When I was a child, my grandma used to always have coloring books at her house for my siblings and me to color whenever we visited our grandparents.
She also provided markers, crayons or water-soluble paints for us to use in those coloring books.
We loved bringing the black-and-white outlines to life with color. I remember feeling like an amazing artist with each masterpiece I completed.
In junior high and high school, I took many art classes and learned how to draw and paint without the help of predetermined lines like I had in those coloring books. It was much harder to take something from my own head and create an image on a blank canvas.
One classmate in high school brought a painting to class one day that he said he had worked on at home. Some of us were skeptical because this student didn’t usually do much, if any, work in class.
The teacher took the painting in his hands, held it close to his face and then pulled out a pocketknife. He scraped at the paint and discovered that the paper under the paint held a secret that my classmate soon regretted.
The teacher, in his years of experience, saw something the rest of us did not. His curiosity led to the discovery that the student’s painting had been done on top of an existing printed image.
This story came to mind recently as the Church clarified the use of artificial intelligence as it relates to the building of one’s testimony or faith in Jesus Christ.
“AI cannot substitute for the individual effort or divine inspiration required for personal spiritual growth or genuine relationships with God and others,” the new General Handbook entry says (General Handbook 38.8.47).
Can AI tools produce a talk, lesson or testimony if given the right prompts? Perhaps it can provide sentences and paragraphs and, in some cases, books about a given topic. But it can’t give a testimony.
Speaking to young adults in November 2024, Elder David A. Bednar of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles spoke about both the opportunities and risks of using AI.
“Artificial intelligence has the potential to diminish and suffocate our moral agency,” he said.
The battle for that agency took place long ago, before any of Heavenly Father’s children had a mortal body. The proposal that each spirit child of God could come to earth and perfectly act without an opportunity to choose for themselves was a plan proposed by the adversary.
We are not here to do a mortal version of paint-by-numbers or a coloring book or to only paint on top of an existing template.
A testimony is personal and comes from the exercising of that moral agency to make correct decisions and to repent when the wrong decisions are made.
The handbook explains this principle.
“AI cannot replace the gift of divine inspiration or the individual work required to receive it. However, AI can be a useful tool to enhance learning and teaching,” it reads (38.8.47.1).
The section also includes a dozen scripture references from the New Testament, Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants.
In one of those references, the Savior says, “I do nothing of myself; but as my Father hath taught me” (John 8:28).
Jesus Christ acted for Himself after having received instruction from Heavenly Father. As the perfect Savior, He followed all of God’s commands.
“I do always those things that please him,” the Savior continued (John 8:29).
As individuals follow the commandments and make and keep sacred covenants with God, they are using their agency to become what Heavenly Father wants them to become. And He gives them power to continue to make better decisions in their lives.
President D. Todd Christofferson, now second counselor in the First Presidency, said in the October 2014 general conference, “We should (and we do) rejoice in the God-ordained plan that permits us to make choices to act for ourselves and experience the consequences.”
I am thankful that Heavenly Father gives us the chance to live and to choose. And while AI may be another tool to help learn from the scriptures or words of modern prophets and apostles, I know He expects us to make our own choices and not cede our agency to other individuals, systems or machines.
As President Christofferson continued in that same address, we must participate willingly as we strive to follow the Savior’s example and benefit from His Atonement.
“Through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and His grace, our failures to live the celestial law perfectly and consistently in mortality can be erased and we are enabled to develop a Christlike character. Justice demands, however, that none of this happen without our willing agreement and participation.”
— Jon Ryan Jensen is editor of the Church News.
