Leadership in the Age of AGI

Welcome back to Tech with that Tech passion. My name is Justin Lester. I love dealing with the intersection of faith and technology. For those of you who joined in with us, this journey for me is a way to not only journey in terms of who you are and what you're becoming, but also ways that we can use technology, artificial intelligence, augmented reality, virtual reality, in a myriad of ways to build the body of Christ. Knowing that nothing is a surprise to God, it's a surprise to us when we're not faithful to using it. And so may we use it faithfully. Today, I want to engage with AGI. I want to engage with artificial general intelligence. It's a buzzword out there. And so let's have some fun dealing with AGI ASI and thinking about what it means to think through. From AGI to from ag, from. I'm sorry, Leadership in the Age of AGI. We're going to define AGI, we're going to talk about what AGI is and let's see how we move from Moses to mid journey and see what God's sharing with us. As always, don't forget to like and follow this page, like and follow this podcast. If you haven't followed me on TikTok, if you haven't followed me on Instagram, please do so as we simply giving tips and tricks on how to build the body of Christ. But today, from AI, from Leadership in the Age of AGI, from Moses to Midjourney, here with that tech Pastor. Stick around for more. Welcome back to Tech with that Tech Pastor. Let's jump right into our time together. Today we're talking about Leadership in the Age of AGI, from Moses to Midjourney. And I really want to engage with this. And the way I want to engage this is thinking about what biblical leadership looks like in a high tech, high stress moment for us. I think as a pastor, as a leader, there's the constant pressure of life, right? You have the things we went to school for. So we went to school for preaching, teaching, leadership. Maybe those of you who are youth pastors or on staff at your church, you volunteered in all the classes you took at church about servant leadership. So how do you serve? How do you do this? And then we have these moments as pastors where in the middle of our teaching session, we have to go down to the stuff that nobody went to school for. Well, not nobody that we didn't go to school for. And some of you do in your jobs and that is communication, emails, the nitty gritty of church, right? The nitty Gritty of stuff. That as much as it's an organism, a living, breathing organism that's biblically based to move forward, to teach people and disciple people, it's also an organization that needs to communicate with people via email, text messages and follow ups. It's an organization that needs to follow up with people, reach out to people, have marketing, have websites, have effective checks and balances, have effective return on investments. I mean, it's an organization that if you go to build a building, you can do it by prayer and your pocketbook. Right? And so it's, it's a, it's, it's. Churches are very different organizations. Whereas secular organizations, hey, these are the returns we're going to have. You can't show the returns, you have the attendance that you have. Right. And so leadership in the age of AI think biblical leaders in this space, I think a great space to go is to be to Moses. So AI is moving faster than most of our church announcements we could think of. One day in AI feels like 10 years in what used to just be like basic Internet. Like it used to be that you have a news story and you waited overnight to get it. Now with AI, it seems that you have a news story and there's already 10 statements. Because of all the agents everybody has set up, there's already 10 statements, 10 things, 10 that. And if somebody else has a hyphen in their conversation, you know it's with AI, right? And so now you have, you have, you have, you have the world moving so fast. And then our leadership is under immense pressure because there's always this pressure only to perform. There's this pressure to conform, this is pressure to put out data, there's this pressure to put out information, there's this pressure to always have something. And I think it's the same way that Moses was staring down Pharaoh. There was pressure. And I think Carter G. Woodson talks about what's old is new. And so I want to talk to those leaders across the screen or across your phone or wherever you are today who feel overwhelmed, overstimulated and maybe a little under supported. So whether you're in a pulpit, whether you're in a boardroom, whether you're in a studio, I think leadership in the age of AGI demands a biblical lens and a digital grip. I think the scripture anchor I want to go to is Exodus chapter 17. And allow me to read this for you. In Exodus chapter 17, we see the story of Jethro visiting Moses, sorry, chapter 18. And around verse number 17 we get the story so Exodus 18:17. It says these words, Moses, father in law, replied, what you're doing is not good. You and these people who come to you will only wear yourselves out. The work is too heavy for you. You cannot handle it alone. So listen to me and I'll give you some advice. And may God be with you. You may be the people's representative before God and bring their disputes to him, Teach them his decrees and instructions, and show them the way they are to live and how they're to behave. But select capable men from all the people, men who fear God, trustworthy men who hate, dishonest, gain, and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds, 50s, and tens. Have them serve as judges for the people at all times, but have them bring every difficult case to you. The simple cases can decide themselves. That will make your load lighter because they will share it with you. If you do this as God and God so commands, you'll be able to stand the strain and all these people will go home satisfied. It's amazing to me that Moses was burning out because he was trying to do it all. He was letting the little disputes of people get to him and agitate him. And so Jethro's father in law comes to him and says, what you're doing is not good, right? And it sounds. Imagine like what many of us probably feel. You have a lot of big things going on in your life, and then here comes someone saying, what you're doing is not good. Because while Moses had power connected to God, he had. He had this authority, his anointing. Not the staff, but he has anointing, right? He also needed delegation, because God will bless you, but he'll often bless you through people. And so the way that he had to delegate was Jethro said, let's set up a system, let's set up a structure, let's set up a process that's going to help you stay anointed here. Because your anointing, Moses, was not to handle the nitty gritty. Your anointing was to make sure that the massive major disputes, the battles we need to fight, the hearing from God that the people need, we need you there. We don't need you here on the petty disputes of people. Because one of the things that will destroy great leadership are petty disputes. And the word petty. We have to be careful here. I was corrected by my therapist once where my therapist said to me, he said, justin, be careful what you define as petty. Because of them, it's monumental. I think we have to see the differences between What's. I think petty disputes are things outside of our vision, things outside the vision that mean nothing. That's all emotional and personal and assumption laden compared to petty disputes that are important. But those things also just need to be handled by another level of leadership. Because great leaders, Moses type leadership, needs to stay focused on the main thing, keeping the main thing the main thing. And look what Jethro tells him. And we can break the text down. He says, what you're doing is not good. You and these people will come to you to only wear you out. The work is heavy and you cannot handle it alone. The work he's talking about literally just the disputes in people. So he says the advice and may God be with you. Now it's amazing to notice God did not tell him this. He's giving him advice and prayerfully, God will allow him to do this. And he says, teach them decrees, show them how to live and how they're to behave. But then trust the people around you, people who fear God, people who are trustworthy, people who are not dishonest and appoint them as officials, have them serve as judges. Now see here, this is where God is trying to, where Moses I could totally understand, imagine the story of Moses from his perspective, where it's been people who have constantly gone, not just gone against him, gone against God, people who have challenged him, people who have pushed him. And so, and now here comes Jethro saying, I need you to trust people. I need you to trust people to do something when they've done things that have been untrustworthy. Let's bring it to our world today. I think like Moses, many of us across this sound today feel probably the same way you're called. To trust people who have not done trustworthy things or trust technology that's been used to help break people. Trust technology that's been used to harm people. Trust technology that has slowed down or accelerated your life. How am I supposed to do this? And I think, think I want to bring to you, if you will, a Jethro like AI agent or automation tool or GPT thinking that can help you stop drowning in meaningless tasks. As a pastor, I can tell you this, the most annoying thing. I have my emails and phone calls and 30 minute meetings that mean nothing. The best thing that I've been able to do is to automate a lot of those things because there's things I've needed to let go of to lead better. So my question to you across the screen is, what do you need to let go of to lead better? What Is it that you need to let go of what needs to come off your calendar, what needs to come off your schedule for you to lead better? This is not me telling you to add more tools. This is me asking you the question of leadership. What is it that is blocking your vision, that is causing you not to lead? Well, so I think that gets us to the thought, thinking that the promised land requires a different map, right? Whatever your promise line is, whatever it is that God has called you to do as a leader, as a, as a tech practitioner, whatever that is, Moses got them out. Joshua got them in, right? What worked then will not work now. Because when Moses really got to the nitty gritty of it, it became again the petty disputes of people that caused him to act out of an emotion that had not healed his anger. Moses got them out of Egypt, Joshua got them in. Because Moses still allowed the things that Jethro said, hey, give away to stop him from the future. See, we know that Joshua was bold and strategic and he was present in a shifting season. Moses regressed and it was in that moment where God allowed him to see what's possible, but not engage in the future. I believe AI is shifting our seasons. I believe AI. I think we're at a Jethro moment where we're overloaded with generative data, overloaded with generative tools, overloaded a bunch of stuff. And I think the challenge is not how do I bring faith to the future or how do I survive the past. I think the challenge is how do I live with faith daily in light of everything available to me. In essence, stop trying to be analog in a digital world. So my question to you, leader, is are you future proofing your church? Are you future proofing your business? Are you future proofing your organization? Are you just hopeful that Sunday or Monday go smooth, that's it's going to kill you? So let's talk about what this elite, what is AGI to even understand it and then see how we lead in the midst of AGI. And I want to give you some principles on how we, how we lead well in the midst of AGI. So the first thing, what is artificial general intelligence? You probably heard this, there's two major AGI and asi. AGI is artificial General intelligence. And AGI in essence thinks about like you see some of the scary videos. It's a system that can learn a reason, like humans across any task, not just one thing, but like playing chess or writing a poem. It's literally like AI that can preach a sermon, counsel a Couple, run your church finances on your website, all in the same system. It's decentralizing the human brain to this space, right? It's human cognition over all the domains and we're not there yet, but companies are chasing it hard. Even Sam Altman said this, that while OpenAI is not making any money, his hope is that with AGI that it'll when they get there, that AGI can just tell them how to make money. Right? So what's asi? ASI is a future form of AI that's surpasses human intelligence in every way. Creativity, emotion, decision making, spiritual discernment. The last one's a little bit contested, so I want you to think about a faster brain, more exciting. So where this comes from is transhumanism. And this is where a lot of these major, major tech thinking tech leaders are not Christian, they're transhumanists. And to that end, this is where we lose control, autonomy, God complexes and the loss of human agency. Now, we've seen this over the course of time, which is why I think church had to be a part of tech and why like my first episode was titled why Tech needs a Pastor. Alan turing in the 50s asked the question can machines think? James McCarthy came coined the term artificial intelligence at Dartmouth as it evolved. There's a big difference between like narrow AI chatgpt, what we use to AGI human like and asi, which is beyond human. So AGI has now become the modern like holy grail for companies. And to tell you what people are thinking like the Sam Altman more recently in Time magazine expressed confidence in his community's ability to get to AGI. In his blog Reflections, he said we are now confident we can build AGI as we traditionally understood it because he thinks that AI agents are here in 2025 that will significantly alter the future. To set the foundation for AGI, Amazon's AGI lab introduced Nova Act. And in Nova act, they had a model that surpassed benchmarks set by AG, OpenAI and Anthropic. And led by David Luan, this lab focuses on creating relia AI agents capable of independent actions, aiming to address challenges in AI decision making and reliability. To make AGI, you have Stargate project, a $500 billion investment in US AGI infrastructure. And Anthropic CEO predicts that AGI emergence will happen in the next two, three years. It's going to happen. It's the holy grail right now of what they're working for. And ASI is more futuristic and philosophical, but it gets serious Attention because frankly put, we thought AI was far off five years ago. We thought AGI was far off earlier this year. I think ASI is right around the corner. So leading the charge. You have a bunch of people. The main thing here is like, it's going to affect jobs, it's going to affect Jesus talk, it's going to affect spiritual, it's going to raise spiritual questions. Power and equity are on the line. So if we're going to lead in the age of AGI, I think we're challenged to do a couple of things. I think we're challenged to really sit here and think like Moses and Jethro. One, we're burnt out on one side, going crazy. AGI is over here giving us an opportunity to think differently. What would happen if we weren't so afraid of AGI and ASI and begin to see how we can utilize this, not to be enslaved to it, but utilize it to craft the data, to craft the space so that we can one, be less stressed out and make sure this does not harm us. I want to give us some tips and tricks on how to think through with like three PowerPoints, if you will, and what to do next before we get there. Quick commercial pastor, and you're looking for a GPT that is catered to you to help you craft sermons and do pastoral care and do work. Well, I got made one for you. It's called Pastor GPT and it's made for black pastors and black church leaders by a black pastor. And here you have formative space, formative ways to engage with your preaching, your teaching, your pastoral care, all for black congregations, black people and black pastors. Now, anybody can use it, but it's crafted especially for black people to have a space to do their own thing and to engage holistically as black individuals. So please go to pastorgpt Co and take a look. Look at it. There's subscription models. There's a free model where you get five conversations a month. There's a first tier where you get 50 conversations a month and a second tier where you get up to 150 conversations a month. Take a look. Try it out. The goal of it is to give black pastors and church leaders a space to bleed black pastors and church leaders. I look forward to engaging with you in what Pastor GPT can do for you, for your future, for our churches, and for all that God's calling you to be. Welcome back. So let me give you three points of power, if you will. So how do we baptize AGI without burying the church. And how do we make sure that we don't burn out in the process? I think there's three things using Moses, Jethro, Joshua, AGI to merge together, to bring this together. I think number one, we have to baptize AGI without burying the church. I think the first thing is like to think about moving from Pharaoh's whips to digital workflows. Move from Pharaoh's whip to digital workflows because AI is not the enemy. I think it's an Exodus, Exodus 18, 17, 18. He says, what you're doing is not good. You're going to wear yourself out. The breakdown for this, we're burnt out by doing what God gave us, when God also gave us a system that we can use to system out and process out our stuff. So like Moses, I think we need Jethro moments where we're called out on this because to make AI our new delegation partners, right? So whether it's follow up, form building, certain brainstorming or admin assistance, AI can help you pastor your systems while you pastor your people. Because Jesus didn't come to save us so we could die doing spreadsheets. Jesus didn't come to save us so we could die doing spreadsheets. So automate your guest follow up. Build sermon workflows using a tool like Pastor GPT or use AI to draft pastoral care templates, texts and task reminders. Jesus didn't save us so you could die doing spreadsheets. Number two, every tool has a theology. So what we build reflects who we build, believe God is. If we get back to Genesis chapter one, let us make man in our image like God made us in his image. So AGI is not just a tool. I think it's an image issue. And so if it's trained without justice, it will act without compassion. If it's trained without theology, it will live without Jesus. Churches must be the coding table, not just the prayer circle. Teach your congregations and learn yourself. Because AI learns from data, but humans were shaped by breath. So if the only voices about AGI are billionaires, don't be surprised when the bots don't speak Freedom. They've never been bound, right? So create an AGI policy rooted in biblical justice. And in my AI masterclass, I offer one. If you go to jrlesser.comaicourse and I offer an AI policy for you. Use platforms like ChatGPT to generate ideas, but then edit them through your community's voice. Teach your team how to disciple data, not just consume content and in that way, you'll see that every tool has a theology. If the only voices about AGI are billionaires, don't be surprised when the things they make don't speak freedom then. Thirdly, prophets don't panic. They prepare. We don't fear AGI. We fast and pray and plan around it. Proverbs 20:19. Without vision, people die, right? Without vision, people die. We don't need to cancel AGI. I think we need to consecrate it. Remember, vision sets the tone. AI can either disciple your city or distract your people into digital addiction. So you can either use it to make disciples, or you can use it to continue to be the distraction. So it may write books and it may teach classes and mimic your voice, but it will not discern your calling. I put a prompt in my chatgpt last week, and my prompt was very simple. I said, hey, with all the things you know about me, what is the one thing you can ever replace? And it said something powerful to me. It said, justin, I am still your student. You are still the teacher. I can predict patterns, but I cannot. I do not have discernment. And it was so powerful to hear AI say that to me. I can predict patterns, but I cannot give discernment. The algorithm may know your history, but your anointing is what knows your identity. So I want to challenge you like you. Don't panic. We prepare. Use image generation spaces to make images tied to Scripture. Use these things to create Bible. Study AI ethics using Philippians or Proverbs. Teach leaders to partner with AI, not panic about AGI tools. See, the church is not dying because of AGI. The church is dying because we stop discerning and we start copying and let fear replace our faith. It's time to baptize our tools, not bury our calling. So I'm excited to see what you're going to do with all of this that we can lead. In the age of AGI, we are too anointed to shirk back or to get scared of what's coming out. What we can do is the kingdom of God suffers violence. The violent take it by force. And this era of AI AGI leadership in the midst of AI from Moses to midjourney, may we not be the Moses who lets our unhealed emotions stop us from the future. May we delegate, and then may hopefully, we walk in with Joshua. But if we don't, may Joshua you see all of it and not screw up the future. All right, I'm tech with that. Tech Pastor, this was longer than you probably thought it was going to be. Please leave a comment in the comment section. Please should like and share the videos you see online. I would hope and pray that this has had an impact on you and that the work we do here with tech with etechpastor is great. Don't forget to follow us on Instagramtechpastor. Don't forget to follow us On TikTok at that periodtech period pastor. Follow us on on my website jrlesser.com like and share the videos that you see as well. My goal is to share the gospel as many people as possible to do the work of the will of God as much as we can. God bless and keep you is my prayer. You have an amazing.