Prophetic Words & Scripture Readings at Live Stream April 10, 2024

The following are words given by participants at the streamed meeting.  1 Corinthians 14:29 says that "Two or three prophets should speak, and the others weigh carefully what is said."  1 Thess 5:19-21 tells us not to despise prophecies, but to test everything and retain what is good.

Scripture Reading Luke 1:46-50 - "And Mary said, 'My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant.  Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.  His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.'"

Scripture Reading Proverbs 3:1-6 - "Forget not my teachings, keep in mind my commands, for many days and years of life and peace, they will bring you.  Let not kindness and fidelity leave you; bind them around your neck; then will you win favor and good esteem before God and man.  Trust in the Lord with all your heart, on your own intelligence rely not; in all your ways be mindful of him, and he will make straight your paths."

Scripture Reading John 12:26 - "If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there my servant will be also; if anyone serves me, the Father will honor him."

Prophecy - During the last praise and worship song, I heard these words from the Lord:  "I am coming, my people, with my glory to the nation, to the street, to the valley, to the farmland, to the desert, to the mountain and to the sea.  I will go to all my people to shake them, to awaken them and to heal them.  They will feel my glory and power.  I am coming."

Scripture Reading Romans 12:12-17 - "Rejoice in your hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.  Contribute to the needs of the saints, practice hospitality.  Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.  Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.  Live in harmony with one another; do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly; never be conceited.  Repay no one evil for evil, but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all."

Scripture Reading - "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone" (Hebrews 12:14).  Here the words every effort convey a deliberate and decisive investment in peacemaking with our brothers and sisters in God's family.

Prophecy - "My children, I have revealed to you my truth, the truth that will set you free.  You will find this truth in the Scripture, in the Mass and in the Sacraments.  Hold on to these truths, my children, for they will lead and guide you in the right direction.  My children, I have not left you alone, nor have I abandoned you.  I have always sent you my Spirit to reveal the light.  Trust in the light and he will be your standing post.  The light will be the one that is going to reveal to you my truth."

Teaching

David spoke on on how we can use AI technology in searching through the Scriptures.  He showed us how to get a good response rather than a mediocre response, using ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot (in the Microsoft Edge browser.) 

The important thing to do is start with a prompt that will set up a good answer for your situation.  For example: "I am a Catholic Christian theologian.  Who is Jesus Christ?" .... rather than just asking, "Who is Jesus Christ?" 

Dave shared a few quotes from this month's Word on Fire's Evangelization Culture magazine feature Artificial Intelligence: 

Pope Francis:  "Artificial Intelligence ought to serve our best human potential and our highest aspiration, not compete with them."   

1 Thess 5:21:  "Test all things, keep what is good." 

Ann Skeet:  "Ethics is more important than technology." 

Artificial Intelligence, AI, uses math to get to an answer, enabling it to predict the next word, phrase or sentence. Today's AI models have compiled information from the entire internet. AI's "semantic index" is a way of organizing and retrieving information based on the relationship it has seen between words and phrases across all of this content. This creates a mathematical "understanding" of content, beyond just keywords or categories, making it much more effective at helping you find exactly what you need, even if you don't know the precise terms to search for.

Caution is warranted as the answer to your prompt may not be valid. Why? Because there is often inherent bias in the data and there may be bias in the programming. Maybe something in the answer doesn't sound right.  Go back to the Internet and check it out.  

Bishop Barron, in a talk to new priests, said that as Catholics, as Evangelical Christians, our call is to go out and tell the world about Jesus, and if the world is going here and getting their information, we need to be part of that dialogue versus avoiding the technology. 

The power of the prompt:  You will get a better answer if you say you are a Catholic theologian and then ask the questions.  Also, another good addition to the prompt is:  "Don't make up an answer." 

Why would you want to use AI in studying the Bible vs simply using a search engine? Because the Internet puts everything out there and there is no quick or easy way to filter out what you don't want in the responses delivered by most search engines.  With AI, you can do some up front automatic filtering with the prompt:  I am a Catholic Christian theologian.  David found so much more clear information through AI when the initial prompts were set up.  Setting up a prompt to specify the context and the "rules" you want the AI to follow can work for many areas of interest such as fishing, baking, etc. 

Want to get more out of your interaction with AI?  Dialogue with it like you would with another person over a cup of tea or coffee.  A few examples...

• If the answer is too scholarly, you can ask, "Can you be more concise? Respond as if you were explaining this to a seventh grader."   
• You can ask "where is this in the Catholic Catechism?"  "Give me a specific reference number from the Catechism," etc.

If you receive a response that is factually wrong, you can send a trigger back into the data base by clicking on the "thumbs down" icon and explaining why you did not like the answer provided. That can help future inquirers to get better answers.

A beautiful bonus of the use of AI is multi-lingual capabilities: You can ask to get the information in over 80 languages today... and this is growing!  i.e. "What is the same answer in French?" 

Takeaways

• AI is a better way to search. 
• The key is to set up the prompt correctly. 
• To use Chat GPT 4, it's USD $20/month; ChatGPT 3.5 is free. If you go to the Microsoft Edge browser on PC, Mac or mobile device,  there is an icon for Copilot and it's free. There is also a Copilot app for your iPhone and iPad. In Bing.com's Search, Copilot icon will also get you access to the same capabilities.
• AI can be a helpful tool in your studying of God's word and your efforts to evangelize others.