When Machines Choose for You
You’ve probably noticed how Netflix always seems to know what you want to watch. Or how Spotify builds a playlist that feels like it is reading your mind. That is the promise of AI-powered discernment: it filters out noise, highlights what matters, and saves you the mental hassle of sifting through endless options. Applied to research, ministry planning, or even sermon prep, AI can help you see connections you might have missed.
But what happens when we let machines choose for us? The same thing that happens when we let anyone else do our discerning. Our judgment muscles weaken. We lose the ability to weigh options, read situations, and recognize what is truly good. Outsourcing discernment makes us efficient but shallow. It saves time but costs wisdom.
True discernment is not about efficiency. It is about developing a spiritual and moral intuition, the kind that grows through prayer, community, and Scripture. Theologian John Henry Newman warned, “Knowledge is one thing, virtue is another.” Information alone cannot guide us. Wisdom must be shaped in us over time.
Leaders must model this. Machines may filter, but they cannot form. Discernment is a Spirit-shaped skill, an inner compass that helps us make good choices when no algorithm can.