Weekly Cultural Update: Betting on the Palisades Fire; Meta Youth Lawsuits; Young Conservative Socialists; Building AI Influencers

Episode Transcript

Sean McDowell: [upbeat music] As the Palisades fires torched LA in 2025, online gamblers bet on the extent of its damage. Is this new trend ethical? Meta faces a landmark trial of $200 billion over child social media addiction claims. A surprising number of young conservative Gen Z-ers are favorable to socialism, and companies are flooding podcasts, YouTube, and social media with artificial intelligent personas. Are these the superstars [chuckles] of tomorrow? These are the stories we'll discuss, and we'll also address some of your questions. I'm your host, Sean McDowell.

Scott Rae: I'm your co-host, Scott Rae.

Sean McDowell: This is the Think Biblically weekly cultural update brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. This first story, Scott, I am glad you flagged this in the LA Times because this is another one where I just thought, "Sigh, a sign of the times. Not sure I saw this coming." And the title is, "As LA Burned, Online Gamblers Bet on How Much the Fires Would Destroy." Quote, "That was fun." Now, as a reminder, this destruction killed 31 people, and you and I have personal friends, 'cause we're not far from this, who at least left their homes and were directly affected by these fires. There's a new way to gamble called Polymarket, a company that bills itself as the largest platform for predicting global events, where it posed frequently asked questions about the Eaton and Palisades fires as they scorched communities. Questions like, "How fast would the blaze grow? How long would it take to contain them? How much will be destroyed?" They accepted more than 1.2 million in predictions just on the January 2025 fires. Now, of course, somebody responds, "That was fun. Thanks, everyone. Until next time." However, some people have expressed concern about the morality of this. So there's some bills pending by, senators in California to, let's just say, block this for people betting on, and profiting on wildfires and other disasters. And these kind of platforms are undergoing increasing scrutiny, so to speak, but people are also betting on the outcome of elections, military actions, clinical trials, [chuckles] and FDA approvals on life-saving medication. Basically, you can bet on anything, as you know. And the article raises, I appreciate. It says, "The perverse incentive to create wildfires isn't the only problem. There could also be incentives to ensure wildfires aren't contained, further straining first responders and putting more communities at risk," Mendes says. So there were people betting on, one guy made $400,000 on the Venezuelan action taking out President Maduro. Maybe had some insider information. There's... These kind of issues are cropping up. For example, authorities in France began investigating whether somebody tampered with a weather monitoring device at the airport, because after unusually high temperature was recorded around the same time, a Polymarket trader cashed in on $21,000 in profit. All right. You and I have talked about issues of sports gambling, but is this going way too far? What's your take?

Scott Rae: Well, in my view, it is going way too far. And here's, Sean, the really interesting thing about this is almost all the critics who commented on this in this article, they have a gut intuition that this is, this ranges from morally wrong to reprehensible, but they can't say why.

Scott Rae: One of the, one of the people quoted in the piece says, "It's morally reprehensible. You're essentially betting on a community's devastation and human suffering." But nobody spells out why this is wrong. Now, the one part that the article does bring out is it's vulnerable to insider trading. In fact, they even pointed out that it's it is quite possible for the president's teleprompter person, having advanced, [chuckles] you know, advanced knowledge of what the president's gonna say in, say, the State of the Union or some other important address, to bet on what the president might say and when he'll say it. And this is, you know, the the fact that it's vulnerable to insider trading is not really new. What, what's, what we mean by that is using information that's not intended to be public to trade in markets for a profit, and that's been going on in the stock market and bond market for a long time. But here, Sean, the, here's the thing that I think stands out on this. This is where, in my view, a virtue ethic really comes in handy. And because the virtue ethic asks a different sort of question, it's a deeper question than a question simple, simply whether this is right or wrong. And it's a, it's not a typical sort of deontological principle-based or a, you know, utilitarian-based view of what's right and wrong, but it asks a different kind of question. It asks these types of questions. What does this say about my character that I would bet and profit on human suffering and tragedy? You know, or, it asks, to put it a different way, it asks the kind of question, "What kind of a person would do this? What kind of a person would use inside information or manipulate events that cause human suffering in order to bet on them for a profit?" And I think the virtue ethic really helps us fill in the sort of what's wrong with this by isolating what the kind of character that's involved for a person to go down this road and consider this.

Sean McDowell: That's a great way to look at it. You and I had a conversation probably, I don't know, three, four, or five weeks ago, about how not only gambling, but things like the easy accessibility of pornography weighs against the self-discipline it takes to develop a virtuous ethic in your life. Here's another example of lowering the bar, making it easier to do that which is not ethical, and in turn, forming our character. Or deform in our character [laughs]

Scott Rae: That's exactly

Sean McDowell: ... Is probably the word that I should use. There's a couple questions here. One is should it be illegal? And that's where, you know, my libertarian strain along with the harm of society, it's hard to land exactly where that plane is, but this feels different to me than sports gambling. I think you can make a case that sports gambling has a net negative effect on society. I think you can make that case, but it's a little less direct than the effect directly on sports itself. This, I think we can make the case, really does have a net negative effect on society. And it's interesting you said a virtue ethic because I thought about this. How would this kind of gambling form or deform us? How would it shape our characters? And of course, Romans 12:2 very famously Paul says, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." In other words, the command not to be formed, our default position is to be deformed by the culture around us. When we engage in putting money on a fire having a certain extent, then I'm quite literally rooting for a certain level of damage here that is forming my character to celebrate that which I should not celebrate. That's really what concerns me here is our culture is discipling us. Our culture is forming us, and these are the kind of conversations I have with my kids all the time. Is that music, forming you or deforming you? Is that song forming you or deforming you? And I think this is a new low, legal issues aside, that deforms us to minimally take something that's life and death not very seriously and gamble on it, maximally root for more destruction than our response should be one of grieving and pain and hurt and giving money, not profiting off something like this. That's my take.

Scott Rae: Oh, that's a great take on that, Sean, and I think specifically the way we're being deformed here is this cultivating a callousness toward human suffering. Which we are called to do just the opposite. The Bible is replete with commands and mandates and encouragement to be compassionate and to walk in the shoes of those who have been, the victims of these kinds of misfortunes through no fault of their own. And I don't, I don't wanna be involved in things that callous my heart toward people who are on the margins of society and who have been hit with unspeakable tragedies like this. You know, and we've, you know, in the past we've had, we've had markets where you could sort of take over somebody's life insurance policy and essentially make a bet on when they will die. And this I think, puts that kind of thing almost on steroids. But that's my concern, Sean, with how it might specifically, cultivate in us something that the Bible is clear it mandates exactly the opposite.

Sean McDowell: Well said. Good take. Let's shift to this story that really kinda dropped earlier this week, and I think this is gonna be a landmark case that apparently is gonna take four to six weeks where you and I talked about how Meta, YouTube, I think maybe it was Instagram, TikTok, although Instagram is a part of, Meta, was officially sued in law by a girl a few weeks ago. Now there's multiple states raising a $200 billion trial or case against Meta over child social media addiction. So it's one thing to owe a few million dollars. Now 14% of, like, your stock, there's a lot at stake here. So, California, Colorado, Kentucky, and New Jersey, which is interesting. These are representative states, [laughs] West Coast, East Coast, kinda Midwest, mountain range. They accuse social media giant, which owns Instagram and Facebook, over harming children with technology designed to be addictive like cigarettes, and they're arguing that Meta helped fuel a national youth mental health crisis and deceive users by promoting its app as safe. That's the key, deceiving them. So as I mentioned earlier, in March, Meta and YouTube were found liable where a young woman was awarded $6 million in damage. That is pocket change for something like Meta. This would be almost 1.4 trillion. Its worth is 1.4 trillion, and this is 14% of the entire stock value. Now what is fascinating about the timing of this, Scott, is that there's been concern about social media use that's mounted globally. As we discussed, Australia last year became the first country to bar children under 16 from using social media. Now Denmark, France, Germany, Spain, Indonesia, India, Malaysia, and others have carried out or are considering similar rules, and even the European Union last month took the first steps towards its own ban, which we, would be the largest in the world. Now the company's kinda defended itself by saying that the case should be thrown out based on speech, free speech, which is an interesting kind of defense. But here's kinda the key. The attorneys general from these state plan to use internal documents and interviews with current and former Meta employees to show the company internally discussed how tools like infinite scroll and beauty filters, photo effects that alter a person's appearance- Contributed to compulsive use and anxiety among young users. Still, the company promote its platform as safe for youth, the state claims. That's the key, that they were aware of this, they knew this, they talked about it, and moved forward anyways and didn't put sufficient safety mechanisms in place. Hence, a 2 billion, $100 billion lawsuit. What do you think?

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, a couple things. This is my business ethics stuff is coming into play here. This is a a classic product liability lawsuit. We spend time in our, in our course here at Biola on that, and I for 25 years, I team-taught this with a product liability attorney, who was a specialist in this. And usually, the responsibility for safe products is shared in a culture between the user, the producer, and the government. And I think in this case, there are responsibilities here for each party. I think the user is responsible in to some degree, and I think the parents especially. The company, I think, is responsible to some degree, and government is responsible to set and enforce standards here. And here, the courts are essentially doing the government's job in this case. It's different than what it would be in Europe. Europe's much more heavily regulated, but there's less room for lawsuits like this one. The courts here are basically doing the government's regulatory job. Now, in in, there's a difference between liability and strict liability, just to get into the detail just for a second. So in strict liability cases, it doesn't matter if the company intended the harm or not. If it's reasonably foreseeable, they are liable. Even if the user misuses the product apart from its intended use, the company is still liable. California is a strict liability state. It seems like what's in, dispute here is not so much the harms to kids, but the things behind it reflect that we're operating under a little different standard that we, than we do typically in California. Sean, I think the harms to kids here are to beyond dispute. What's at issue is the degree to which these addictive elements are part of the design, and the degree to which Meta is responsible for these. And there's a phrase that stuck out to me in the article that's part of the court documents, which it's a three, it's a three-word term called engagement optimized algorithms-

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: ... Which seem to be part, an integral part of the design. And the design seems to be optimizing to get people to stay on for longer and longer times, to scroll more and more, and it has, I think, the

Scott Rae: it has all the features of a, of encouraging addictive behavior. Now, the other thing that came out of this is a related article that The New York Times also published a couple weeks ago. In some of the initial court documents that were, that were made public, that, Snapchat, for example, sent phone alerts to adolescents during school hours- ... Urging them to share what was going on in their classrooms. Meta paid what they call their teen ambassadors to promote Instagram, to hand out swag to their friends at school. TikTok gave millions of dollars to the National PTA, Parent Teacher Association, to throw school events about online safety and on, and provide favorable comments to journalists. You mentioned the beauty filters that contributed to body images. That, that's a huge problem in my view. And the article also pointed out that, you know, many of the safety features that the company is touting either don't work or are easily bypassed. I think that's a problem too. Again, I think what the court has to decide here is how responsibility for these harms is going to be allocated. To what degree are the users and their parents liable? What degree is the government liable, for setting and enforcing, you know, enforceable standards? And to what degree is Meta responsible? I think that will be the task of the court to determine that in the weeks to come. And I don't think, as much as you wanna focus just on Meta's responsibility, I don't think they can avoid the the sharing of responsibility that normally comes in all these product liability cases.

Sean McDowell: It that's a really helpful take. You know, there's a difference between are they encouraging addictive behavior, which you could argue that almost anybody with a product wants to sell as much as they possibly can, and in social media, we are the product, of course. And with that, did they sufficiently put in guardrails to protect kids? Because this is about how it affects children, and that did they deny warnings that were there and deceive people about it? That, to me, seems the question that points distinctly towards their responsibility. Now, what is fascinating is there's an article this week, it's one of the good things about this court case, whatever comes out, is it's kinda put people on notice, especially with AI and people with, other social media platforms, that we better go above and beyond over the top to reveal what we're doing, and also to protect kids. So there was this piece in in The New York Times about how Silicon Valley executives are tech fans, just not for their own kids. And it talks about even Mark Zuckerberg on a number of times has talked about with his own kids passively consuming content, quote, "Just going from video to video was not associated with the same positive benefits." Now tech executives like Mark Zuckerberg don't talk a lot about their own families, but when they do, there's a sense that they're very weary and aware of how the technology affects them. So Peter Thiel, who's the first outside investor in Facebook, longtime board member, said he limited his children, at that time three and a half and five, to an hour and a half week, a week of screen time, not a day. Peter Thiel said that. Tech people realized this from the beginning. And so there's all these quotes in this article about people saying, "We didn't give our kids cell phones until they were 14. We know how addictive they are." one, Steven Chen, a co-founder of YouTube, who sold the video company to Google in 2006, told students at Stanford last year he was worried that his children would end up unable to watch anything longer than 15 minutes. So I think a pretty strong case can be made that the people who made this technology, treated their kids differently and didn't sufficiently warn people about how it could affect their kids. I hope that's what comes out of it. There was also a piece this week about how OpenAI is introducing ChatGPT for teens to give them more appropriate age content. Now, the details of that doesn't interest me, but I'm sure OpenAI is watching this going, "We don't want to get sued for $200 billion."

Scott Rae: Yes, they are.

Sean McDowell: So in some ways this is a good thing, where internet and social media, the very thing that can cause harm, is being used to spread a message saying, "This causes harm," and bring good out of it.

Scott Rae: Yeah, I think the other thing that I think is causing people to pay attention here is some of the responsibility on the place of the user. Now, you've talked about the parents here. But the you know, the Bible's really clear, Sean, that our input determines our output. You know, Jesus was really clear that out of the mouth speaks that which fills the heart. And Paul in Philippians 4 calls us to think on things that are excellent and noble and praiseworthy, and to focus our attention on those things, because those are the things that actually form our character into Christ likeness. As opposed to, and again, I think the question we raised in the previous story is relevant here too. You know, what is this technology doing to form or deform who we are in our deepest character? And I think those are some of the harms that... Now, I'm not sure the court can answer that-

Sean McDowell: Right

Scott Rae: ... Nor should the court be answering that. But I think as users and as parents of young and adolescent kids, those are some of the questions I think we need to be addressing here. So, and the parents, I think, for, in large part, I think they see the impact of this on their kids. They just feel powerless to stop it. And so we'll we'll see. I'm sure, I'm sure they're gonna have lots of parents of these kids testifying in this trial, to exactly that point. And I guess we'll see how the court responds to that kind of testimony. We'll see if that has, if that has an impact or not. I think it should. But I do think there's, you know, there's responsibility on the parents to do some of the things with their kids that the tech executives have done already.

Sean McDowell: I think that's right. And it'll be interesting to see how much they push Mark Zuckerberg, because when some of these studies came out, it was maybe one or two years ago, he was kind of shamed into publicly apologizing to parents for this. And I remember this just really awkward scene where he apologized and was kind of forced into it. Those words are gonna come back and haunt him, maybe at least legally speaking, and show that he was aware of this, wished he had acted differently. And so I don't... I I'm not a gambler, so I'm not gonna bet on how [chuckles] this is gonna play out, especially in light of our previous story, but I hope there's at least some charge to Meta here that makes a statement, about the importance of good guardrails and also just public integrity and following the evidence where it leads. All right, we'll follow this, and we'll update folks. Now, this next story, you and I have talked a good amount about socialism, so I was hesitant to bring this back, but this was written by a young 23-year-old about his generation as an opinion piece in The Wall Street Journal. And there were some studies in here that were surprising to me, 'cause we've kind of told the story about how socialism emerging on the left, maybe a little bit in the center, but this piece that came out this week says the young MAGA socialists are here. And this writer says 53% of self-identified conservatives under 40 support government-run grocery stores. Now, let me stop in case somebody wasn't listening. Over half of self-identified conservatives under 40 support government-run grocery stores. If you had told me that when I was in high school, coming out of [chuckles] like seeing what happened with Russia, I don't think I would've believed you. And he says, "Not Democrats. Conservatives, take that in. The rise of socialism among young Americans is no longer a Democratic story. Young conservatives who grow up hearing that government was the problem are increasingly asking why the government isn't doing more to make their lives easier, which in 2026 simply means more affordable. They are increasingly comfortable with taxing billionaires, expanding government programs, and blaming some outside group for the sense that the American Dream is further away than it was for their parents." And then this guy, again 23 years old, says, "These are not disciples of Karl Marx, but they believe the economy is rigged against them, and they increasingly believe the government should step in and fix it." So kind of the opposite of the Reagan mantra conservatives, you know, the, I don't know, the five most terrible, dangerous words, like the government, I'm here to help," that kind of famous line. In a, in a July 2026 Fox News poll- 61% of Republicans view capitalism favorably. That's down in seven years by 11%. So the confidence in government should fix our problems has also gone up. Confidence in capitalism has gone down. This guy says, "I'm 23, and I understand why my generation is frustrated. Unaffordable housing is one of the clearest reasons." So the striking part of Zohran Mamdani's win in New York is that the language he used, affordability, rent regulation, hostility to concentrated wealth, now sounds normal to millions of young people who don't call themselves socialists. Now, he says here, and I hope we can swing back to this, he says, "Capitalism is failing young Americans, but it isn't the reason young Americans are failing." Now, there's a lot more in this article, but amazingly, I do wanna point out that this writer says, "I was able to scale successful business as a teenager, negotiate my way through free college, and build a personal net worth of over 20 million all before turning 23. I didn't do that 'cause the government handed me a check, but because America gave me room to try." In other words, this 23-year-old is worth far more than you and I put together, which is fascinating, but give me your take on this shift towards conservatives favoring socialism.

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, this is, I think, a really troubling trend to me because, in my view, the more government is involved in the market economy, the more the game is actually rigged because government is involved picking winners and losers, and government interference is the main reason for obstacles to get ahead. I think the article's got it right on on a lot of this. Take housing affordability, for example. I've got friends of mine who are in the home-building business in California, and they've been pulling their hair out for years with how difficult it is to get

Scott Rae: permits done in a timely fashion, to get land allocated for building new homes. The, you know, the demand for homes in California far outstrips the available supply, and some of that has to do with zoning laws, environmental laws that restrict home building. We have, we have licensing requirements for many professions that I think are completely unnecessary. And in my view, I think this is where I think, you know, you invoked Ronald Reagan. I think he's still correct, that the more government would get out of the way, the more individuals would prosper. And the article points out, I think, and he's right, the real barriers making opportunity harder-- There are real barriers to making opportunity harder to reach, and the government built most of them. Now, I think, of course, there's a place for government in creating a safety net for those who can't support themselves. And I think we need to be clear too, Sean, that we have socialistic elements in our own economy, and what I mean by that is the, there are aspects of the economy where government owns it and runs it. You know, Medicare, Social Security, public schools. Now, I'm not, I'm not saying those are necessarily bad things, but they are socialistic in nature. And I think today we have something that's unprecedented here, maybe more so than in Europe, is government today owns significant stakes in some 30 major companies today. That in my view, is unprecedented here. Now, you know, again, to be clear, you know, markets aren't infallible. They're not always self-correcting. But they do reflect the character of the participants. This is why Adam Smith was so clear, Sean, about the necessity of moral restraints on people's pursuits of their own self-interest. Markets need guardrails. There's no doubt about that. The rule of law is critical for market economies to function, and there are legitimate regulatory products, as we just mentioned, to ensure that products are safe. Now, as we've said before, you know, socialism and free markets exist on a continuum 'cause there's no, there's no pure socialism except for maybe in North Korea, and there's no pure market economy except at the, maybe the New York Stock Exchange. But the debate is where you fall on the spectrum, and this, in my view, is where the article really gets it right. He he points out, "We want a Nordic welfare state and all the benefits without the Nordic tax bill." "We want government to spend more money while somehow charging none of us for it," which sounds more like a wish list than an actual economic model. And I think that's the big question on this is who... You know, for all the stuff that we want to have more affordable, somebody's gonna pay for it. And the question of who pays for that, and, you know, I mean, you can tax, you can tax the wealthy all you want, but Margaret Thatcher was right that the problem with socialism is you eventually run out of other people's money, and we will eventually run out of the billionaires' money to do some of these things. And I think anybody who thinks that a billionaire tax that is gonna be a one-time thing is deluding themselves. So I don't know. I, you know, this struck me as being really remarkable, but I think you're-- the the generation here that's objecting to capitalism is shooting at the wrong target, because they they shouldn't be shooting at the market economy, which has opened up innumerable opportunities over the past, you know, 50 years for about a quarter of the world's population to move themselves up and out of poverty. So I think the target that we wanna wanna hit at is The affordability crisis, which is real, but the target actually I think is more government than capitalists.

Sean McDowell: Good take as always. For those listening, you and I did a deep dive on kind of a defense of capitalism and a critique of socialism, maybe four to six months ago, earlier this year. But I'm really curious. Right now I'm aware of two major studies being done on Gen Alpha that are probably 16 and younger, and I'm curious if these trends will continue, or if like the nuns that continued from the '90s up until a few years ago at some point kind of flat-lined, will there be a bounce back in this? We don't know, but, that's what I wanna know with Gen Alpha. And I thought it was so fascinating that he wrote in this article, at the same time, they're enamored, Gen Z are those under 40, which would also be younger millennials, they're enamored with socialism even if they don't use that term, but they're also more likely to be entrepreneurial and start a business. With AI, it's easier than ever, and don't see the tension and contradiction between the two of those. That's really... It makes me wonder as people get older, if they'll see, like this guy who's obviously brilliant and goes, "Wait a minute, I worked hard for this business. I know best how to spend my money for the good for me and for my family, and if everybody has that freedom, it'll benefit the whole better." I wonder how many more will see that as they age. That's a part of my hope. Now, biblically, as I think about this, you know, in some ways in America we're used to a government-run post office or government-run DMV. Now I hear complaints about how it's run, but I don't typically hear that called socialism. And yet when it comes to grocery stores, we call it socialism. What exactly makes something socialism or not? What's makes it biblical or not? I think it's more a question-- You're not gonna find chapter and verse on this. We say think biblically about everything, but it doesn't mean you can go to a Bible verse and be like, "What should the tax code be, 12% or 18%? Turn to Hosea 2:1." [laughs]

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: Of course, it doesn't give us that precision. But to think biblically is to look at this through a lens of wisdom, and also look at our lens to love our neighbors and to work for the collective good of society. And government-run grocery stores never have worked, and I'm pretty confident they never will work. I was actually walking in Manhattan this past week towards the World Trade Center with two friends, and we had this debate, and it got pretty fiery in a New York way, which was okay. And the friend pushed back, and his answer was, he goes, "Well, we just gotta try something. What we're doing now isn't working." I said, "Fair enough. To say that what you're doing now isn't working doesn't mean that government-run grocery stores will work." There's no evidence that it ever has. So I'm glad to see this young man speaking up. I hope it's a sign of more to come, and just reminds me and us on this show, this is a topic we have to talk about with young people, 'cause socialism has never worked anywhere. I understand emotionally why they feel this way. It makes sense. That was helpful for this article, because my emotional response to socialism is one growing up in the '80s and '90s, and it was clearly we saw that it was bankrupt. It was so obvious, but emotionally this generation doesn't see and experience that, so we need to communicate in a way that takes that into gran- in into consideration, but still speaks the truth. That's what I thought was so good about this piece. Anything else here, Scott?

Scott Rae: Well, yeah, I think it's a couple things. One is that you highlighted I think a really important point is that nobody in these generations that is moving toward more socialistic tendencies lived through the heyday of socialism in the '60s, '70s, and '80s.

Sean McDowell: Right.

Scott Rae: And you know, it didn't take much to look and see. I mean, I was in the '70s, and it was, it was this sad, depressing place where, you know, everybody they had, they had jobs, but there was chronic underemployment. And there were I mean, most people working on the, working their jobs, they weren't working at all, and they didn't have to in order to get paid. The other point is that the, we decry concentrated wealth, and there, I think there is, there is some issue with inequality when people lose hope. But I think we have to remember, Sean, that the people who have the concentrated wealth are the ones who create the vast majority of jobs in the country. And so, you know, let's be sure that we're not, you know, we're not, cutting off our nose to spite our face by

Scott Rae: harn- you know, harnessing the job creators that, are really the engine that drives our economic growth.

Sean McDowell: Well said. Good good balanced way to end that. All right, so this piece blew me away when I saw it, Scott. I was like, "All right, here's one of the next phases of artificial intelligence," and this was also in The New York Times. It says, "So you wanna build an AI star?" Well, there's creative studios now creating fake personas that they hope people will love. And so they describe in this article one company that does this, it's called Inception Point AI, creates these different AI personas, and there's entire biographies and worldviews and backstories that are 15 to 30 pages for each one, and then they come together as a group, vote on them, and then those who get voted become artificial intelligent agents. They join a cohort of more than 100 AI personas, each with its own market-friendly niche that could be deployed to host podcasts, star in YouTube videos, converse with followers, and in the company's loftiest vision, one day navigate the physical world in a robotic body. In a sense, the question is, are they creating the stars of tomorrow? So an AI actress recently appeared on the cover of The New York Times Magazine, someone named Zenia Monet, an AI R&B singer with tens of millions of streams on Spotify. Aitana Lopez, an AI fitness model, more than 400,000 Instagram followers. These things are cropping up. Now, what is fascinating here, there's so many angles to this, is a professor at Seton Hall said, in terms of AI influencers being used by companies for marketing, if it's more cost-effective way for business to get attention, clicks, and engagement, then that's what will be promoted. And obviously, rather than a human being having to read articles and respond and do the technology, they can create up-to-minute content that's far more work for you and I to produce. So basically, they envision swarms of autonomous personalities producing across media. Flood-the-zone podcast strategy has actually put out more than 5,000 active shows and posting thousands of predominantly AI episodes, AI-generated episodes per week. And all they need is 20 listeners to make it turn a profit from advertisement, 20 listeners. In addition, some brand, brands like Guess have fashion brands. Levi's, Mango, J.Crew have AI models to use as promotional images. Now this, here are some of the other conversations here. Most of the models they create are white and conform to conservative Western beauty ideals. The company's social media followers and many clients said they tend to prefer white bombshells with blue eyes, big lips and exaggerated curves. That offends some. And then the article says, somebody says, "I'm Latina, but Latinas don't perform as well, so we don't do Latinas. It's business. We just have to do what attracts." So they're asking the question in this article, are we creating a certain culture or are we reflecting what is already wanted and desired in culture itself? And that's a big question that people have asked for a while. More to it than this, but I would love to know what you think about this, Scott.

Scott Rae: Well, Sean, I think the first thing I thought of is is Talbot gonna replace us on this?

Sean McDowell: [laughs]

Scott Rae: [laughs] but I, you know, honestly, Sean, I, read this, I thought, I don't know, I don't know if I can comment on this objectively, and I should probably recuse myself from this since I have a son and a future daughter-in-law who are both actors. And one is actually a voiceover actor, which may be one of the easier things for AI to duplicate. In fact, he was asked, you know, a while ago on one of his jobs if he would license his voice to the company for future use. And he said, let's just say, he said, and gave them an emphatic no, to that. And so it may be that, you know, a tough, a tough road for my son and future daughter-in-law may have gotten a little bit tougher for them. Second thing is this I think is the, marks the triumph of image over reality. And, you know, I wonder if we've maybe hit a tipping point where we're no longer able to tell the fake from the real and where we actually prefer the fake over the real. Now of course, we've been able, we've been doctoring images for some time, but, you know, airbrushing of in the past now seems so out of date and just so quaint compared to what we can do from scratch and giving them, you know, the podcast that you, as you pointed out, only requires 20 listeners to make a profit. Now I think increasingly, you know, we may have to be more intentional about seeking out in real life experiences over digital ones. But Sean, what I find really interesting in this is this is such a contrast with this cultural trend toward people being their authentic selves, and yet we're about to flood the market. In fact, I thought we had already flooded the market with podcasts already, but we're about to flood the market with digital from scratch creations that are appealing to a culture that is screaming for authenticity and wanting people to be, their expressive, their authentic and expressive self. So I don't know quite what to do with that tension, but I'd be interested, be interested to talk to some of these folks who are being surveyed here and ask them how they navigate this, because there's this conflict between, you know, the world in which you're your authentic self and the digital world when you can become almost anybody you want to create yourself to be.

Sean McDowell: That's a really thoughtful point. I did not think about that, and I don't have an easy answer for you. There's a tension built into that, 'cause you're right, we live in such an expressive, individualistic moment. Be true to yourself. And we hear people say things like, "That may be true for you, but not true for me. Live your truth. Be authentic. Don't be fake." And this is flooding the market with fake things. My suspicion is that what is driving this is money and clicks and views. That's what's driving it from the top down. And so the ethic of being true to ourselves is deep, and our friend Carl Truman talks about this going back to the 1600s with philosophers and technology. That's embedded in our moment. But we also have this capitalistic, [laughs] you know, ethic that's obviously not bad within itself, but if I have a chance to turn a profit, and I can get 5,000 podcasts out there easily, it's a numbers game. And so I think when I ask the question, why would people do this? Well, this is more of a top-down thing than it is a bottom-up thing. Companies with resources, businesses that have money, you know, hence Levi's and J.Crew and these other companies, are trying to stay afloat and trying to compete with others, and at some point it becomes a numbers game. If I can put 5,000 podcasts out there and one or two of them take off, then I win. So I think that's the ethic that is driving this that is in tension with be true to yourself. But a few things came to my mind. In some ways, this whole thing reminds me of reincarnation. What I mean by this is I was reading about L. Ron Hubbard, who was the founder of Scientology, and he talked about being reincarnated, but he wasn't reincarnated as, I don't know, a rice farmer in Bangladesh in the 1600s. He was a this prince and that prince. Everyone who's reincarnated has this just dramatic, fantastic, incredible story, at least the stories that I've heard. Well, these AI personas are not normal people. They're all gonna be fascinating and interesting and, like, these kind of ideal figures that are almost like, you know, that commercial, the most interesting man in the world. Well, now there's not one most interesting man in the world. Now there's 5,000. So in some ways, if everybody's interesting, then nobody is interesting anymore. That's what hit me with this. And so it creates more of a feeling. Social media has done this because I post the... And I meaning, like, people who post on social media. Here's the great moments of my life. Here's the exciting things. Here's doctored me looking good. And I show 2% of my life, but nine- not 98% of the boring, regular life that we all live. Now there's flooded with thousands of these influencers who don't even have any boring parts of their lives. They're beautiful, and they're smart, and they're savvy, and they're funny. And it's, like, making it harder to just be a normal human being amidst this. So I think it's gonna have the effect of arguably of harming people. And, you know, you said something earlier. We can't distinguish truth from fiction. We might be at that point. And do we prefer fake over the real? I think there's something deeply embedded within us that wants the real. And what I mean by this is I can look at superheroes like, I mean, I love Spider-Man, and there's something about Spider-Man sacrificing himself. I'm like, "Yeah, that motivates me." We all love certain movies that are fictional, but they motivate us to courage or to sacrifice. But when you think about somebody who's real that did it, there's something different about that. It's like, wait a minute. This isn't just a story. This is a real human being. And this is a part of the Christian message. I mean, in 1 Corinthians 11:1, Paul invites and he says, "Be imitators of me as I am imitators of Christ." What separates Christ is not just that it's an amazing story, and you could invent this character like Jesus, but that Jesus lived and breathed and walked and suffered and was tempted just like us, yet died on the cross and resurrected. If that's not real, it guts the whole story. Paul was real. He really was shipwrecked. He really was beaten. He really was mocked, and he kept preaching the gospel. That gives us hope and encouragement that we too can do this as well, and you just can't get that from a fake AI persona that doesn't have any faults, that human people-- Jesus didn't have any faults, but we know that Paul did. So I'm not surprised by this. In some ways it makes perfect sense, but it concerns me even more that we're just elevating the fake and impossible standards. And last thing, even some of these they write in their bio that they're AI generated, but some of the posts that come out of this are not tagged that way. So I don't have any confidence that we're gonna see right away that everything is really AI versus real. Anything else in this one?

Scott Rae: No, I just want-- You mentioned the boring stuff of life, which is most of our lives. But that, Sean, that's the stuff that forms us.

Sean McDowell: That's right.

Scott Rae: That's the crucible in which we become more like Christ, the dailiness of life. And I you know, I fear that we're, you know, we may be losing the, you know, just our ability to cope with that by seeing all this stuff that, you know, the, these, you know, these, creations are not gonna, they're not gonna have flaws. They're not gonna have character things that need to be worked out. So I just, I hope, I hope that we are able just to appreciate that, you know, we are, we are formed in the way we are through that, through the just the ordinary day-to-day, as Chuck Swindoll put it, the dailiness of life is the stuff that forms us.

Sean McDowell: Well said. You know, I have one more comment about this, 'cause this article frames it in the way that these are like the new future stars that we follow. Well, stars in the past, it was very apparent that they had flaws, and there were enough failures that although there were still a whole lot of people that said, "I want fame, I want money, I wanna be beautiful," like that, there's natural warnings. Somebody like Robin Williams, if you think being funny and having money and having fame is gonna make you happy Sadly, his life is an example that testifies against that. We can think of so many stars that have lived immoral, broken lives that are a natural warning here. Were they gonna invent failures for these, [laughs] you know, AI stars? Of course not. I mean, it's just so bizarre, and it makes me think, here's one more thing. Not that I want any star to fail, that's not my point, but there's something biblical that just reminds us about our human frailty and what brings real happiness and meaning, and these stars are gonna exacerbate a false view, arguably, about what really does. All right, we've got some questions here, Scott, but before we do, just wanna remind our listeners, this comes from Talbot School of Theology, and we would love to have you study with us. Not an AI version of Scott, not an AI version of me. Flesh and blood, come study with us. Now, we can do it online, but we also have campuses in Phoenix, which is amazing, and we have campuses in Southern California. Philosophy, apologetics. You can jump in full-time or take one class at a time. Talbot is growing, and we'd love to train you to be effective in your life and family and ministry. All right, let's take three questions that came, and this first one, Scott, this one is good.

Scott Rae: It's a good one.

Sean McDowell: I really want your take on this. This says, "I'd love to hear your perspective on the morality of commercializing the human body. Is it okay to sell plasma? What about selling eggs or being a surrogate in the fertility industry? I've been considering whether these issues fall in the same bubble as prostitution, since you're profiting off your body, or if they would be permissible for the Christian." Scott, an easy one for you. Go.

Scott Rae: Well, I think there are lots of things that ought not to be for sale on the open market, and I think prostitution is one of them, and I think eggs, you know, selling of eggs and renting wombs is another one. Plasma, I'm not so, not so sure about that since it's a renewable resource. But here, my concern about this is twofold. One is the, one is the possibility that the sellers could be exploited. I think that, you know, the vast majority of people who are in prostitution would choose not to be there if it weren't for dire economic straits. And you know, women who are selling their eggs, most of the people who sell their eggs are starving college students who are at prime age to do that, and most of the people who are surrogates, who apply to be surrogates are people who are in so significant financial need. And the, what the purveyors of this don't realize is that this is a textbook definition of exploitation when you're using financial remuneration as an incentive to get people to do things that they would otherwise never consider doing. I mean, that's what it means to exploit someone. The other thing that troubles me about this is I don't like the idea of markets subsuming everything. There are some things that ought not to be for sale because they ought to be seen as gifts. I don't want markets to crowd out altruism, and I think this has the, this runs the risk of doing that. And so I would not encourage people to sell their eggs or be surrogates, especially because when women who sell their eggs, their health is not traced after they sell the eggs. So we really... The fertility industry says this is completely safe, but there's really no data available that bears that out because the client is not the woman selling their eggs. The client is the buyer of the eggs. And once you sell your eggs, once that harvest of eggs comes through and you don't have immediate complications, the clinic is done with you.

Sean McDowell: That's a good answer. I think if we start with prostitution and ask, why is it wrong to use the body this way? Paul in 1 Corinthians 6 talks about food for the stomach and the stomach for food. God will destroy them both. The body, however, is not meant for sexual immorality before the Lord, and the Lord for the body. He goes on to say, "By his power, God raised the Lord from the dead, and he will raise us. Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never." Prostitution is wrong 'cause we've been united with Christ, and God has a design sexually for the human body in marriage. One man, one woman, one flesh, one lifetime. Well, if we apply that to surrogacy, I would say now we're going outside of God's design that sex is between one man and one woman, and that the child is fertilized and develops inside that mother, and we're bringing a third party in. So it's not explicitly outlawed by scripture, but I would argue that it violates God's built-in design for sex and family and marriage. And as a result, we had stories this week, like a surrogate mother-

Scott Rae: Right

Sean McDowell: ... Whose child, was... So it was two couples. They hired a surrogate, and the surrogate had some kind of physical defect, and they wanted the mother to abort it. These issues come, and it's kind of built into the cake of surrogacy. Plasma, I'm not sure. I think my take before you shared this was I'm nervous about selling anything tied to the human body because of exploitation. But almost when you know, like when you get your driver's license, you can sign off, "Would I allow my body parts to be donated?" These are the kinds of things we should be given away from, we should give away, not benefit from financially. So I would have concerns with anything, in terms of financial remuneration, unless giving something away cost the person something of their body just so they could get back up [laughs] on their feet. And you could talk about that 'cause we did this [laughs] issue on your kidney.

Scott Rae: Yeah.

Sean McDowell: But I digress a little bit.

Scott Rae: I would, I wouldn't have had a problem if my brother had paid me five figures for my kidney.

Sean McDowell: There you go.

Scott Rae: [laughs]

Sean McDowell: All right. So money does talk.

Scott Rae: Just kidding, Mark. [laughs]

Sean McDowell: I love it. That's great. Good stuff. Okay, here's one specifically for you. It says, "I have two questions for Scott. During the episode with Adam Lloyd Johnson," which was on the book Debating God, or Debating God's Existence, "you mentioned you went to seminary in the '70s. Can you share one major cultural shift issue from the '70s that is no longer a major issue today, and can you share a major cultural issue today that you never could have imagined back in the 1970s?"

Scott Rae: Yeah. In the '70s, we were still debating about segregation and school busing- ... As a way to achieve, you know, racial justice. We don't, we don't talk about that much anymore. But, you know, and I'm, and I'm glad we don't, because everybody agrees that that kind of segregation was wrong and that the attempts, although the busing may not have been the best attempt to overcome that, trying to overcome that was a good thing. Cultural issue today that I could not have imagined back in the '70s, the resurgence of socialism.

Sean McDowell: Mm-mm.

Scott Rae: That would be the big one. The other one that was not... I mean, immigration, nobody talked about immigration in the '70s. And even though we had, you know, we had a, we had a few, and there was some cross-dressing that was public, but I think there was one sort of well-known sex change person, Renee Richards, the tennis player, in the '70s. Transgenderism really wasn't on the radar like it is today.

Sean McDowell: Mm-hmm. Good points. Good answer. I don't remember any from the '70s, 'cause I was born in '76 and don't really have a collective memory until the early '80s, but we'll let that go. Last, that question was for you. Last one was for me, and it says, "In response to the conversation with Grant Underwood," which was this past week, who is a retired BYU history professor, "one crucial difference I felt was not discussed was according to LDS theology, why does mankind need a savior? Why do they call Jesus their savior? What is our standing before God, and what did Jesus do that changed that? In a nutshell, how do Mormons get to heaven?" This individual is totally right. We did not get into that. There was a ton more differences we could have discussed. I would just say when the last part of the question is, how does a Mormon get to heaven, you gotta realize the LDS church has a very different conception of heaven. Scott, you and I think that the Bible teaches very clearly that there's two destinations. There's eternal life and there's forgiveness and there's condemnation. That's all the Bible teaches, from Daniel 12:2 through John chapter 3 through the teachings of Paul. Mormons, based on, I would argue, a misreading of 1 Corinthians 15 and their later testimony, have three levels of heaven, the telestial, terrestrial, and celestial kingdoms. Now, almost everybody except for what are called the sons of perdition, and there's some debate about this, but maybe former Mormons who intentionally reject their faith go to maybe a hell-type state. The vast majority of people, if you don't even believe in Jesus, will at least get into the telestial kingdom, the lowest one, which is a kind of heavenly state. The terrestrial kingdom in the middle is more for Mormons who didn't quite follow all the ordinances, and maybe people like you and I, Scott, who are faithful to the revelation we have but didn't follow the Mormon prescriptions would get into the second level. Then the highest level of heaven, the celestial kingdom, is where you have exaltation, where the church has historically taught that you can really evolve or progress to become God yourself. And that's not only through believing in Jesus, but through a range of different works they have, such as getting married in the temple, baptism, following different ordinances. So the, I I think that in the Mormon church, there's a different understanding of Jesus, different understanding of the gospel, different understanding of the nature of salvation and how we get salvation. That's the quickest take that I can get, I can give, but hopefully that's helpful. Scott, anything I missed, buddy?

Scott Rae: Nope. That's a good answer. Appreciate the detail on that.

Sean McDowell: All right, friends. This has been an episode of the podcast Think Biblically: Conversations on Faith and Culture, brought to you by Talbot School of Theology, Biola University. As I mentioned earlier, we have master's programs in person, which is in Phoenix or in Southern California, and online in theology, Bible, apologetics, spiritual formation. In fact, in apologetics, we actually do a full class on Mormonism over a weekend. To submit comments or ask questions, please email us at thinkbiblically@biola.edu. And would you please take a moment and give us a rating on your podcast app and consider sharing this with a friend? We'll see you Tuesday when I release part one of a two-part series with Joel Mudamali on Heiser's view of angels and demons. Buckle your seatbelt, friends. This is a fascinating deep dive of one of the more influential theologians over the past 10 to 15 years. I'm gonna do part two next Tuesday, and then we'll have a live Q&A if it interests you on YouTube if you wanna come back and discuss this even further. But in the meantime, remember to think biblically about everything. [upbeat music]