… from the wood of your own hunger!

Artificial intelligence isn’t just reshaping industries — it’s reshaping us. It’s changing the way we communicate, create, grieve, remember, and even worship. As AI tools become more powerful and accessible, they’re slipping into places we once considered uniquely human. That includes our art, our relationships, our spirituality, and our understanding of what it means to live a meaningful life.

In this latest episode of Prepared to Drown, we gathered for an honest and wide-ranging conversation about the impact of AI on our shared human experience. Together with poet and professor Bertrand Bickersteth, visual artist Aaron Navrady, and co-host Joanne Anquist, we explored what AI is already doing to our creative lives, our communities, and our collective imagination — and what it might mean for the future of faith and storytelling.

Rather than focusing on the technical aspects of AI, we focused on the deeper human questions:

• What does it mean to be creative in an age of machine-generated content?
  Artists and poets are already seeing their work mimicked or absorbed into generative models. We reflected on what’s lost when creativity becomes imitation, and how original voice and lived experience still matter more than ever.

• Can AI offer spiritual insight — or is it just noise in sacred spaces?
  We looked at examples of AI-written prayers and sermons, even entire church services led by avatars. The discussion raised important concerns about authenticity, embodiment, and whether something essential is lost when we hand the work of worship over to a machine.

• How does AI change the way we tell our stories?
  Human memory is selective, emotional, and meaning-driven. AI remembers everything — but it doesn’t interpret. We wrestled with how storytelling, both personal and collective, might be at risk when it’s flattened into data points rather than shaped by love, loss, and longing.

• What ethical boundaries do we need — and who decides them?
  Much of AI development is being driven by speed, profit, and disruption. That leaves little time for ethics, reflection, or community input. Our conversation touched on the need for intentional boundaries — not to resist change, but to protect what is deeply human.

• How do we stay grounded in our humanity?
  Ultimately, the episode circled back to what makes us human: our ability to forgive, to feel remorse, to show up imperfectly and still be loved. No machine can replicate that. AI can be a tool, but it can’t replace presence, vulnerability, or the sacred connection that comes from simply being together in the same room.

This episode isn’t about fearmongering. It’s about naming the tensions we feel as technology moves faster than our ability to understand it. It’s about holding space for nuance, curiosity, and community. And it’s about remembering that our value isn’t measured by productivity or perfection — but by presence, empathy, and the sacred worth we carry just by being alive.

We hope this conversation invites you to reflect more deeply on how you use AI, where it’s showing up in your life, and what it means to stay human in the midst of all this change.

Thanks for listening, for wondering, and for being part of this community.