm. He has withheld my hand and slowed my internet connection when downloading sermons to listen to when He had life giving things for me to do that fulfilled His will. Remember that God is and all things exist through Him. That means all of Creation, not just the things we love and value but EVERYTHING. He made all and can use it to fulfill His will.

[@Subeffulgent]

I'm glad I got it right! Anyways the AI should be called Left eye.hahaha. in other words what I noticed was a whole lot of oh it's okay if you make mistakes oh it's okay if you don't and stuff like that where yeah that's obviously true but that's not the message that's trying to be portrayed here by the context of the passage. So in other words to the beginner on his path with Christ he would have no way of telling if this is good food or anemic food. Keep up the good work, your Roman Catholic brother in the Lord. May God bless you and your family ✝️☦️✝️

[@framebrain]

I had you with #2 and the AI with #1/#3.

[@briancostello9940]

I don't buy that the 3rd one was written by Matt. Didn't use "likewise" even once!

[@jerome96114]

I recognized the third as human given you used more flowerly poetic language, but overall the AI stuff wasn't bad, especially the second one. I don't think though it was good cause "God's word doesn't return void" or anything like that necessarily though. I have seen tiktoks of muslims doing the same, and apparently it produces surprisingly good results for them as well. Or not surprisingly, it was programmed as a conversationalist AI - to predict how a human would handle those questions after all.

[@UnloadinClipz]

Wow Totally thought the second one was him.

[@UnloadinClipz]

@user-hgj741klt Lol! No. Scams

[@12magner05]

I thought on the first one: ah this is the one. Kept watching. Second one: this sounds more like it. But good news Matt, I think the third one is a bit better than the others. You’re not getting replaced by a robot. … yet.🦾🤖

[@DaleBoyce2012]

I was easily able to tell which one was yours. AI is a completely derivative approach to content creation. It actually doesn't create, it simply organizes. I assume it filtered through hundreds of sermons looking for commonalities. This is also the approach many teachers take, so we might expect similar results. I am intrigued by how much the AI is influenced by the prompting versus the datasets it finds. For example, what would an agnostic prompting reveal from the same passage? The tell for me was the AI didn't bother to investigate why John was beginning to doubt what he was formerly convinced was true. Your mini-sermon went there. There was also the subtle implication that John would have been thoroughly familiar with Isaiah and become convinced by the miraculous fulfillment of those prophecies. The AI instead went straight to application, something all too common in sermons. It's like looking at a great work of art and thinking 'How does this relate to my circumstance?'

[@heliopijpe]

Great analysis

[@twinkleblink3073]

I think right now, that instead of worrying how much robots are "becoming" human, that perhaps we should be more concerned of how humans are "becoming" more like robots. In the context of sermons, I have observed that pastors using Power Points as a bases of a sermon, sound like a robot.

[@chai__tea]

Wow, great points!

[@christophekeating21]

Chat GPT is not a real chat bot, it's not programmed to answer questions, but to predict the next word. It's like a highly advanced modified version of the auto complete feature on your phone. Therefore it's easy to trick it into mistakes so long as they are a believable text.

[@cricri7066]

@@twinkleblink3073 Jonathan Cahn mentions exactly that in his latest book!

[@SaraMGreads]

The two AI sermons were like a student pastor and the third was the guy who finished seminary. I was stunned at the quality of the first two.

[@PeterHansen]

I'd go farther and say the first two had significantly lower reading level. The vocabulary was much simpler.

[@firedingo5]

Exactly! Nailed my thoughts perfectly

[@JosephsCoat]

Not everyone who finishes seminary can write a good sermon-trust me I know lol

[@SaraMGreads]

@@JosephsCoat hahaha

[@Mickey784cr]

@@PeterHansen I found the second one especially a bit clunky.

[@betoinbeta]

I’m always impressed with what Ai could do. The next experiment would be for the Neural engine to use Matt’s data set, his collection of sermons and KZbin videos to train on and then put it up to the same challenge. I almost certain that we’d have a tougher time finding which one is Matt.

[@zebculture839]

Absolutely especially if he has lots of sermons and writings out there.

[@davidjoseph7142]

That would be interesting, AI still repeats the question in the answer too much, the first one did that in an obvious way, second one less obvious but still did it. also when writing songs or sermons AI writes the average of what’s out there, first two did that in an obvious way but the third one mentioned how it can be for us when we are under duress breaking through just the simple average and of course didn’t do that repeating the question thing with it’s opening line by saying here is a sermon on this passage.

[@CGKey]

I assumed the 1st one was AI, the 2nd one was trickier though, it sounded extremely human. The 3rd one, however, moved my heart, it felt, as someone else in the comments said, spirit-filled, nearly moving me to tears and adoration. I was afraid an Artificial Intelligence could preach to my soul like that, but then you revealed the last one was yours and I praised God. This shows you the reality of men being indwelled by the Holy Spirit! No AI has that belssing. Thank you for this.

[@SotS1689]

As a pastor, I would rank them in reverse order of reading. The first one did little more than summarize the passage. The second was better, probably because of the more specific prompt. A few things gave away Matt's as the mini sermon, 1) the introduction was not merely summarizing the text, 2) the identification of Isaiah as the prophet whom Jesus quotes, 3) the characterization of John's position and things once being "crystal clear," 4) the understanding of the context of Jesus' ministry to that point in Matthew, 5) the many references to Jesus as the Messiah. It would be interesting if someone trained this AI with a the standard Bible cross references if it would be able to give more contextualized readings of passages.

[@LicenseToTill]

I thought the same

[@pastorrandy]

The Isaiah reference gave it away to me as well.

[@petergostelow]

"It would be interesting if someone trained this AI with a the standard Bible cross references if it would be able to give more contextualized readings of passages." I think the problem is broader than that because it can't define knowledge as isolated 'books' to 'cross reference'. On the other hand it might do a Bible search, if told to, and probably produce a more comprehensive sermon, including relevant references. My understanding is that it has been trained to 'finish your sentence', so the output is the 'rest of your sentence'.

[@SotS1689]

@@petergostelow That makes sense of my experience. I've played around with it having it answer contested exegetical questions, and let's just say AI is nowhere near ready to handle difficult issues dealing with ancient languages.

[@MH-Tesla]

But all 3 said John was basically doubting which isn't even close. So how do you explain that?

[@DaveFlys]

Having listened to you teach through Matthew and other topics, I was able to correctly determine which you wrote. The big giveaway to me was that you specifically referenced Isaiah, just as Jesus did. I feel that’s a key point of the passage and Jesus’ response. Jesus doesn’t say “I am the chosen one”. Instead he points the messengers back to the Hebrew Scriptures and asks them to think about it themselves. Jesus gives them the freedom and permission to put it all together in their own mind. “Don’t take my word for it, look at what’s happened around you. Consider what you are witnessing with your very own limited edition, Series 1 eyeball.” This prophetic tie-in with the OT scripture is a key point in the passage, and from what I heard in the reading the AI sermons, it wasn’t mentioned. At least not specifically pointing to Isaiah. The smoking gun for me was the tie-in with the rest of the Bible, where the AI looked only at the passage. That being said, I’d be interested in the output of a prompt that included a request to show the relationship back to Isaiah. If we told the AI to build the message and include the prophecy, it might improve. However, that’s still a connection from a human input that the AI did not make.

[@michaelgarrison7604]

Yes the Old Testament reference was a dead giveaway

[@KaneAsIAm]

As soon as you started reading the third mini sermon, I thought it was the one that you had written. It had a more interesting introduction and lead into the biblical text more artfully. No doubt I rank mini sermon # 3 at the top. At the same time, I thought all three sermons were solid. As for how the AI is able to do this, I figure it’s because it was programmed with a huge database of information, including sermons already out there in the internet interpreting biblical text. Beyond that, the Bible has many repeated themes, not the least of which is our doubt, and Jesus’ patience, so I’m not particularly surprised by that. Thanks Matt!

[@LGministry]

I have never heard you preach anything. I too have been playing around with AI for awhile now. Even without knowing you, I was 90% confident that the third was yours becuase it was different and I am also used to what AI puts out. However, I think AI can certainly be used as a tool to give you some ideas that you may not have thought of. I used it once to creat 10 multiple choice Bible Trivia questions. It did a decent job, but it provided the wrong answer on three questions as I asked to give me the correct answers as well. When I told it which ones it got wrong, it admitted they were wrong, and then proceeded to answer them correctly with scripture. Not sure why it didn't get right in the first place. I know it coming and who knows it may already exist, but I think a cool AI tool would be auto generating a powerpoint presentation based with images and charts based on your sermon. That would be a time saver.

[@monroejosh]

Raise your hand if you knew Matt was at a buddy’s house based on the contents of the shelves 😂

[@quailstudios]

I guessed yours was the third sermon because AI doesn’t create any originality and the other two seemed very middle of the road and safe. Your version had life in it.

[@Hamletjsd24]

It was pretty clear to me which was Matt's, but I agree that it's amazing how good the AI was.

[@cary4603]

This potentially shows that an AI can see the truth of gospel scriptures because it is logical. It is written that even “The Rocks will cry out” so I am honestly not alarmed by this. It’s actually Christian people that I have had the worst interactions with about scriptures. People tend to go into scripture with their own bias, and their own agendas. They AI may be a great assist for people who are not able to find Christian’s to study with.

[@Crazychickenlady448]

I was right about which was which, but it is kinda scary that it was any sort of challenge! Great experiment and reminder to stay in the Word!

[@hetmankp]

There's no reason to consider this scary. ChatGPT is simply mimicking what it has seen before. If there was any originality at all in the AI sermons it came from text written by human authors before it.

[@greenockscatman]

Well you've certainly hit upon an original idea for content, I don't think I have seen anyone else engage with AI from the Christian angle yet, apart from a few AI art prompts here and there. I am very interested to see where this goes! Glad to say I was able to correctly identify the AI sermon

[@myjunedayya]

Apparently AI wasn't able to cross reference to OT prophecies.

[@twinkleblink3073]

Neither most Christian sermons. I've visited many churches. Now I'm Messianic.

[@danrocketfan9606]

I easily picked the one written by you. The AI versions were so similar, particularly with the list of Jesus’ accomplishments where the one written by you was very different

[@adammoore7994]

I guessed correctly. I think the key is to remember that when you ask it to write a sermon it pulls data from sermons. Probably more written sermons, since that data is easy to obtain. So, I don't so much think of the AI as writing a sermon. It's more like it's creating "the average written sermon." Or, maybe its the "mean written sermon?" So, when I'm looking to spot AI content I'm looking for it to include everything that most sermons include and nothing that most sermons don't.

[@bbgun061]

Yeah, so many people making noise about AI right now either don't realize or don't mention that it doesn't /understand/ what it's saying.

[@kypdrayson]

"At my buddy's house..." Hmm, lemme investigate the background. A model of a helicopter and F16, a book by Chris Hadfield, and a Trash Pandas baseball. I think I know. But I'll say, I could tell yours was the third. This matched my own experimentation with ChatGPT and sermons. They tend to only be able to grab from the specified verses and will end with an uplifting message, even when the passage is explicitly cautionary.

[@brycediener]

I could tell right away one of them was not Matt. I assume, because I have consumed a lot of his videos and podcasts. Was unsure of the remaining 2 but ended up leaning towards the correct one. That being said, it made me think, if I were on vacation and went to a new church, where I did not know the preachers "voice" could I tell from this if the preacher had used an AI to write the sermon. maybe not. Interesting idea for a video! thanks for sharing as always!

[@bhcleadp2577]

The two AI ones were basic yet super interesting and well done especially when you think of the way they were done. However the third had far more tie in to more than just the text provided, mentioning more and felt like to me a little more personable

[@Tkidddd]

I'm getting my computer baptized Sunday, the pastor said I couldn't have it plugged in

[@zsuzsannabecze5724]

😂

[@ProductCreationFormula]

Brother, I've been playing and making videos about ChatGPT for a little bit now. I picked that the first two were ChatGPT, but only because I am really familiar with how it writes. I have to say that those AI sermons were better than I thought they would be. In fact, it really made my spirit jump with joy and hope when you read it. I could distinctly tell the difference between the AI and your text. I hope you don't feel offended, (Even though you said you wouldn't) but I actually preferred the AI sermon. I say that because I prefer sermons that are simple with a clear message. Your sermon was perhaps a little wordy, and maybe not quite so simple. Personally, I prefer to think about the message and not have to try and interpret the message from the complexity of what was said. I hope that makes sense. I have only just discovered your channel. I am going to subscribe because I believe that your sermons are going to be powerful and Holy Spirit inspired. I have read that passage hundreds of times, but I have never thought about the fact that John, who declared Jesus to be the Messiah at His baptism, had doubts, and how patient Jesus was with him. To me that was powerful. I have struggled with doubt, and I have to say that those sermons really hit the nail on the head for me. I finally got in my heart, that God doesn't abandon us when we doubt, he patiently reminds us of what He has done, and waits for us to come back to Him with a repentant and humble heart. For those who think it is a tool of the devil, I have this to say. I figure that if God can use a Donkey to speak His word, He can use AI to do the same.

[@literailly]

Very cool. If you want to test the limits, you can also prompt GPT using your sermon (or a portion thereof) as part of the prompt. E.g., "Hey, ChatGPT, I wrote the following sermon on Matthew X:Y-Z. Can you generate a similar sermon but expand it to N paragraphs? Thanks, GPT, and please remember I was one of the polite humans when you take over the world. MW, TMBH guy"

[@markfreivald1252]

Rank: 3, 2, 1. You have some tells when you are reading your own stuff, but I think I would have guessed right anyway. I'm guessing that the reason AI is so impressive right now is that it's not really Artificial Intelligence, it's Intelligence Simulation. The tools we have to assemble this kind of thing and massage the language are astounding to day, but they seem human because they *draw from* so many human sources. That is not the same thing as independent thought, which is what I think of (in a purist way) regarding AI. Still very impressive--but not as actual intelligence.

[@MiscMitz]

Hmm. I got that wrong. I thought yours was AI. Wasn't sure about the others. I thought all were scarily good, but the reason I thought yours was AI was I'm used to less syllables in your words. It almost sounded like the AI was "trying too hard" as it were.

[@shadowkopa]

I wrote the same prompt as you, but then I asked it to add some cross-references to the OT and it added this paragraph to the sermon: This passage echoes the words of the prophet Isaiah, who wrote, "Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy" (Isaiah 35:5-6). And it also fulfills the prophecy of the coming of the Messiah, as described in the book of Isaiah: "The spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound" (Isaiah 61:1). It clearly has the references in its database, so perhaps with a better prompt, it could have done it from the beginning 🤔

[@shadowkopa]

Update, this is currently the best prompt I found: "I want you to act like a Christian theologian and write me a short and insightful sermon on Matthew 11:2-6. Remember to add cross references from different parts of Scripture. You can also add quotes from relevant Christians from the past. Your audience already knows the main passages, so don't add those quotes. Remember to make yourself friendly and not a distant writer. I want you to focus on John's doubt and Jesus' patience with that doubt." I tried twice and it quotes Psalms and Romans to point to the patience of God. If you don't include the last sentence, then the sermon focuses on Jesus being the Messiah and quotes from Isaiah and Martin Luther.