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Tim Keller Practiced the Grace He Preached – ChristianityToday.com

Hardly anyone could be more qualified than Timothy Keller to receive the Kuyper Prize for Excellence in Reformed Theology and Public Witness. It should have been the culmination of a remarkable career.

Keller applied Reformed theology to the heart of American culture while preaching at Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, which he planted in 1989 with his wife, Kathy. Kellers writing introduced Kuypers theology of vocationhis vision of God who claims every square inch of creation for his gloryto new generations of Christians around the world.

But the reaction from many Princeton Theological Seminary (PTS) students and alumni revealed just how much American culture had shifted since 1989 when Keller stepped down from the pulpit in 2017. Kellers views on womens ordination and homosexuality countered the prevailing norms at PTS and other mainline seminaries, not to mention the broader culture.

By this evolving standard, Abraham Kuyper wouldnt have been eligible for his own award. Under pressure from various advocacy groups, PTS leaders rescinded their decision to grant Keller the 2017 Kuyper Prize (which has since been hosted by Calvin College). The renowned pastor seemed poised to become yet another casualty in the ever-expanding culture wars.

Or not.

Keller did not receive the prize, but he agreed to give the lectures anyway. PTS did not want to reward him, but he still tolerated them. And for all the preceding protest, enthusiastic applause greeted Keller when he stepped to the podium on April 6, 2017. PTS president Craig Barnes got the message once again when he returned to dismiss the crowd.

I didnt attend the PTS lectures, but I understand the surprising affection for Keller.

As a teenage evangelical convert in the late 1990s, I knew my faith was not welcome in the halls of power, whether that was in the classrooms of an elite private school or in the offices of the US House of Representatives. I never expected my zeal for Christ would make me popular or famous or rich. I just wanted to be faithful to God and obedient to his Word no matter where he led. I wanted to share my faith without reserve, even among hostile crowds.

And in 2007, I found an exemplar who modeled how to do that in Americas most secular settings. Timothy Keller shared the gospel boldly in the idioms of his day, without demeaning or demanding anything but faith and trust in our faithful, trustworthy Savior.

When the tragedy of 9/11 gave way to a new and more virulent outbreak of the culture wars, Keller demonstrated a different way. As an associate editor for Christianity Today in 2007, I reported on the first public event of The Gospel Coalition (TGC), which Keller cofounded. My initial read of TGCs Theological Vision for Ministry, drafted by Keller, set forth an agenda I could follow as a young Christian coming of age in this contentious 21st century.

Keller centered me on the gospel of Jesus, which fills Christians with humility and hope, meekness and boldness, in a unique way. The biblical gospel isnt like traditional religion, which demands obedience for acceptance, or like secularism, which weve seen make American culture more selfish and individualistic.

The gospel, Keller taught with a nod to his late friend Jack Miller, says, We are more sinful and flawed than we ever dared believe, yet more loved and accepted in Jesus than we ever dared hope.

Steady amid hostility

Rare among preachers, Keller could engage the heart as much as the head. His books introduced me to social critics whose writing I could barely comprehend. But somehow, Kellers books also struck me as profoundly simple in their consistent emphasis on the gospel of grace.

You can see this dynamic at work in his PTS address, which engaged with Lesslie Newbigins 1984 Warfield lectures at PTS. In these lectures, which became the 1986 bookFoolishness to the Greeks: The Gospel and Western Culture, Newbigin argued for a missionary encounter with Western culture, which had become post-Christian. I dont know many Christian leaders who can simultaneously claim the heritage of Abraham Kuyper, famed Old Princeton theologian B. B. Warfield, and missiologist Lesslie Newbigin.

But that was Kellers gift. Its no clichhe never stopped learning or growing. In my book, Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation, I describe his intellectual and spiritual development as rings on a tree.

Keller retained the gospel core he learned from mid-century British evangelicals such as J. I. Packer, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and John Stott. He grew to incorporate such varied writers as Charles Taylor, Herman Bavinck, N. T. Wright, and Alasdair MacIntyre. And he somehow synthesized them with Kuyper, Warfield, Newbigin, and dozens more in the middle.

Kellers final task, the great unfinished project he left to us, was charting a course for mission in the 21st-century West that bore scant resemblance to the middle-class context in Allentown, Pennsylvania, where he grew up in the 1950s.

Keller didnt even believe his own successful ministry in New York would offer much guidance for the generations that would succeed him. Keller followed Newbigin, who identified the post-Christian West as the most resistant, challenging missionary frontier of all time.

None of the traditional Christian reactions to culture would suffice as the basis for an effective missionary program under these contemporary conditions. If anything, these responses could only warn Christians of what not to do. Christians must not withdraw like the Amish, pursue political takeover like the Religious Right, or assimilate like the mainline Protestants.

Keller matched these categories to his friend James Davison Hunters workTo Change the World: Defensive Against (Religious Right), Relevance To (mainline), and Purity From (Amish). Hunter proposed faithful presence within as a more promising alternative, which Keller adopted as his own perspective in Center Church.

As many American Christians began to shift their social and political tactics in 2016, Keller came under increased criticism and scrutiny from fellow evangelicals. But anyone who followed his work over the decades could see that he was not the one who had changed.

Keller did not court such opposition. Anyone working with him could attest to his extreme aversion to conflict. In all our personal conversations, I cannot recall hearing a single critical comment from him directed toward a fellow believer.

His steadiness under this growing hostility gave courage and comfort to younger leaders who became disillusioned by the fall of so many of our former heroes. Even I worried about uncovering unflattering secrets when I began writing his biography. Instead, talking to dozens of Kellers close friends and family members who knew him from childhood only confirmed my personal experience of him.

But growing closer to Keller didnt lead me to idolize him. It simply allowed me to witness 2 Corinthians 4:7 in action, a flawed vessel carrying the most valuable treasurenothing less than the surpassing power of God.

Love the local church

Keller may have demurred at his ability to anticipate new challenges for the late-modern West. But he still laid out an agenda that could radically reshape evangelicals prioritiesif only they would turn off the cable news and listen. Kellers PTS lectures proposed seven steps for a missionary encounter in the post-Christian West.

First, he called for public apologetics in the vein of Augustines City of God. For this, readers could start with Kellers Making Sense of God, one of his overlooked classics. Second, he proposed a third way between the mainline concern for social problems and the evangelical concern for spiritual problems: Justification must lead to justice. Third, he challenged Christians to critique secularism from within its own framework, not from an outward construct. Borrowing from Daniel Strange, Keller called this process subversive fulfillment.

Fourth, as Keller had insisted so many times before, he encouraged laity to integrate their faith with their work. Non-Christians must see the difference faith makes in day-to-day living. Fifth, he encouraged Americans to learn from the global church. Keller admitted in his 2017 PTS lecture that conservative evangelicals in the United States put too much faith in their own methodology and struggle to see the kingdom of God apart from American national interest.

Sixth, Keller highlighted the difference between grace and religion. As Richard Lovelace showed Keller in his first class at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1972, missionary encounters that produce social change depend on grace, not on the rules of religion. Only grace brings spiritual transformation. Apart from the Spirit of God, were helpless to effect lasting change in our fallen world.

Keller would have excelled as a professor if hed stayed at Westminster Theological Seminary instead of moving to New York with his young family and planting Redeemer. He made enough money on his books and speaking that he would never have run out of venues inviting him to pontificate. But God called Keller to pastoral ministry, and that is what so often set him apart.

Even when Keller chastised evangelicals, he spoke and wrote as a pastor with love for his flock. Kellers only mentor, Edmund Clowney, helped him to love the local church, warts and all. As easily as Keller quoted obscure academics or New York Times columnists, he aimed to build up the local church. And in the explosive early growth of Redeemer church, and again in the dark days after 9/11, Keller witnessed the Spirit moving in unexpected and powerful ways.

Seventh, and lastly, Keller left American evangelicals with a vision for Christian community that disrupts the social categories of our culture. These thriving communities lend credibility to the transformative power of the gospel.

Keller cited the work of Larry Hurtado in Destroyer of the gods: Early Christian Distinctiveness in the Roman World. In this incisive study, Hurtado showed how the persecuted early church wasnt just offensive to Jews and Greeks. It was also attractive. The first Christians opposed abortion and infanticide by adopting children. They did not retaliate but instead forgave. They cared for the poor and marginalized. Their strict sexual ethic protected and empowered women and children.

Christianity brought together hostile nations and ethnic groups. Jesus broke apart the connection between religion and ethnicity when he revealed a God for every tribe, tongue, and nation. Allegiance to Jesus trumped geography, nationality, and ethnicity in the church. As a result, Christians gained perspective so they could critique any culture. And they learned to listen to the critiques from fellow Christians embedded in different cultures.

Instead of delivering this lecture at PTS, Keller could have challenged the administration and canceled his talk. This would have gained greater attention and support from his fellow conservative evangelicals. He could likely have raised more money for his ministry too. But Keller put his teaching into practice. He had told Christians for years that the gospel offers a distinct alternative to the intolerance of secularism and the tribalism of religion.

I dont yet see widespread evidence that evangelicals have taken Kellers advice or followed his example. Intolerance has been met with intolerance, hostility with more hostility.

But I suspect, if the Holy Spirit blesses us with another awakening, our churches will look more like what Keller envisionedwhere grace will once more find a way through the tangles of religion and secularism.

Collin Hansen serves as the vice president of content and editor in chief of The Gospel Coalition and is the author of Timothy Keller: His Spiritual and Intellectual Formation.

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Disney scraps plans for new $1 billion Florida campus amid fight … – The Associated Press

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. (AP) The Walt Disney Co. announced Thursday that it was scrapping plans to build a new campus in central Florida and relocate 2,000 employees from Southern California to work in digital technology, finance and product development.

The decision follows a year of attacks from Gov. Ron DeSantis and the Legislature because the company opposed a state law that bans classroom lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades. Disney filed a First Amendment lawsuit against DeSantis and other officials last month.

More on Disney and Florida

Disney had planned to build the campus about 20 miles (30 kilometers) from the giant Walt Disney World theme park resort, but Josh DAmaro, chairman of the parks, experiences and products division, said in a memo to employees that new leadership and changing business conditions prompted the company to abandon those plans.

I remain optimistic about the direction of our Walt Disney World business, DAmaro said. We have plans to invest $17 billion and create 13,000 jobs over the next ten years. I hope were able to do so.

Disney and DeSantis have been engaged in a tug-of-war for more than a year that has engulfed the GOP governor in criticism as he prepares to launch an expected presidential bid in the coming weeks.

DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern said the state had been unsure whether the new Disney campus would come to fruition since it was announced nearly two years ago.

Given the companys financial straits, falling market cap and declining stock price, it is unsurprising that they would restructure their business operations and cancel unsuccessful ventures, Redfern said.

Florida Sen. Joe Gruters, a former chairman of the state Republican Party, called Disneys decision a huge loss.

I hope we can put this conflict behind us and get back to a more normal working relationship with a company thats been one of our best business and tourism partners that weve had over the last 50 years, Gruters said. Two thousand jobs and a billion dollars worth of investments into our state, I would say thats a serious blow. The market is much better at dealing with companies rather than heavy-handed government.

Democratic Rep. Anna Eskamani, who represents the Orlando area in the Florida House, released a statement blaming the governor for the lost jobs.

Governor Ron DeSantis is a job killing moron who cares more about his own political ambitions and culture wars than Florida and our future, Eskamani said. According to him, woke makes you go broke but this is another example of how its actually the complete opposite. DeSantis is not who you want for President ever.

The feud started after Disney, in the face of significant pressure, publicly opposed the state concerning lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in early grades that critics called Dont Say Gay.

As punishment, DeSantis took over Disney Worlds self-governing district through legislation passed by lawmakers and appointed a new board of supervisors. Before the new board came in, the company signed agreements with the old board stripping the new supervisors of design and construction authority.

In response, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature passed legislation allowing the DeSantis-appointed board to repeal those agreements and made the theme park resorts monorail system subject to state inspection, when it previously had been done in-house.

Disneys suit against DeSantis alleges the governor waged a targeted campaign of government retaliation. It asks a federal judge to void the takeover of the theme park district, as well as the DeSantis oversight boards actions, on the grounds that they were violations of the companys free speech rights.

The creation of Disneys self-governing district by the Florida Legislature was instrumental in the companys decision in the 1960s to build near Orlando. Disney told the state at the time that it planned to build a futuristic city that would include a transit system and urban planning innovations, so the company needed autonomy. The futuristic city never materialized, however, and instead morphed into a second theme park that opened in 1982.

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From Jeter to Giannis, failure is a matter of perspective – ESPN – ESPN

Howard BryantESPN Senior WriterMay 19, 2023, 07:50 AM ET7 Minute Read

Twenty-one and a half years ago, one of the greatest baseball games ended one of the greatest World Series ever played. There was, in the cacophony of the moment, so much to process with virtually no time to do so. The 2001 New York Yankees had lost the World Series in the bottom of the ninth inning, missing the chance to win a fourth straight World Series and conclude a dynasty with a championship. The Arizona Diamondbacks, in only their fourth year of existence, had done something the Boston Red Sox hadn't done since 1918, the White Sox since 1917 and the Cubs since 1908. They were champions, and needed just 48 months to do it.

How to encapsulate it all? The valiant Yankees, who probably deserved to be swept, mercilessly or gentlemanly, extended the series to seven games hitting .183 by producing magic, and then producing it again with soul-sucking (or dynasty-affirming, if you're from the 917, 212 or 718 area codes), late-game home runs in Games 4 and 5. Curt Schilling or Randy Johnson, when starters still mattered, won all four games for Arizona. Yankees reliever Mariano Rivera proved human in Game 7. And then there was America, wounded, mourning, vulnerable, briefly unsure if it wanted a hug or revenge (it would emphatically choose the latter) in the numbing, ashen haze of 9/11. The athletes had given so much that the actual winner of that Series remains to this day secondary to the gift of its existence.

In the clubhouse postgame, the defeated Yankees captain Derek Jeter encapsulated it all his way, by repeating the mantra he first used in 1997, and would repeat in each of the following years until 2009 -- and for five more years when he retired. "If we don't win the World Series," Jeter said, "the season's a failure."

Two decades later, Jeter's alpha found itself challenged in the form of Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo, who responded to a reporter's question of whether he felt the Bucks' season was a failure after top-seeded Milwaukee crashed out of the playoffs in the first round in a five-game stunner to the Miami Heat, an eight-seed that had to win two play-in games just to qualify for the postseason.

"Michael Jordan played 15 years, won six championships. The other nine years was a failure? That's what you're telling me? I'm asking you a question, yes or no?" Antetokounmpo said. "... It's the wrong question. There's no failure in sports. There're good days, bad days. Some days you are able to be successful, some days you are not. Some days it is your turn, some days it's not your turn. And that's what sports is about. You don't always win."

As much as the last decade has been defined by protests and pandemics, it also has seen a shift in the perception of the athlete's mission, from complete victory to philosophy. In taking control of the profession by countering prevailing attitudes -- many self-introduced -- the professional athlete can be General Patton or the Dalai Lama. The considerations of mental health, work-life balance, political world view and labor relations have provided ample grist for the culture wars that undergird the anger over players having the agency (read: financial freedom) to reshape their working conditions. The response to Antetokounmpo has been to view his philosophy as strength, where that sort of response once was viewed by some as weakness. Male players once ridiculed and culturally ostracized by fans, teammates and their own front offices for even thinking about family during the season, now take paternity leaves -- even during the playoffs, as Boston Celtics guard Derrick White did last year during the Eastern Conference finals. From Serena Williams to Naomi Osaka to Angelique Kerber, female athletes are having children without announcing their retirements. Some players in individual sports are taking time away from the sport and then returning at their pace. Simone Biles lost her way athletically, and a generally compassionate sports public has given her all the time she needs to rediscover it.

Sports has always existed in the world of the "winner/loser, hero/goat, do/die" binary. The absolutism has been just as essential to the framework of creating the athlete colossus as militaristic cliches are to raising the stakes of this battle fantasy. It stokes the mythology, gives it the requisite dramatic components, allows us to separate the poor from the exceptional and the exceptional from the legendary. The players who embrace the binary ally themselves with fans in the suggestion that they care as much about winning as the ticket buyers. It buys them the currency of protection.

There's no tomorrow because sports have mastered the illusion of appearing deathly important -- and yet, of course there is always a tomorrow -- and people like Giannis are dousing that part of the fantasy. The Jeter position always felt like an unrealistic pander to the ridiculousness that is the overwrought and unrealistic expectation by Yankees fans, for only one team wins the final game of the season. The wonders and discoveries of a season cannot be negated by not winning a championship. By these metrics, the team that doubles its win total from the season before is a failure, as is the team that makes the playoffs for the first time in 25 years, as is the team that started the season losing its first 10 games but finished 10 games over .500, as is the team that discovered it had a future Hall of Famer on its roster. Thirty teams, 29 failures.

And yet, Giannis is only partially correct. Under no circumstances is he ever a failure in life, comparing his Greek-Nigerian upbringing and the prospects for him as a child against the life he now lives. There is not a day in his life, from now until the end, when he is not a winner.

All of which is a different dynamic from the obvious: The Boston Bruins won more games in a regular season (65) than any team in the storied history of the National Hockey League. They had an unprecedented season in their home building, losing only seven times, four in regulation. They amassed more points than any team in history, and like the Bucks, lost in the first round of the postseason. The Bruins were the No. 1 overall seed heading into the Stanley Cup playoffs. They lost three games at home to the Florida Panthers. They lost a 3-1 lead in games. In a Game 5 home elimination game, the Bruins never led. In a Game 6 elimination game, they lost two third-period leads and eventually the game. In the Game 7 clincher at home, the Bruins led with 60 seconds left in the game -- and lost in overtime.

Was the Bruins' regular season a failure? Of course not, but nor was it a coin toss where sometimes you win, sometimes you lose, sometimes it rains. The way the hockey season ended in Boston was a colossal disappointment.

Milwaukee was the top seed, won 16 straight games at one point this season and had plans to avenge last season, when it felt injuries robbed it of the chance to defend its NBA title. The Bucks lost in five games to the Miami Heat, including consecutive games with double-digit fourth-quarter leads. There's no philosophy in this: It was a collapse, and for it, Milwaukee coach Mike Budenholzer got fired.

If the fear is that Antetokounmpo's ability to put his life in the proper perspective will undermine the gladiatorial fantasy and its accompanying clichs of warriors, intestinal fortitudes, clutch genes and all the other rhetorical nonsense sports relies upon so desperately, then it is a fear that will be largely unfounded for two primary reasons. First, for every Giannis, there remains a Jeter -- and an enormous, enraged subsection of the fanbase that is never in the mood after crashing out of the playoffs for metaphysical analysis. Second, although Giannis might have been measured in how he spoke of his season ending, he emerged with even more respect because, for all of his mature perspectives, there was nothing in his play charging him with an athlete's greatest crime: playing as if he doesn't care. He simply recognized publicly and without clich, that losing is an inevitability that cannot and should not reduce a six-month journey into meaninglessness, even if -- as seen in Milwaukee and Boston -- there was so far to fall.

There is also a third reason, and it goes back to that November night in 2001: The final score is rarely the most comprehensive measure of victory. Ask anyone who lived through those weeks and months when something as ephemeral as hitting a ball with a stick contained the restorative power to motivate some people to get up in the morning. Failure because the Yankees lost a game was the last thing on anyone's mind.

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Cannes Diary: Will Artificial Intelligence Democratize Creativity or Lead to Certain Doom? – Hollywood Reporter

AI startup Respeecher re-created James Earl Jones Darth Vader voice for the Disney+ series Obi Wan Kenobi.

On May 17, as bodies lined up in the rain outside the Cannes Film Festival Palais for the chance to watch a short film directed byPedro Almodvar, an auteur known most of all for his humanism, a different kind of gathering was underway below the theater. Inside the March, a panel of technologists convened to tell an audience of film professionals how they might deploy artificial intelligence for creating scripts, characters, videos, voices and graphics.

The ideas discussed at the Cannes Next panel AI Apocalypse or Revolution? Rethinking Creativity, Content and Cinema in the Age of Artificial Intelligence make the scene of the Almodvar crowd seem almost poignant, like seeing a species blissfully ignorant of their own coming extinction, dinosaurs contentedly chewing on their dinners 10 minutes before the asteroid hits.

The only people who should be afraid are the ones who arent going to use these tools, said panelistAnder Saar, a futurist and strategy consultant for Red Bull Media House, the media arm of the parent company of Red Bull energy drinks. Fifty to 70 percent of a film budget goes to labor. If we can make that more efficient, we can do much bigger films at bigger budgets, or do more films.

The panel also includedHovhannes Avoyan, the CEO of Picsart, an image-editing developer powered by AI, andAnna Bulakh, head of ethics and partnerships at Respeecher, an AI startup that makes technology that allows one person to speak using the voice of another person. The audience of about 150 people was full of AI early adopters through a show of hands, about 75 percent said they had an account for ChatGPT, the AI language processing tool.

The panelists had more technologies for them to try. Bulakhs company re-createdJames Earl Jones Darth Vader voice as it sounded in 1977 for the 2022 Disney+ seriesObi-Wan Kenobi, andVince Lombardis voice for a 2021 NFL ad that aired during the Super Bowl. Bulakh drew a distinction between Respeechers work and AI that is created to manipulate, otherwise known as deepfakes. We dont allow you to re-create someones voice without permission, and we as a company are pushing for this as a best practice worldwide, Bulakh said. She also spoke about how productions already use Respeechers tools as a form of insurance when actors cant use their voices, and about how actors could potentially grow their revenue streams using AI.

Avoyan said he created his company for his daughter, an artist, and his intention is, he said, democratizing creativity. Its a tool, he said. Dont be afraid. It will help you in your job.

The optimistic conversation unfolding beside the French Riviera felt light years away from the WGA strike taking place in Hollywood, in which writers and studios are at odds over the use of AI, with studios considering such ideas as having human writers punch up drafts of AI-generated scripts, or using AI to create new scripts based on a writers previous work. During contract negotiations, the AMPTP refused union requests for protection from AI use, offering instead, annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology. The March talk also felt far from the warnings of a growing chorus of experts likeEric Horvitz, chief scientific officer at Microsoft, and AI pioneerGeoffrey Hinton, who resigned from his job at Google this month in order to speak freely about AIs risks, which he says include the potential for deliberate misuse, mass unemployment and human extinction.

Are these kinds of worries just moral panic? mused the moderator and head of Cannes NextSten Kristian-Saluveer. That seemed to be the panelists view. Saar dismissed the concerns, comparing the changes AI will bring to adaptations brought by the automobile or the calculator. When calculators came, it didnt mean we dont know how to do math, he said.

One of the panel buzz phrases was hyper-personalized IP, meaning that well all create our own individual entertainment using AI tools. Saar shared a video from a company he is advising, in which a childs drawings came to life and surrounded her on video screens. The characters in the future will be created by the kids themselves, he says. Avoyan said the line between creator and audience will narrow in such a way that we will all just be making our own movies. You dont even need a distribution house, he said.

A German producer and self-described AI enthusiast in the audience said, If the cost of the means of production goes to zero, the amount of produced material is going up exponentially. We all still only have 24 hours. Who or what, the producer wanted to know, would be the gatekeepers for content in this new era? Well, the algorithm, of course. A lot of creators are blaming the algorithm for not getting views, saying the algorithm is burying my video, Saar said. The reality is most of the content is just not good and doesnt deserve an audience.

What wasnt discussed at the panel was what might be lost in a future that looks like this. Will a generation raised on watching videos created from their own drawings, or from an algorithms determination of what kinds of images they will like, take a chance on discovering something new? Will they line up in the rain with people from all over the world to watch a movie made by someone else?

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Cannes Diary: Will Artificial Intelligence Democratize Creativity or Lead to Certain Doom? - Hollywood Reporter

Schools ‘bewildered’ by very fast rate of change in AI education … – The Irish News

Schools are bewildered by the rate of change in artificial intelligence (AI) and believe it is moving far too quickly for government alone to provide the advice that is needed, leading head teachers have warned.

Their comments come after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said guardrails are to be put in place to maximise the benefits of AI while minimising the risks to society.

Mr Sunak said the UKs regulation must evolve alongside the rapid advance of AI, with threats including to jobs and disinformation.

A letter to The Times, signed by more than 60 education figures, says: Schools are bewildered by the very fast rate of change in AI, and seek secure guidance and counsel on the best way forward. But whose advice can we trust?

We have no confidence that the large digital companies will be capable of regulating themselves in the interests of students, staff and schools.

Neither in the past has government shown itself capable or willing to do so.

The heads said they are pleased that the Government is now grasping the nettle but added: The truth is that AI is moving far too quickly for government or Parliament alone to provide the real-time advice that schools need.

We are announcing today our own cross-sector body composed of leading teachers in our schools, guided by a panel of independent digital and AI experts, to advise schools on which AI developments are likely to be beneficial, and which are damaging.

According to The Times, the heads, led by Sir Anthony Seldon, the headteacher of Epsom College, said schools must collaborate to ensure that AI works in their best interests and that of pupils, not of large education technology companies.

Mr Sunak has advocated the technologys benefits for national security and the economy, but growing concerns have been raised with the prominence of the ChatGPT bot which has passed exams and can compose prose.

Former government chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance has said AI could have an impact on jobs comparable with the industrial revolution.

Earlier this month Geoffrey Hinton, the man widely seen as the godfather of AI, warned that some of the dangers of AI chatbots are quite scary, as he quit his job at Google.

Last week one of the pioneers of AI warned the Government is not safeguarding against the dangers posed by future super-intelligent machines.

Professor Stuart Russell told The Times ministers were favouring a light touch on the burgeoning AI industry, despite warnings from civil servants it could create an existential threat.

He told The Times a system similar to ChatGPT could form part of a super-intelligence machine which could not be controlled.

How do you maintain power over entities more powerful than you forever? he asked. If you dont have an answer, then stop doing the research. Its as simple as that.

The stakes couldnt be higher: if we dont control our own civilisation, we have no say in whether we continue to exist.

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Schools 'bewildered' by very fast rate of change in AI education ... - The Irish News