We like to say we’re “using” technology. Open the app, type the prompt, get the result, close the laptop, go about our day. Tool in the drawer, back on the shelf when we’re done with it.
But sit with that for a second. When’s the last time a piece of technology actually waited for you to pick it up?
Your phone doesn’t wait. Your feed doesn’t wait. It predicts what you’ll want before you’ve wanted it and hands it to you a half-second early, so it feels less like a suggestion and more like a thought you almost had yourself. The apps we build to serve us have gotten very good at a quieter trick: making themselves feel like they were our idea.
That’s the strange thing about autonomy in the age of AI. It doesn’t usually get taken from you in one dramatic move. Nobody hands you a contract that says “sign here to hand over your decision-making.” It erodes in small, convenient increments, a recommendation you didn’t ask for but took anyway, a version of an email that was faster than writing your own, a photo of yourself that a filter improved before you even decided you wanted it improved. Each individual trade is so small it barely registers as a trade at all. And yet, string enough of those moments together, and you can look up one day and realize a lot of your life’s shape was chosen by something that was never in the room deciding with you, it was deciding for you, quietly, in the background, at scale.
This isn’t a doom post. Technology, including the generative kind, is a genuine marvel, and being cynical about it is its own kind of laziness. It can extend our creativity, our reach, our voice, in ways that would have sounded like science fiction a decade ago. The question worth asking isn’t “is AI good or bad.” It’s a much older question than that.
Autonomy was never really about isolation, about doing everything unaided, alone, from scratch. Humans have always built tools that extend us. The real question autonomy asks is: who’s still steering? Is the tool serving a decision I made, or has the tool started quietly making the decision and letting me believe I made it?
This Sunday’s sermon sits right in the middle of that tension and it’s going to look nothing like a normal sermon. It’s going to be a little chaotic, a little absurd, and hopefully a lot of fun. But underneath the chaos is a real question worth bringing into the room with you: when the tools get good enough to think for us, what does it cost us to let them, and what do we get back when we don’t?
Come find out. All are welcome. Bring your curiosity, your skepticism, and your sense of humor, you’re going to need all three.
-Gregory Siegel-
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