AI Scripture Songs? Nah.

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I’ve been growing more and more uneasy the last few months as I see the growing emergence of AI-driven content being phased into almost every aspect of our lives.

And now, it’s beginning to transform how we receive the Word of God…

And I’m not sure I’m OK with it.

What I’m Seeing

I’ve written about AI in worship ministry before in a prior post. In that post, I stated that remained hopeful for the future as AI is integrated further into the creative process.

But now, I fear my concerns about AI replacing human originality are being realized.

Case in point: Bible in a Year Through Song from YouVersion. Sounds like a great idea, right? Who wouldn’t want to listen to the Bible in a fresh, culturally relevant format while preserving the text?

Well… when I listened to it, I noticed production characteristics commonly associated with AI-assisted music generation: repeated arrangements across large volumes of text, subtle audio artifacts often described as “warbly” or “watery,” and vocal timbres reminiscent of synthetic voice modeling.

To be clear, this is observational, not a confirmed claim about the production process. But the scale and sonic fingerprints raise important questions about whether AI tools were involved in shaping this project.

And it begs some questions: How far should we let AI drive the creative process when it comes to internalizing God’s Word? And to that end, under what conditions is AI use faithful, ethical, and honorable to God and our neighbor?

Theological Concerns

Let’s establish an undeniable truth: Where God’s Word is heard and read, it works. No matter the delivery, God’s Spirit works to accomplish His will in turning the hearts of His people back toward Him and making them more like Jesus Christ.

So it stands to reason that listening to the Word delivered by an AI-generated format doesn’t negate the power of the Holy Spirit.

But it’s also been understood that music works as a means of realizing human expression of our understanding of God’s truth and depicting it with the innate creativity God imbued us with.

It’s this innate creativity that comes from what we call the Imago Dei, or “image of God” that dwells within all creation. So when we offload the creative process to something that is downstream from our own output (after all, AI is created by humans), are we being faithful to stewarding the God-given ability to create meaningful works? Is our ability to create devalued by increased reliance on AI?

Think about it this way: Who is more apt to articulate the scope of emotion in context with culture and “living life,” humans or AI?

The answer should be obvious. Artificial intelligence can approximate this, but it is incapable of feeling. Only man can express this articulation in its fullest sense.

Societal Concerns

The advantage of AI is that it reduces the time needed for human-generated output to a fraction. With that, companies can (and have infamously done so) lay off human workers in the name of greater efficiencies, thus leading to higher profits.

The interesting thing about music and almost all art is that is vastly different than most labor. Humans who are able to turn their aesthetic skills into an income-generating asset are personally vested in the creative process. With AI replacing that wholesale, we remove an integral part of the process that fuels joy and purpose that drives all creators.

True, leveraging AI democratizes the creative process for everyone, but I believe the result will be a lot of really bad art clogging the way for truly great creative works to stand out. And in the case of something sacred like holy Scripture, why would we treat that with anything other than the highest of human creative potential?

Concerns for Christian Testimony

One of the key aspects of music used for worship, personal or corporate, is that as humans, we are encouraged when hearing another believer’s expression of what has been lived—we can smell anything contrived or artificial from a mile away.

So when I hear Scripture being so seemingly arranged and produced devoid of anything other than a human-given prompt, it immediately unsettles me. Even though the words are true, it doesn’t necessarily feel true. With that, I feel an aversion to the whole thing—though, the silver lining is that it pushes me to find arrangements of Scripture that have been thoughtfully crafted by an actual human being.

Labor as an Act of Worship

There is something to be said about the time, work, and thought that goes into our offerings of praise, and utilizing music for personal worship and study should reflect those values. If we “consume” music, then it’s my feeling that our enjoyment should reflect tastes built on something directly created by a human being that is borne from an innate ability divinely imputed. Sure—I think there’s room in the creative process for technological advances to efficiently produce the work. But there are some things that cannot be expressed rightly without direct human input, going beyond the ability to give prompts to a machine.

As for now, I don’t think I would stop anyone from listening to things like Bible in a Year Through Music—but you better believe that I’ll always promote the human alternative.

Be blessed 👊✌️