When I learned to drive on the highway, I was told to put the hood ornament on the white side-line. Later on as hood ornaments disappeared, I continued to place the passenger side at the white line near the side of the road, which allowed oncoming traffic plenty of room and on a multiple lane road, gives folks with a heavier foot plenty of room to pass. No problem, until now.
My wife’s newest car which she loves, I think I will call it Petunia, has computers and cameras all over it! It doesn’t like me or the way I was trained, and the relationship is a bit strained to say the least! If I drive the way I have since 19 and 77 on the highways in her car, and if I put the passenger tire near the side white line, Petunia beeps at me and demands that I take a coffee break!! I thought my proven method was part of defensive driving? But AI (artificial intelligence) has determined the car should be dead center between the lines, after all it as a truckload of data to support this decision, but very, very limited experience! And it doesn’t know country roads and drivers!
I bring this to the forefront because it is being legislated to be even worse! In 2021 a bill was introduced and although recently challenged is still coming to new vehicles in the near future. Federal mandate will require surveillance cameras monitoring driver alertness in new vehicles starting in 2027. Infrared sensors will track eye movement and prevent ignition if impairment is detected, and where this surveillance stops, nobody knows, or their not telling! But even now, my wife’s car turns off the cruise control and announces a warning if it can’t see my eyes or if I have been driving for a long distance! Take a coffee break!
AI is coming to roost!! AI Is also a problem with our faith and with iconography. Icons are incorrectly being reproduced cheaply and flooding the market. You need to trust the seller. An icon has to be rooted from the hand of a sinful person struggling with their salvation, who has the blessing of a bishop to practice this art. It therefore contains its origin from the heart. AI just can’t duplicate that!
Today’s Epistle ends with these wise instructions: “Therefore, I beseech you, keep on becoming imitators of me.” [1 Cor. 4:16] Whether we like it or not, we are slowly being groomed to trust more and more in AI. I am not 100% opposed to everything AI, but you must set a limit. AI is not formed by Christ! You are!! You must challenge the data center supplying you with information about your faith and instead look to the Holy fathers and their salvific teachings! We simply don’t need yet another translation!!
And in my crooked path in life along the white side-line, I too must not be distracted. The church has many disciplines that help us stay in between the lines and heading up the road towards salvation. I dare say that if we are not practicing these salvific disciplines, we are just not Orthodox! Our free-will and its coffee-breaks are taking our focus off of the road! We are distracted and the evil one has taken our eyes off the prize! How much screen time to we practice each day and yet have no time for our daily prayers? And then we fall into busying ourselves with work and friends and continually miss church, as we chase a dollar and the devil’s busyness, like a dog chasing a ball! Go FETCH!!
Maybe AI needs to regulate our time so our Orthodox priorities are met each day. It could shut off the phone and social media, and not allow us to drive past the church on our way to everything that we mistakenly place as a higher priority above worship.
Maybe it’s time again to instead take a coffee break and reassess our direction, our alertness and our time management, and put Christ back into our personal iconography, and tell ole Petunia: not today satan!
Fr. Gabriel Weller 9-9-2026
Comments will be approved before showing up.
