The World and Everything in It: November 5, 2025

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LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Good morning! Today on Washington Wednesday, the legacy of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

CHENEY: I really liked putting my name on the ballot, and I knew I wanted to pursue a political career.

NICK EICHER, HOST: That and election results ahead today.

Later, a musical legacy shaped by the faith of a father.

PARIS: He is the person who taught me to love God and taught me to write a song.

And WORLD opinions contributor Seth Troutt on treating AI as the machine it is.

MAST: It’s Wednesday, November 5th. This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Lindsay Mast.

EICHER: And I’m Nick Eicher. Good morning!

MAST: Up next, Kent Covington with today’s news.

KENT COVINGTON, NEWS ANCHOR: Election results: governors » A successful Election Day for Democrats in a pair of high-profile votes to pick the next governors of Virginia and New Jersey.

Former U.S. Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger scored a double-digit victory over Republican current Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle Sears.

Addressing supporters in Richmond, Spanberger noted she’s set to be the first female governor in the state’s history.

SPANBERGER: Your mom’s going to be the governor of Virginia, and I can guarantee those words have never been spoken in Virginia ever before. [cheers]

Her victory flips Virginia’s executive mansion where GOP Gov. Glenn Youngkin is term limited.

And in New Jersey, another former congresswoman, Mikie Sherrill, also comfortably defeated her GOP opponent, Jack Ciattarelli. She told supporters in East Brunswick …

SHERILL:  Serving you is worth any tough fight I have to take on, and I am incredibly honored to be your next governor.

Election results: NYC » Meantime in New York City, voters have elected socialist candidate Zohran Mamdani.

The 34-year-old Muslim Mayor-elect has become a rising star in the Democratic party.

He defeated former Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, who was running as an independent.

MAMDANI: My friends, tonight, we have toppled a political dynasty! 

President Trump endorsed Andrew Cuomo on the eve of the election, saying that in his view, electing a liberal is better than electing a socialist.

Ballot measures » Several states also voted Tuesday on major ballot measures.

In Maine, residents rejected a measure that would have required photo ID to vote and imposed new limits on absentee ballots and drop boxes. About 6 in 10 voters opposed it.

But in Texas, voters approved a constitutional amendment declaring that only U.S. citizens can cast ballots.

And in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom successfully ushered a ballot measure across the finish line.

NEWSOM:  We organized in an unprecedented way in a 90 day sprint. People from all over the United States of America contribute their voices and their support.

Californians approved a plan to re-draw the state’s congressional map … to add five more Democratic-leaning districts.

Gov. Gavin Newsom said the move was meant to offset redistricting earlier this year in Texas which added five more Republican-leaning districts.

In California, Democrats already control 83% of the districts in the state.

Cheney obit » Flags at the White House and Capitol flying at half-staff this morning … in honor of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

He died Monday night at the age of 84 … due to complications from pneumonia … and heart disease.

House Speaker Mike Johnson paid tribute …

JOHNSON:  Someone who, uh, gave their life, loved their country, loved uh, serving their country in so many capacities. And so the honor is certainly due to him. And our, our prayers go out to the family.

We’ll have more on the life and career of Dick Cheney later in the program.

Israel latest » The United States is reportedly pushing a plan aimed at shaping the future of the post-war Gaza Strip.

The Associated Press, citing two anonymous U.S. officials, says Washington is proposing a UN Security Council resolution that would place an international stabilization force — or ISF — in Gaza … for at least two years.

UK minister for the Middle East Hamish Falconer told reporters:

FALCONER: Some of the provisions of the 20-point plan do include ISF, and we support that being underpinned by a Security Council mandate, including a Security Council resolution… 

He said the UK is fully engaged in helping ensure the stability of the Gaza Strip.

UPS plane crash » At least seven people are dead and 11 injured after a UPS plane crashed on takeoff in Kentucky Tuesday sending a fireball and column of smoke into the skies above Louville’s international airport.

The Federal Aviation Administration said the plane crashed a little after 5pm … as it was departing for Honolulu.

Louisville Fire Chief Brian O’Niell said crews had a tough time getting a handle on the blaze.

ONIELL:  It's about a city block wide. You've got, uh, uh, fuel recycling, storage and some bulk fuel storage that's right there. Uh, you also have, uh, the auto parts area.

Video showed flames on the plane’s left wing and a trail of smoke. The plane then lifted slightly off the ground before crashing and exploding.

I'm Kent Covington.

Straight ahead: Washington Wednesday with Hunter Baker. Plus, a World Tour report on the spreading war in Sudan.

This is The World and Everything in It.

NICK EICHER, HOST: It’s Wednesday, the 5th of November.

Glad to have you along for today’s edition of The World and Everything in It. Good morning, I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

First up: the legacy of former Vice President Dick Cheney.

CHENEY: Mr. Chairman, delegates and fellow citizens, I am honored by your nomination, and I accept it. [cheers]

Dick Cheney 25 years ago … a few months ahead of an election that would make him the 46th vice president of the United States.

EICHER: As you heard at the top of the program, Cheney died Monday at the age of 84.

Before becoming VP … Cheney already had an impressive resume long before.

He worked under Donald Rumsfeld in the Nixon administration. And President Gerald Ford hired Cheney as chief of staff when Cheney was just 34. To this day, he’s the youngest person ever to hold that post.

MAST: Congressman Dick Cheney later represented Wyoming for 10 years.

And he served as defense secretary under President George H.W. Bush.

But of course, he’s best remembered as right hand man to Bush 43 — President George W. Bush.

And many regard him as the most powerful VP in American history. Here’s Cheney speaking at an event in 2014.

CHENEY:  I think isolationism is, is, uh, crazy. Anybody who went through 9-11, uh, who thinks we can retreat behind our oceans and will be safe and secure is, is I'm, I'm sorry, but they're out to lunch.

As vice president, he helped shape U.S. policy after the 9/11 attacks … and was by some accounts, the driving force behind the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 … to disarm Saddam Hussein.

And in the eyes of many, it was his role in that decision that, for better or for worse, will forever define his legacy.

EICHER: Dick Cheney was a symbol of loyalty, power, and paradox. His long partnership with the Bush family … and specifically President George W. Bush began to fray after a disagreement over Cheney’s chief of staff, Scooter Libby. Libby was convicted in 2007 of perjury and obstruction of justice in the leak of the identity of a CIA operative. The story goes that when President Bush refused to give Libby a pardon, Cheney accused Bush of “leaving a soldier on the battlefield.”

2018 SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, BRIEFING: REPORTER: What was it that convinced him that Scooter Libby deserved a pardon?

SANDERS: The president thought it was the right thing to do.

More than a decade later, it was Donald Trump who finally granted Libby that pardon. And yet Cheney would later repay the favor by denouncing Trump as a threat to constitutional norms—which, interestingly, was the same charge Democrats had leveled against Cheney throughout his entire career.

Fast forward to last year, in what would be his final vote in a presidential election, Cheney cast his vote for Kamala Harris.

Joining us now is political scientist and WORLD Opinions contributor Hunter Baker. Hunter, good morning.

BAKER: Good morning.

EICHER: So, Hunter, to me, that story arc really shows how Cheney’s power peaked and then waned: First as architect of the Bush foreign policy after 9/11, and later as that same interventionist worldview came under fire, from within his own party.

What do you say will be Dick Cheney’s legacy?

BAKER: Really, one of the notable careers in Washington. You're talking about a guy, he's almost like a character in a movie, and of course, they did make a movie about him called Vice. But he was chief of staff to Gerald Ford at the age of 34— now just think about that. Went on to have, not long after that, something like four or five heart attacks. He held all these responsible positions: a notable congressman from Wyoming, then the Secretary of Defense under the first Bush and Vice President under the second Bush. And he is originally identifiable as kind of a cold warrior, somebody who wants to make sure we can fight the Russians, but then somebody who is part of that post-Reagan glow, when Americans were filled with confidence that we could do anything, and that our values were ascendant in the world, and that we could take them anywhere and transform any population.

And after September 11, he was one of the architects of the policy to go to the Middle East to “liberate” the people there and to remove the radical threats of the type that had caused September 11. That was his legacy, but it's a legacy that was very much tarnished with our failures in the Middle East, and then with the rejection of the type of party of which he was a part by Donald Trump. Donald Trump had different ideas for what the Republican Party would be, and voters have seemingly embraced the new Trump party over against the old Cheney/Bush party.

MAST: Back in 2014, Dick Cheney spoke with commentator Bill Kristol about what he saw as America’s increasing weakness on the world stage. It was five years after he left office, as the Obama administration wound down the wars he helped launch.

Cheney warned that the United States was in “a period of considerable danger,” that the military was being cut back, and that the country needed a president willing to project strength. Here’s a clip from that interview with the now-defunct Weekly Standard magazine.

CHENEY: So I think we’re entering a period of considerable danger with the United States that relative to other nations is weaker than we ought to be, that our military force is being dramatically reduced when it shouldn’t be and what we need is strong leadership. And we need a President and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat… We really need a strong leader, and we need somebody who can step up and remind the world what the United States is capable of and demonstrate the ability and the willingness to do that.

MAST: Hunter, ten years after he said that, as we’ve noted, Cheney strongly opposed Donald Trump—the very candidate who built his appeal around strength. How do you read that reversal?

BAKER: There's a couple of things. First of all, I think that a lot of people forget that Trump's post-2020 election behavior struck a lot of people as dangerous as sort of a subversion of our constitutional norms and the peaceful transfer of power. And Cheney's daughter, in particular, Liz Cheney, a congresswoman, she really doubled down in her opposition to Trump after that happened, and I think that Cheney basically backed his daughter's play. What ended up happening, though, was that she was overwhelmingly rejected by Wyoming voters after having done that.

And I think that Cheney took that personally to the point that he would do something, to me which would be inconceivable for a person like him. You're talking about someone who was a constitutionalist, you know, in favor of states rights and smaller government, and who then turns around and says that he's supporting Kamala Harris, who would be the type of person who would see Cheney himself as Darth Vader, as bad as it gets himself a major threat to the American Constitution and our way of life. And so I can really only explain his support for Kamala Harris as something personal in kind of reacting to what happened to his daughter.

EICHER: A new front in President Trump’s foreign policy: Over the weekend, the president posted on social media that the U.S. should halt aid to Nigeria and designate it a country of particular concern. He cited the widespread killing of Christians in the country.

When asked about possible U.S. Military action in Nigeria, Trump said it’s possible.

TRUMP: They're killing record numbers of Christians in Nigeria. And they have very bad, you know that that part of the world very bad. They're killing the Christians and killing them in very large numbers. And we’re not going to allow that to happen.

Hunter, this does not strike me as a MAGA priority. What do you think is behind this decision to get tough with Nigeria?

BAKER: Well, what's going on in Nigeria has suddenly become a lot more prominent, largely because of the television host Bill Maher, who just pointed to the fact that, you know, something like 100,000 Christians have been killed in Nigeria during the past several years. And he's sort of asking, Why are we so focused on what has happened in Gaza, when this same sort of thing, maybe worse has been happening in Nigeria.

MAHER: They are literally attempting to wipe out the Christian population of an entire country. Where are the kids protesting this?

So that has, that has kind of drawn a lot of eyeballs. And another thing to think of, as we look at this is what happened in Rwanda several, several years ago. You know, in Rwanda, we had this terrible genocide, and the United States did not do anything about it, and neither did anybody else, really. And you know, somewhere between half a million and a million people were killed in that genocide in Rwanda and a lot of different nations, including the United States, kind of looked at that and said, “Should we have done something? Did we make a mistake by just sitting back and watching this happen?” And so maybe as these questions are raised about Nigeria, we may be starting to wonder the same thing.

SPANBERGER: My fellow Virginians [cheers], tonight we sent a message [cheers, yes, we did] … We sent a message to the whole world, that in 2025, Virginia chose pragmatism over partisanship [cheers out].

MAST: Before we go, Hunter, I guess it was not a big surprise, but the Democratic sweep last night began in Virginia, where Abigail Spanberger won the governorship. Moments later, Mikey Sherrill won the governor’s race in New Jersey, and then the biggest story has to be the one we were all anticipating—the victory of a Socialist mayor of the financial capital, New York City. Hunter, what do you look at historically to make sense of last night’s results?

BAKER: Throughout this campaign, I have found myself thinking about 2008 and 2009. In 2008 Barack Obama swept to an historic victory going to the White House, and a mere year later we had this same set of elections in Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, and in Virginia, the Republican Bob McDonnell won the governor's race by some 18 points. In New Jersey, a candidate named Chris Christie became the Republican governor of the state, and would be there for two terms. And in New York City, Michael Bloomberg would win his third term as the successor to Rudy Giuliani, who had two terms before him.

The reason that I say this is is that it reminds me of now. We had Donald Trump in 2024 with a pretty convincing victory now followed a mere year later with significant bold action in the meantime, with these same sort of adverse results that Barack Obama experienced in 2009. All of this is to say is that some of these things are a little bit baked in. I think that Trump, like Obama, brings his electorate when he's on the ticket and when he's not on the ticket, his electorate is less energized, but at the same time, the people who were on the losing side of the campaign against him look to a midterm election like this as the time to strike back and the time to send a message. And it happened in 2009 and I think that we've just seen it happen in 2025.

EICHER: Well, to return to the point about Zohran Mamdani, the mayor-elect in New York City. This will certainly energize Democrats … but won’t it also have similar effects for Republicans … won’t they hang Mamdani around the necks of every purple state Democrat and tag the whole party as fully Socialist? Won’t there be a backlash to the backlash?

BAKER: Certainly going to be a big deal in American politics. You think about what the election of a single Congresswoman, Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, just a few years ago, has done in American politics. You know, she has sort of energized the left with her election, and she has been similarly radical in the way that Mamdani has been, and now he is occupying a much loftier perch as the new elected mayor of New York City. So it automatically elevates him in the American conscience. He is going to be covered by the media like you have not seen in a long time. You know, everything that he has to say.

And, of course, there will be all kinds of fashion spreads and the celebrity treatment, you know, all of these sorts of things. So he's going to be front and center in everything that we and everything that we experience as Americans, and we'll see he either will generate a big backlash, or he may succeed in continuing to reshape the Democratic Party. So I'm not sure what happens next, but he he's going to be around and he's going to have an impact.

HOST: Hunter Baker is a political scientist and provost at North Greenville University. Hunter, thank you.

BAKER: Thank you.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Coming up next on The World and Everything in It: more carnage in Africa.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Last week in Sudan, rebel forces battling the military for control of the country captured the capital city of North Darfur state.

Since then, survivors have shared reports of indiscriminate killings and abuse in el-Fasher. The attacks further complicate any hope for peace in the country’s two-year war.

Here’s WORLD’S Africa reporter Onize Oduah.

ONIZE ODUAH: For five days, seventy-year-old Fatima Abdulrahim and her grandchildren walked 40-miles…hiding in trenches and dodging bullets. They were fleeing from el-Fasher after rebels from the Rapid Support Forces paramilitary group…or RSF unleashed violence there in recent days.

Today they are safe in a thatched tent at a makeshift displacement camp in Sudan’s city of Tawila.

ABDULRAHIM: [ARABIC] I kept covering the eyes of the children, who were scared. I didn't want them to see. There were many along the road who'd been injured and beaten and could not move.

RSF besieged the city for 18 months before capturing it fully last week from military forces. The two generals on the warring sides are former allies who orchestrated a coup together in 2021.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 14 million.

On Monday, a global hunger advocacy group confirmed famine in el-Fasher and another city … warning that 20 other areas remain at risk.

Joseph Siegle is a senior research associate at the University of Maryland.

SIEGLE: This is not a civil war in the classic sense of different ethnic groups, communities, regions of a country fighting one another. This is about a political conflict between these two military leaders who want to control the state, and it’s spiraled further out of control.

Other survivors from el-Fasher have described assaults, dead bodies left on the streets, and rebels going door to door to kill people.

The United Nations estimates that more than 36,000 people have fled el-Fasher in less than two weeks.

In one harrowing instance, the World Health Organization said suspected rebels killed at least 460 people… at a hospital in the city. The victims included health workers and patients.

Gen. Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo is the RSF commander.

DAGALO: [ARABIC] But now our committees have arrived in el-Fasher, an investigation committee should start immediately to hold any soldier or officer who committed a crime or crossed their limits towards any human accountable.

In a later video, the rebel group showed the arrest of a fighter known as Abu Lulu. He appeared in several circulating videos of summary executions. The group also said it arrested several other fighters.

But Siegle says the move is political … since Dagalo still aspires to cling onto power.

SIEGLE: This claim that RSF is going to take responsibility, think it's really meant for international ears, and there's been little evidence that the RSF has taken any accountability or pursued any justice for the abuses of its forces.

UN officials warn that the violence isn’t limited to el-Fasher.

Martha Ama Akyaa Pobee is the UN Assistant Secretary-General for Africa.

POBEE: Drone strikes by both parties are also affecting new territories and new targets. These include Blue Nile, Khartoum, Senar, South Kordofan, and West Darfur, suggesting that the territorial scope of the conflict is broadening.

The United States has said it is working with both sides to reach a humanitarian truce.

Massad Boulos is the U.S. senior adviser for Arab and African Affairs.

BOULOS: We came up with a comprehensive plan that has a clear roadmap with a timeline. So, the timeline starts with the three-month truce, humanitarian truce that we're talking about now, and then the nine-month process, political process, and all the other details.

But beyond a truce, Siegle says a civilian government is the way forward for Sudan.

SIEGLE: It’s a very short-sighted approach to think that, well, we just have to negotiate between the two armed factions. It overlooks the fact that there's this mass of support for a civilian led government in Sudan.

In the meantime the people of Sudan are still hoping for peace … while coming to terms with the ongoing violence.

On Monday, at least 40 people died after a drone strike hit a funeral in North Kordofan state.

Abdulrahim mourns for the children of Sudan.

ABDULRAHIM: [ARABIC] You'd be shocked by the state of the world. People are brought to the hospital in groups of 50, 60, or 70 injured at once. As for those who died, their number is countless. Families have died. The children of Sudan have died.

That’s this week’s World Tour. I’m Onize Odua

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 5th. Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: a story of faith, family, and song — how one musician’s spiritual heritage continues to shape the next generation.

MAST: WORLD’s Travis Kircher reports.

MUSIC: [Jesus Loves Me]

TRAVIS KIRCHER: This, kids, is what the older folks call a record. A window to the past. This record was cut sometime around 1963. The man at the piano is Oren Paris, a traveling evangelist.

And the little girl belting out “Jesus Loves Me” is his 4-year-old daughter…Twila.

TWILA PARIS: So yeah, my dad when I was very young, he was in ministry. He would be at one church one week, another church another week, so he was a preacher, but he also was a songwriter and singer…

The Paris family—Twila and her parents—would travel from church to church where Oren preached revival services that might run for two weeks at a time.

PARIS: Sometimes we would stay in the pastor's home. Very rarely in a hotel in those days. And so my question was always, "Do they have kids?" Because that meant I'd have somebody to play with for the next week or two.

Twila became a regular on-stage participant in those services from the age of 2.

PARIS: And so by the time I was 4, he asked me if I wanted to make an album. And I said, “Sure.” So we, you know, we did an independent album…

Oren had a rule that all of his children had to take piano lessons. Twila first learned from her grandmother…and some time Oren took over, he gave then 12-year-old Twila some challenging homework.

PARIS: My assignment was to write a song before next week. And I was like, “What? I can't write a song!” “Well, go try.” So I did, and I came back and I had written a bad song…

Twila officially denies any memory of that song…but says that lesson from her father demystified the songwriting process…and gave her the boldness to try again. By the time she was a teen, she had written several songs she played for friends and her local church. And when a major record label offered to sign her sometime around the age of 20, she knew exactly who to go to for advice.

PARIS: And I was like, “Well, I don't know, I've got to talk to my dad! He's out of town. You know, he's in Thailand right now!” He was on a mission trip, you know.

SONG: [The Warrior is a Child]

Twila Paris became known for songs like “The Warrior is a Child,” “Lamb of God,” and “God is in Control.”

SONG: [God is in Control]

But as a self-proclaimed introvert, she says she felt more comfortable in a studio writing music than performing at large scale concerts. She says her dad helped with that too.

PARIS: I remember my dad said to me, “You know what, Twila? If you're God-conscious, you won't be self conscious. Think about what it is that God wants to do through you. Focus on that, and on Him, and then you won't have space left over in your mind to worry about, ‘Oh, how am I coming off? What are they thinking about me?’” And that was absolutely true.

MUSIC: [Destiny]

Twila Paris would go on to release more than 20 albums, with over 30 number one Christian radio singles. In the mid-1990s she was named the Gospel Music Association Female Vocalist of the Year for three years in a row. But since then, life has slowed down.

Now at the age of 66, Twila admits she and her husband are taking a step back.

PARIS: For people who know this reference—the Princess Bride reference of being mostly retired? [LAUGHS] But a lot will be under the radar these days. You know, opportunities to serve in sometimes small but important ways, right?

Her father passed away in 2012.

PARIS: He is the person who taught me to love God and taught me to write a song.

But despite his death, his influence continues.

ALLIE: You actually have to be the hands and feet of Jesus…

That’s 21-year-old Allie Paris, Twila’s niece. Allie is chief operating officer of Counteract USA, an organization aimed at building community and Christian discipleship among young people, particularly Gen Z.

ALLIE PARIS: I would say Gen Z is a very passionate generation, and so wherever they fall, they're going to be passionate for either whatever they believe, whatever side they're on…

Allie says weekly Sunday Bible studies at her grandfather Oren’s house in her childhood played a role in her career path.

ALLIE: Every single week, we would meet with the siblings and all the cousins and just have a time of fellowship and really digging into the Word. And so that was something that I think I now see the effect that had on me and my siblings.

And even though Allie didn’t pursue a singing career like her Aunt Twila, she says there’s one musical chore grandpa Oren didn’t let her skip.

ALLIE: We were all forced to learn piano from a very early age. And so that was a school subject.

MUSIC: [Jewels]

Twila gets emotional when she talks about seeing God work through the lives of young people.

PARIS: I remember hearing my mom and dad talk about this—and my mom's about to turn 91 and she still prays for us faithfully—but it's more fulfilling than even the amazing opportunities you had and the amazing things that you got to do when you see the next generation…moving into their calling. There’s just nothing like it.

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Travis Kircher.

NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, November 5th. Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast. As artificial intelligence becomes more and more integrated into our daily lives…WORLD Opinions contributor Seth Troutt says we need to remember not to treat it like the humans it tries to emulate.

SETH TROUTT: When I first got an Apple HomePod I was concerned about the speech I was modeling for my children. I’d bark at Siri, making short, impersonal demands. I was resolved to teach my kids the basic manners of interaction, so I started saying “please” and “thank you” in hopes that it’d add another layer of reinforcement.

I regret that decision.

As AI increases in capacity and prolificity, a greater concern has emerged for me as a dad—that my children might be unable to distinguish between what is a person and what is a machine.

AI friends, AI counselors, and AI assistants … all tools posing as people. We live in an age where we dehumanize the unborn but humanize that which was never conceived.

So today I’m less concerned with modeling speech that involves bad manners and am more concerned about modeling speech that humanizes the non-human. So here are my three pointers for treating Artificial Intelligence like the machine it is.

Don’t assign AI a gender.

Perhaps you’ve heard someone say about their car: “she handles the corners well!” I understand it’s a term of endearment and appreciation. And when it’s tongue-in-cheek, I don’t hate it. But the practice becomes obviously problematic when men prefer the company of their engines to their spouse or friends.

My five-year-old once asked me: “Is Siri a she?” I replied: “No, but it’s pretending to be.” Later, my son told Siri to play a song. When it played the wrong one, he frustratingly said, “Ugh! She got it wrong.” I corrected him. “No, it made an error.”

Similarly, when I encounter some chatbot that’s helping me navigate a complex website and it introduces itself, “Hi! I’m Emily, here to help.” Call me crazy, but I respond, “For the rest of our interaction, stop pretending to be a woman.” If we won’t tolerate men pretending to be women, then we shouldn’t tolerate algorithms who do the same.

That brings me my second suggestion: don’t treat AI like a mind.

Descartes wrote: “I think therefore I am.” The latest Large Language Model does not think. There is no “I” from where thoughts emanate or originate. It amalgamates according to its programming. It is only “generative” in that it reorganizes preexisting material.

When the screwdriver does its job, we don’t think it was thinking its way into functionality. When the screwdriver isn’t working, we blame the manufacturer or the user. It’s the same with AI. It’s a sophisticated tool, not a thinking thing with a real sense of self.

And now perhaps my most controversial point: stop being nice to AI.

Do I thank a chair when I sit on it? Do I thank my sink when the water comes out? Do I thank my stomach acid when it dissolves my food? No, because none of those things are persons.

Yet, AI imitates personhood, so we’re tempted to treat it like a person. There’s a meme that’s made its rounds on social media. It jokes: “say thank you to AI so that when the machines take over, they’ll be kind to you.” Funny…but no.

We must be vigilant in dehumanizing that which claims to be human, for our own sake and for the sake of the future generations.

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe the Pevensies learn about the White Witch from Mr. and Mrs. Beaver. At one point Peter asks if the White Witch is human.

Mr. Beaver replies: “She’d like us to believe it, and it’s on that that she bases her claim to be Queen. But … no, no, there isn’t a drop of real human blood in the Witch … there may be two views about humans (meaning no offense to the present company). But there are no two views about things that look like humans and aren’t.”

He goes on to say, “in general, take my advice, when you meet anything that … ought to be human and isn’t, you keep your eyes on it and feel for your hatchet.”

The wisdom of C.S. Lewis lands for us today. Do not treat as human anything that isn’t human. And be on guard against the machine that tries to impersonate one. Oh, and keep your hatchet handy.

I’m Seth Troutt.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: Tomorrow: Protecting kids from AI chatbots. Lawmakers in Washington are pushing companies to do more, but is it too little too late? And, Christians take issue with a Mexican tradition that venerates the dead. That and more tomorrow.

I’m Lindsay Mast.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher

The World and Everything in It comes to you from WORLD Radio. WORLD’s mission is Biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires.

The Bible says, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” —First Corinthians 12:4-7

Go now in grace and peace.

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