Jakes, who received a Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Morris Brown College in Atlanta, Georgia, delivered the warning during his commencement address to the graduates on May 17.

"It has not been since Henry Ford discovered the automobile or the Wright brothers the airplane that we have seen the impact of what artificial intelligence is going to do to our world," Jakes said.

"This will not be your grandmother’s world. You will not work your grandmother’s job, and you will not have your grandmother’s dream. It is totally impossible to prepare you for what’s next because none of us are sure what’s next," he continued.

"The only thing that we are sure of is who will go with us into whatever we have to face next. And if God be for us, … who can be against us."

Jakes speech comes more than a decade after world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, computer scientist Stuart Russell, physicists Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek wrote in 2014 that AI could be the "worst mistake in history."

The scientists’ comments were prompted by the 2014 movie, "Transcendence" starring Johnny Depp and Morgan Freeman, which highlighted competing visions for the future of humanity with highly intelligent machines.

"Imagine a machine with a full range of human emotions. Its analytical power will be greater than the collective intelligence of every person in the history of the world. Some scientists refer to this as the ’singularity.’ I call it ’transcendence,’" Johnny Depp’s character, Dr. Will Caster, states in the haunting science fiction drama.

"Artificial intelligence (AI) research is now progressing rapidly. Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars, a computer winning at Jeopardy! and the digital personal assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms race fueled by unprecedented investments and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation. Such achievements will probably pale against what the coming decades will bring," the scientists noted.

Four years after that warning, former NSA contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden warned that continued advancement of AI could lead to more pernicious policing of people around the world through the creation of a "permanent record" of their lives. Snowden wrote a book about it, Permanent Record.

"The greatest danger still lies ahead, with the refinement of artificial intelligence capabilities, such as facial and pattern recognition. An AI-equipped surveillance camera would be not a mere recording device, but could be made into something closer to an automated police officer," Snowden said in a two-hour interview with The Guardian in Moscow.

While some pastors have been experimenting with AI, a 2023 study released by Barna suggests that most Christians don’t believe AI is good for the Church.

Based on a survey of 1,500 U.S. adults, the data found that most Christians disagree with the statement, "AI is good for the Christian Church." Some 30% of respondents said they strongly disagree with the statement, while another 21% said they somewhat disagree. Another 27% reported that they don’t know.

Only 6% of Christians said they strongly agree with the statement, while 16% said they somewhat agree.

In general, a majority of U.S. adults in the survey said they were still getting familiar with AI. Just 10% said they used AI for work often or for personal business.

Approximately two years later, coders at Amazon are raising concerns that AI is increasingly doing more of their work, relegating them to what feels like assembly line workers, according to The New York Times.

Despite his warning about AI, Jakes encouraged the graduates at Morris Brown College never to stop fighting. He pledged a $100,000 donation to the college and received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree.

Src: The Christian Post