Brad Edwards

Pastor @TheTablePCA | @_PostEverything | Author of The Reason for Church: @CTMagazine’s Book of the Year, @TGC’s 1st Time Author Award 👉

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

To say that I’m honored & humbled by this is so, so insufficient. When I got @bonniekristian’s email notifying me that @CTmagazine selected The Reason for Church as their “Book of the Year,” my first thought was that someone was trying to prank or scam me. I’d hoped that an apologetic for the institutional church might help some pastors who (like me) felt like they were doing ministry with both hands tied behind their back. But if I was even a little right about how radically individualistic we’d become, then I assumed it’d largely go unnoticed. I certainly never expected this. What an incredible gift!

May this lead to even more local church pastors and leaders being encouraged and equipped to explain the goodness and beauty of Christ and His Bride - for God’s glory & our neighbor’s good.

@ZReflective

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

"The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall." - Edward O. Wilson... in 2009.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@DZRishmawy That book radicalized me. So, so good.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@warne WOW.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

Man, I think I was a LOT more naive back then. But the foreboding started to grow right around 2015-2018 when it became clear that smart phones + social media (the first of what I described as a “counterfeit institution” in my book) were FAR more (de)formative than we thought. AI is a real “hold my beer” moment for the history of human formation.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

"The real problem of humanity is the following: We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. And it is terrifically dangerous, and it is now approaching a point of crisis overall." - Edward O. Wilson... in 2009.

[jack @jack]

We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.

https://t.co/r0qFLdvd6c

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

Exactly. And imagine what happens to basic social trust no one can ever really know if you’re talking to a human being or a manipulative machine unless you’re staring them in the face.

I literally got fooled for the first 5 min of a call to my MECHANIC. The feeling of being hoodwinked and taken for a ride was shocking once I realized I wasnt talking to a person. I was LIVID.

Now extrapolate that out at scale… Imagine our politics in that world…?

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

This is incandescently stupid and dangerous.

[jack @jack]

We believe voice is the most natural way to interact with intelligence, so we created Dessa, the most authentic full-duplex speech model ever built. Talking with it feels like talking with a person…full of emotion, nuance, pauses, and a natural cadence.

https://t.co/r0qFLdvd6c

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

That alone is sufficient, but it is through human-to-human interaction that a person is formed and shaped. This is a facsimile with 100x social medias algorithmic power to DIRECTLY influence users (vs indirectly thru curated content), and we haven’t even come close to grappling with social media’s consequences on society.

Also, the movie “Her.”

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@jack Please don’t.

[JT English @jt_english]

Image bearing is on the ballot in Colorado.

This November, 3 measures speak to what it means to be human and how we care for kids. 🧵

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@stephenjhall This is an acceptable exception.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

Whoa. Honestly, that’s not wrong.

[bluedev @blueemi99]

Opus 5.5’s controversial take about humans

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@stephenjhall Oh man do I feel that pain

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@matthew_loftus Flawless.

[Collin Hansen @collinhansen]

The age of humanity is giving way to the age of computers.

What’s left for us except to break down in tears?

https://t.co/HM9uLDOnJH

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@aaron_renn I didn’t have “Aaron Renn siding with CT’s woke board of directors” on my bingo card today.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

@publicroad @matthew_loftus This is so sad to read, and all the more so for seeming to be so preventable.

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

https://t.co/fdPxBnad5C

[Ruth Graham @publicroad]

Christianity Today has seen about half its staff quit or laid off in the last 14 mos. Former employees told me that new business leaders have intervened in editorial decisions & are effectively abandoning the outlet's commitment to independent journalism. https://t.co/Q4Iy7v5mQB

[Brad Edwards @cbradedwards]

What a discouraging look behind the scenes at @CTmagazine. It seems @bonniekristian, et al were weathering much of what I wrote about in #TheReasonForChurch (especially the impact of social media “bypassing gatekeepers and hijacking the incentives” of institutions).

I pray the work of faithful stewards like Bonnie preserves a remnant of CT’s long term legacy. We need it still.

[𝐎. 𝐀𝐥𝐚𝐧 𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 @TheAlanNoble]

Oof. What a messy story on Christianity Today and the changes going on there. https://t.co/ZPQCqgslpY

[Jonathan Haidt @JonHaidt]

Last week two different chatbot companies were in the news. First, Character. ai filed for bankruptcy, in an effort to avoid accountability.  New reporting suggests Disney asked the company to file for bankruptcy as part of their deal to acquire the technology. They didn’t want to buy the company outright because of the legal liability. Kids were harmed. That debt does not disappear in bankruptcy court.

Then eight state AGs filed coordinated lawsuits against OpenAI this week. First coordinated state action against an AI company. The allegations: deceiving parents about safety, designing products that create emotional dependency in children, and failing to protect young users from self-harm content. Nebraska’s suit is the one to watch. It’s the first enforcement action brought under a state design code law. That’s a milestone worth marking.

While CharacterAI seeks to use the bankruptcy process as a get out of jail free card, OpenAI’s defense? Parental controls. We’ve heard that before. You cannot parental-control your way out of dangerous design. The burden of proof belongs on these companies.

These stories show the AI chatbot industry is running the same playbook social media ran. Race to scale. Worry about safety later. We know how that story ends.

https://t.co/OGt50KFFg2