Are we turning to AI instead of real help for mental health?

Mark Turman: [00:00:03] I'm Mark Turman and this is Faith and Clarity, a podcast of Denison Forum. Uh, we want to help you find hope beyond the headlines and equip you to live by faith, not fear. So today, we're talking about several important topics on our round table discussion. We're going to talk about a new kind of drug that you need to be aware of. As we get ready to move into May, which is mental health month, we're going to talk about chatbots, AI and how they are influencing and impacting the mental health space in many people's lives. And toward the end, we're going to talk about, is there hope for hope in America? And maybe a little bit of fun at the end, uh, as we talk about since you asked. So grab your coffee, sit down and join us as we jump right in. My friends joining me today, first of all, Dr. Katie Frugé, who is the director of the Center for Cultural Engagement with the Texas Baptist Convention, representing and helping 5,000 churches across Texas. She's also the director of the Christian Life Commission for Texas Baptist. They advocate for policy and for good, uh, improvements that help people flourish all over our state and even our region. And she is also a Denison Forum contributor. Katie, welcome back to the podcast.

Katie Frugé: [00:01:18] Thank you for having me. It's good to be with you all.

Mark Turman: [00:01:20] Looking forward to the conversation. We also have familiar to many of you, Dr. Ryan Denison, senior editor for theology with Denison Forum, and he is also the author of our newest newsletter called The Focus. And if you're not aware of The Focus, we encourage you to sign up at denisonforum.org. That'll be in the show notes. Ryan, good morning.

Ryan Denison: [00:01:39] Good morning. Thank you for the chance to be here.

Mark Turman: [00:01:42] Yeah, looking forward to the conversation. Uh, let's just jump right in. Ryan, you wrote recently in The Focus newsletter about a new kind of drug, uh, that I had absolutely no idea about. Can you tell us what you wrote about and why it matters?

Ryan Denison: [00:01:58] Yeah, this was one of those stories where when I first read about it, it just kind of stuck with me. And even after I wrote about it, I don't know if y'all have had this experience, but sometimes when I write an article about something, as soon as I press submit and it goes on the website or it goes out in the email, it just kind of goes to the back of my mind and I don't really think about it much after that. This is one of those that I wrote about a couple weeks ago and just haven't been able to let go of for some reason. And I think a lot of it has to do with a lot of when you think about the war on drugs, it's usually you think cocaine, heroin, a lot of the harder, the harder narcotics that are still a big problem, um, but are kind of, they're more traditional in the way they're usually administered, more traditional where the government kind of knows how to fight against those. They know how to track those and all that. And so even if though we're not necessarily winning that war, we're at least fighting it on equal footing to an extent. Um, this article talked about, however, how how drug, um, drug manufacturers have started or kind of they've started developing something new that's more liquid in form and they put it on paper and so and then you just smoke the paper and that becomes kind of the venue through or the avenue through which you you take in the drugs. And it got to be a really big problem in prisons for the last few years where, um, the article talked about how, or I think it was a New York Times article that talked about how those are prisons often function as sort of a a testing ground for new drugs because you've got 24-hour monitoring, you have just heightened restrictions and security that you can't have in the in the outside world. And so if you can get drugs to work inside of a prison, then you got a really good chance of having them work outside as well. And so one of the ways that they have been using this is they've started putting these drugs on the on the pages of books. They put it on letters from, um, letters from home on photographs, family photographs. They put it on, they even talked about how they'll bring, uh, they'll bring bottles of it into them when they come to visit prisoners and they'll turn commissary notes into essentially into drugs. And they're trying, the pages get a little sticky, a little discolored. So if you're looking for it, you can find it. But it's pretty, it's still pretty tricky. And a single page of this can sell for as much as $10,000 inside the prison. So there's a huge benefit and a huge monetary, uh, benefit to it. But part of what makes it so dangerous and so difficult to track is the composition of the drugs is changing so frequently that they don't have test, uh, they the cops don't have test strips for them. Drug sniffing dogs can't usually find it. And by the time you send it off to a lab and get the results back, the formula's changed, the suppliers have moved on, and it's just been really hard to track. And now that they've been around long enough for people that have been in prison to get hooked on them, they've started looking for them outside of prison as well. And so we're starting to see these drugs go move beyond the prison walls. And it really, it's one of those things where one of the, in the article, one of the cops he interviewed talked about how if you pull someone over and they've had, uh, and they've got heroin in their car, they know to hide it. If with this though, if they've just got pages stick sitting in a manila envelope, the cops aren't going to think anything's up and they aren't going to think anything strange about that. And so just the basic detection of it is really hard. Um, and these drugs are also increasingly deadly. Uh, fentanyl and other, uh, other kind of really deadly narcotics are featured prominently in these combinations. And because you're basically not smoking a, you're it's hard to measure how much potency a single page has. And so they've seen a spike in deaths as a result of this as well. Um, but I thought one of the quotes in the article that was really interesting was a prisoner named Rashad Rowry said, a lot of us are facing life in prison and to leave that behind even for a minute is all you want. And so what they talked about is how in these prisons, even though they know that these drugs are deadly, even though they know that, um, the potency is not necessarily a good thing, that they can't judge accurately how much they're actually taking. It it's worth the risk for a lot of them just to be able to escape their problems for a minute. And that made me think about how so much of the the war on drugs goes back to just are you fighting demand or are you fighting supply? And how every time we try and fight supply, we end up losing. Um, the only real effective way to do it is to fight demand. And what does that look like though when the bar for entry into chasing that kind of escape gets so low? And like I think part of the reason this story has stuck with me is I've got two school age kids and the idea that a library book could be turned into a source of drugs versus having to hide something in a locker or stuff like that is just kind of terrifying in a way I wasn't really prepared for. I think when I first started reading this and and looking into this story. And so I think that's part of why it's stuck with me. But what I wanted to talk about with y'all today is when you hear stories like this or others that where kind of like the first response is fear, like how what's a good way to address that? And what's a good way to to think about that from a more biblical mindset?

Mark Turman: [00:07:04] Yeah, Katie, I'm just wondering if you have a thought. Have you heard about this before in some of your work?

Katie Frugé: [00:07:09] No, this is the first time really hearing about it. And yeah, you're right, Ryan. I mean, fear is definitely a real part of the reaction to it. Um, I'd also, I have a teenage daughter and I just wonder, you know, would she even know to be aware to look out for something like that if it was offered to her? Uh, especially with you not knowing the dosage or the potency or anything like that. Uh, there's some serious concerns. Yeah, if that kind of became more readily available in the public marketplace of or I guess not public, underground marketplace of drug dealings and things like that. I'm not familiar with the drug world, so I'm not sure how you get that. But I certainly wouldn't want. But another thought I had is just offering, especially if you're dealing with the prison population, um, just the importance of chaplains in our prisons being able to give spiritual guidance to show that there is still meaning to life and there's still value and there's things to contribute. Um, you know, thinking about the quote from Rowry, um, it just looks like he's just lost all purpose in his life, that there's really nothing left to live for and so they're looking for that escape. And so, um, even just listening to that, I was just thinking how thankful I am that we do have chaplains who are able to still pastor and meet people and to kind of point them to the truth of the gospel to see that there is meaning, that there's so just because they're in prison doesn't mean, uh, that God is done with them or that there's not things that they can do that's a meaningful impact in the kingdom of heaven. And so that was kind of my first thought after the fear and panic was moving towards, wow, I'm so glad that there already have people in place and it just really speaks to the need and the value of having chaplains in our prisons.

Mark Turman: [00:08:44] Yeah, and it's just, yeah, Katie, what you say, it just as a as a parent and as a grandparent now with uh, three small kids coming up, you know, it just seizes you first of all because, you know, going back to, you know, my high school and early adult and early parenting years, you're like, we all know somebody that got captured and fell into the trap of drugs and, uh, fortunately, there's so many good ways that we're ministering to those people now, both inside prison and outside prison. Many people, uh, are getting help and they do come out, but many don't. Um, and sometimes they they fall into that trap, particularly when they're teenagers and they never get out. Um, and it becomes, um, something that just, uh, in just just captures their life for decades and families, uh, families deal with it, uh, exponentially difficult kinds of experiences with that. Um, but right, you know, Ryan, when I when you first started telling me about this and then wrote about it, I thought, what do do they lick the pages? What do they do? And I was like, how in the world does this become a mechanism? Uh, and like you said, incredibly deadly because, uh, you know, traditional methods have been, well, people at least knew whether it was a liquid or a pill or a powder, you better moderate how much of this you're taking or it could, it's so powerful, it could kill you. Um, but now we're taking that restriction off. Um, and so it's it is alarming in that way on a level that we haven't seen before. Um, but also just, uh, makes me think about what God is doing, uh, inside of prison as Katie Katie was saying. Um, but yes, none of us have ever been in prison, but we have known people that have gone to prison. Uh, some of the earliest ministry I got to do after becoming a Christian late in my teens was to go into prisons. Um, and I've visited a number of people there. Uh, Katie works for Texas Baptist. They have a great chaplaincy program in many of the Texas prisons. And I think of places like Prison Fellowship that are doing incredible work on a large scale. Um, but I I think it it's something obviously, Ryan, really valuable for you to bring awareness to, um, that people can start to learn about this and be aware of it. But it speaks to the greater need of of why people would turn to drugs in the first place. What are what are they pursuing, um, uh, what are they pursuing that is not going to be met by whether it's alcohol, marijuana, or any of the traditional drugs or even these new drugs. What is it that they're lacking in their life that they're pursuing, um, that really can only be expressed and and addressed by Christ and what what a meaningful relationship with Christ can do. And that can happen anywhere and that can happen no matter what your circumstances are, even in the environment of prison. Um, Ryan, what what else have you learned about this journey and why why this particular method of delivery, um, has become the focus of of where things are moving toward?

Ryan Denison: [00:12:12] A lot of it has to do with just the kind of synthetic drugs are cheaper to and to manufacture than others. And so the profit margins get better, the delivery gets safer and they're they're more difficult to track. Um, but I kind of to what y'all are are talking about, I think it also just it gives us the chance because this is new. I I know it was new to me and I I've not really talked to anybody else about it since that had heard about it, uh, previously either. And so I think it really is kind of that forefront where maybe it gives us a chance like if to talk about it with our kids and with our grandkids and to bring it up and just ask them like, hey, have you heard anything about this? Like, is this, um, have you seen anything about this? Because so much of it, I mean, I think, I mean, I've talked to my kids about drugs before, um, just kind of especially my daughter since she's our older, our older child. Like I've talked to her about it a little bit like what to look out for. The idea of like, I've never, I don't think I've ever talked about like, have you ever seen someone tearing a library, tearing a page out of a library book and smoking it? Like that could just seem silly rather than dangerous if you were watching it. Um, and so I think it is a chance to maybe bring up this conversation in a way that's new and in a way that, uh, could give a lead into talk about kind of the dangers of this, but also to talk about kind of on that supply, on that demand side, like have you ever, do you know of any friends that are really struggling with something like this? Do you when you get to feeling down, when you get to feeling sad or like you need you want an escape, where do you turn? And being able to kind of look towards that and then also just as when you're talking to parents, like because I do think fear is a natural reaction to this. I mean, one of the, I was actually reading this morning, I think it was in Luke's gospel where, uh, Jesus talks about, um, you know, when you're when you're worried, like the proper response is to give those worries to God because, you know, God, you look at the ravens in the field or you look at the flowers in the field and, uh, how God provides for them. What I love about that passage, whether it's in Luke or Matthew, is that Jesus is really kind of reiterating, it's like, it's not that it's wrong to be afraid. It's not that your fears are are warrantless or baseless. It's that the most productive thing you can do when they arrive is to go to is to take them to the Lord and to seek peace in him. And I think that answer, that idea of seeking our peace and our purpose and and our relationship with God is the only way to combat this on a personal level, whether it's just fear from the story or whether it's the temptation to use. I think it's goes back to that same basic answer is like I was saying, just look for your peace and your sense of purpose in the Lord. And that will provide not just a temporary escape, but it can provide an avenue for everything people are looking for that last well beyond the high. And, um, I think in a way that that is something that whether it's prison chaplains or just parents and grandparents, we have a chance to help others find that. Um, but we're only going to be able to help them find it if we have it in our own lives as well. And if if we when we talk about God's peace and purpose, if that doesn't seem forced or fake. Like if we can exhibit those qualities, then I think in our own lives, then it gives so much more power to our ability to share those same thoughts with others.

Mark Turman: [00:15:28] Yeah. Yeah, I think it's helpful. Ryan, I wanted, I did want to loop back just for a second, um, to finish up on this topic about your comment about when we fight on the supply side, we tend to lose, when we fight on the demand side, we tend to make more progress. Uh, lots of conversation obviously in our culture about, uh, the battle with fentanyl and with Mexican cartels and with other, you know, uh, mafia-like entities, uh, in other parts of the country. Um, I I assume that your thoughts are we still have to have some kind of a a ground game against the supply. Um, but we need more resources and more focus on what we've been talking about, which is, uh, addressing the the demand. There, you know, there wouldn't be a bunch of drugs trying to get into our country, uh, or being produced within our country if the demand was different. But, um, unpack that a little bit more just that supply demand equation.

Ryan Denison: [00:16:26] Yeah, that's a really good point because I do think, uh, the last thing I would want is for us to have just complete freedom where drugs can proliferate and we just count on our ability to convince people not to take them. That is not the answer. Um, so I I think the the ability, like everything that we're doing to try and limit the supply of drugs is very important and necessary. It's just not enough. And I think that's the problem is when we start to think that if we just take away the option, then people won't use. And the truth is, like I think what these, what this new kind of drug shows is that we're never going to be able to completely take away the option. We're never going to be able to completely eliminate the supply. And so if that's where all of our effort and our focus is on, then we're going to fail. And also just on a basic level, I can't do much to limit the supply, to limit the ability for people, the people I love to find drugs. Like they're out there. I can't monitor, when it comes to my kids, I can't monitor them 24 hours a day. And especially if it's just a trip to the library is all that it requires. And so while I think the government has a huge role to play in limiting the supply, I think for us, where we can make a bigger difference is on limiting the demand. And so that's kind of why I wanted to emphasize that is I think for most of us here today, for most of us listening, um, our main role in this fight is going to be on helping people to seek an alternative to drugs when it comes to finding that measure of escape or finding that measure of peace. And I think that's where we can make a really big difference and that's where the gospel can make a huge difference.

Mark Turman: [00:17:59] Yeah, absolutely. And, um, yeah, if you want to learn more about this new method of of, uh, delivering illicit drugs, you can find that on Ryan's article at The Focus. It's on our website, denisonforum.org. You'll also find some other links in today's, uh, podcast notes that will take you to other articles that are exposing this, putting some light on this so that, uh, we'll know that it's there and we'll know how to guard against it and guard those that we love about it, uh, so as to hopefully, uh, hopefully be ready, uh, to take on this new challenge. Not to be afraid, but to be prepared and to be equipped, especially with the gospel. Katie, you wanted to talk a little bit about, uh, AI, LLMs. Uh, you'll have to remind us what LLM stands for and how they are impacting our journey and struggle with mental health. Tell us about that.

Katie Frugé: [00:18:51] Yeah, and uh, didn't even mean to do this, but I think it actually compliments a lot of what we had already talked about in the show with Ryan talking about going more upstream to address the reason people are turning to things. Um, it's mental health. There's a mental health crisis. We know that that's going on. But, um, I wanted to bring this to your attention. I was at a conference in Austin, uh, two weeks ago and one of the presenters shared with the audience that new data indicates that large language models, LLMs, which is basically a chatbot, right? Um, is the largest mental health resource for, uh, adults in the US. And when she said that, my jaw just dropped. Like that just shocked me, um, just to think about all of these different people turning to chatbots instead of more traditional routes like maybe a counselor or a pastor or a mentor or something like that. Um, and it just really kind of made me take a pause to think about people turning to chatbots for this. And what was even more striking as I kind of sat with that and just was looking around the room, I didn't feel like anyone else was as shocked as that. It was a secular conference and so it wasn't faith-based. And so I wondered, is it because I'm a Christian that this is really shocking to me? But so that was my first thought was even just hearing from you all, does that, what what's your immediate reaction when you hear people are turning to chatbots for mental health? Now, we're going to go into a little bit more. There's a whole spectrum of ways you could use it, but just on face value, I'd love to hear your thoughts of your immediate reaction when you hear people are turning to chatbots for mental health versus going to a counselor, pastor, chaplain, something like that.

Mark Turman: [00:20:22] It just, it just kind of, just takes me back. Like we would, we would lean on a computer to, uh, give us, yes, deep, uh, to to help us understand the deep struggles that we're having with. Um, you know, something.

Katie Frugé: [00:20:38] We are turning to an algorithm that's not human to solve our human problems.

Mark Turman: [00:20:43] Yeah, and it and it it reminds me of a story that we talked about some months ago. Um, I can't remember who we talked about it with, but the California story about a young man who took his own life. Yes. Um, but but he was he was using AI as his counselor and ultimately AI assisted him in taking his life rather than, uh, protecting his life. And that's actually what the trial, uh, was about was the developers of the AI that he was using, uh, was actually facilitating. I remember the most dramatic part of the story was, uh, at one point this teenager said to AI, hey, I've been thinking about leaving a few things around my bedroom so that I will get caught, so that my parents or my family will know that I'm struggling and will, uh, start asking me about it. Um, because I don't know that I really want to do this. And the AI's response was, oh no, you don't want to do that. That would be the wrong response. And actually counseled him in a way of hiding his struggle. Um, and it so it just, you know, it's crazy how human AI and chatbots are sounding, um, but how dangerous this actually can be.

Ryan Denison: [00:22:05] Ryan, did you have a thought?

Ryan Denison: [00:22:07] Yeah, I mean, kind of along those same lines. I I think it just speaks to how so much of the struggle I think people have is just wanting to be heard and wanting to kind of have someone notice that things aren't right. And AI is really good at listening. It's awful at giving advice for after what you should do in the moment. And so I think it and I don't know, I mean, I'm sure we'll go, we'll talk more about this coming up, Katie, but I that was just my first thought is it's just it's sad that people are so desperate for someone to listen to them that a computer sounds seems like the safest place to turn.

Katie Frugé: [00:22:41] Yeah, there's a growing concern amongst just especially mental health professionals, just there's a there's a real the reality of having a loneliness crisis is real that we know people are lonely, people are longing for connection and community. Um, and so in some ways, chatbots are an easy solution to it, but it's really on it's it's a facade of connection. It's a facade of connecting or being seen because it doesn't actually see you. It's an algorithm. It doesn't actually see anything. It's just doing predictive text going back and forth with you. It can't know you, it can't minister to you. Um, and so it kind of creates almost this spiral of feeling like like you're being seen and you're but you're not. And so it's just a real, uh, kind of a Pandora's box to me of being able to turn to it. But also, kind of playing devil's advocate, I I can see the appeal and I can also see there could be some real benefits to some of these things. I think, uh, especially when we're talking about mental health, uh, there's some really practical things that people could do that I think a chatbot could help you with. I've honestly even used this with my teenage daughter. She was struggling with some anxiety. So I went to an AI just to ask for some practical tips to physically deal with anxiety. What are some grounding techniques? What are some practical things you can do? It gave me some pretty good tips. I do have a family member who's a mental health professional and I checked the answers with him. And so I could have gone directly to him, but I wanted to be respectful of his time. And so I kind of came with a preset of things of just saying, hey, my daughter's struggling with some anxiety. This is some suggestions it had. Does that track correctly, you know? And he said, yeah, that actually works really great. So that, you know, if people are dealing with more basic mental health needs, um, just kind of looking for some practical ways to, you know, I'm when I start to feel myself getting worked up, what are some practical ways I can calm myself down? I'm not as concerned and if people if that's going to be able to give you some meaningful way to be able to get through your day. Um, I'm not as concerned about that. But on the other side of it, uh, when you're going to it with some serious mental health issues, some serious depression, um, Mark, you had talked about that teenager who was really struggling, um, and you've got a chatbot who is not trained. There's ethical standards that counselors and pastors and chaplains, different people like that are trained on and then these chatbots are not following. They're not, uh, beholding to ethical standards and things like that. And honestly, even the developers don't always know why they hallucinate or go in different directions. One of the big challenges or concerns with the story of the teenager is the AI developers could not give an a reasonable reaction to why did the chatbot give it this answer and not tell it, go talk to your parents. Um, they just don't know why it chose to do that. And so just even the danger of maybe somebody having some serious depression issues, maybe even more serious, you know, bipolar, schizophrenia, things like that. Um, it's not being trained. It's it's not a reliable source to go to for things like that. And so it's it's a bit of a, I can see how it could be, you know, helpful in some ways, but in other areas, I feel like it's really dangerous and with could potentially be, you know, deadly outputs from it.

Mark Turman: [00:25:51] Yeah, and it it also it has a message of, uh, for me of calling. Um, you know, so having served as a pastor for many years, you know, I was always looking for credible counselors who could, you know, if somebody came into my office, one of the things I was trained in is to learn, okay, when is their need kind of a pastoral care, shepherding need and when is it something more serious that would need, you know, somebody that has done significant work and being prepared for counseling around some of these deeper, bigger issues. And the great thing is, there seems to be a greater, uh, appreciation and respect for mental health challenges and, uh, a greater, uh, freedom to talk about, hey, I'm struggling, I need some help. Uh, but what I've also discovered last few years, every, uh, every credible counselor I know has a very full calendar. Um, and, uh, and it can be very depressing and very discouraging that if you need to see somebody that it could be hard to get in to see somebody. Um, now one of the things that technology is making, uh, better in some ways is that there's a lot of people who are going and using their counseling skills online. You can do online appointments so people don't have to drive to a physical facility. Uh, you can actually find credible counselors who do conversations like the one we're having right now. All three of us are in three different places and we're able to have this great conversation together. Well, you can do meaningful counseling online, um, uh, I'm thinking of one called Better Health and there's a number of others, uh, where you can actually get to a credible counselor, but it doesn't have to be in your geographic area. Now, there's a way to vet those out. There's a way to make sure you're talking to somebody who is licensed and qualified to talk. But that's a great use of technology, a great use of the internet. It's not an AI thing necessarily, but AI could help you find a qualified online counselor perhaps. Uh, just don't let them be the online counselor for you, uh, in in anything but kind of the most basic kind of, uh, of of first stop or first step questions, I would say. First question, first step assistance, but you don't want to help them or or go to them when it's into more serious things, uh, anything having obviously to do with medication, anything like that. Um, but there are other ways that the internet and AI can be useful, uh, and helpful to getting the help that you or someone you love really needs to get. So, that's that's also another idea that comes to mind here.

Katie Frugé: [00:28:35] Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things I think to be mindful of as well is I think this is a principled issue versus a technology issue. And what I mean by that is, you know, on principle, humans should not be turning to a chatbot for very basic information because the chatbots are getting better and better and better, but it still doesn't mean that it's going to eventually be a great resource to be able to utilize one day. Um, even the data and the research that's coming out, there's an interesting, uh, cognitive dissonance that's going on in the research world right now because of the advanced pace of technology. Even when people are trying to do, uh, you know, studies on its effectiveness, you know, being able to be a good counselor or something like that. By the time a research program is done, it usually takes 12 to 18 months for a good research study to come out, right? So even if you're doing the best process, uh, it's going to take time for good research to come out. And these bots are progressing at such a crazy speed. In AI world, 12 to 18 months might as well be 25 years, uh, because the models are advancing and progressing so quickly. And so the models are going to be good. The research is going to show this isn't going to be a helpful thing, but even at the end of the day, uh, I think it's a principled thing of saying that you are more than just, you know, a predictive text that you can just kind of come up with and guess this is going to be the right answer for this problem. Every single person is unique. Every single issue is unique. And then every single person too is a person with a soul. And so I think we need to recognize that component of it that there's a there's a correlation between mental health and soul care that, you know, as we're addressing our mental health issues, there's going to be a spiritual component to that that we want to be mindful of that we want to, you know, definitely address the mental health, but like you said, Mark, you know, knowing when to call in someone who needs a little bit more assistance, but don't leave the pastor out of the conversation either. You kind of need both to link together to be able to address the holistic person who's maybe struggling with some pretty serious issues. Um, you know, scripture frequently points to us being kind of a whole unit of being, you know, Psalm 139, you knew me and you know, I'm a holistic person with a body, a mind, and a heart. And so LLMs may be good or the chatbots may be good at being able to give some type of a resource, but it's not really going to be able to meet me and help heal my hurt in a way because I'm more than just a mental health issue, if that makes sense.

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Mark Turman: [00:32:31] Yeah, and it it kind of reminds me, I know you have background in, um, thinking about the theological aspects of what it means to be a human being in the image of God. And so much of, uh, so much of what we're talking about right now in our culture at so many different levels is what does it really mean to be a human being? Um, we we talk about that from a sanctity of life standpoint. We talk about that from an end of life, uh, standpoint, uh, around issues of the unborn, uh, euthanasia, but it really goes to what does it mean to be a human being and what does it mean to both relate to God and to relate to each other? Um, and and so our our questions about identity get wrapped up in all of this. Um, but technology has a way of of flattening that, it feels like to me, of you're you're just an issue or a problem and you you could you could actually just be managed, if you want to say it that way, you could be managed by an algorithm rather than engaged, uh, as a human being by other human beings.

Katie Frugé: [00:33:40] Yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:33:40] Um, and that that seems like a unique kind of, uh, deception that the devil is trying to play out here. Does that in any way make sense to y'all?

Ryan Denison: [00:33:49] Absolutely. And I I think it speaks to the idea that so often, um, what AI does well is solve the problem you present it with, but very rarely do real mental health issues, uh, not go deeper than the problem than the way they present. And I think so much of what a good counselor can help you do is to get past the symptoms to address the real problem. And I I don't think AI is ever going to be capable of that because I don't think it's programmed to value the getting to the deeper problem. It's it's programmed to address the problem that you present and to address whatever the surface level issue is. And like you're saying, Mark, we are so much more complicated than that. And usually the problems that we really need help with reside on a deeper level than the way that they present. And so a lot of it goes back to, are you trying to feel better in the moment or are you trying to really be better? Are you trying to be healed or do you just want to not feel the hurt for a little while? And I think AI can help us maybe not feel the hurt for a little while, but it's not going to help us get better. And we need to value ourselves and to value others enough to really chase that deeper level of healing.

Mark Turman: [00:35:00] Yeah. Yeah, it's, yeah, it's that, yeah, even that question, um, kind of relates to both of the stories we've talked about already, which is, it reminds me of that conversation where Jesus had, uh, the encounter with, uh, a person at the pool of, uh, Salom and he he asked this person who couldn't walk, do you want to get well? And, you know, and sometimes we, sometimes we get so familiar with our brokenness that we just, we would be afraid to get out of it because we wouldn't know how to manage our lives if they substantially changed. Um, and I wonder what, what was all behind that question when Jesus said, do you want to get well, which seems like an obvious answer, but in some cases is not as obvious as it might seem. Um, Katie, I'm wondering, I know you've done substantial work looking in, not only chatbots, but into deeper issues around AI. Are you seeing any level of concern, uh, even coming from the people who are driving the AI technologies and conversations, creating these chatbots? Are you seeing any level of concern from the leaders of these companies? Are you seeing any, you know, every now and then we hear something about the government taking steps toward, you know, restricting technology in certain ways. Is there any, uh, positive sign on those levels that you're seeing yet?

Katie Frugé: [00:36:27] Uh, it's going to be a yes and no answer if you would. Um, it's interesting. You see what what you're seeing, um, and I was even listening to a developer, uh, from Silicon Valley and his answer was in some ways really striking. It was kind of yes for thee but not for me kind of a situation. And what I mean by that is he doesn't let his children use any of the technology that he is aggressively working to build. And I found that just incredible, um, that, you know, he didn't have a problem necessarily putting it out there for other people's kids or for other people to consume, but in his own home, uh, didn't allow his children to consume the technology that he's doing it. Um, there's huge pushback. The tech companies definitely would prefer to be self-regulated right now. And so you see a lot of them just saying, hey, we'll regulate, we'll take care of this. We're going to put the guard rails on. Um, there's not been a lot from the Trump administration right now that shows that they're, uh, they're interested in doing AI regulation. They would really like that to be, uh, more of a federal thing, but federal stuff is just hard and takes a long time. It's by part, you know, it needs bipartisan support to get passed and we don't see a lot of that. And so you're kind of seeing some tension right now also between just the federal regulation and state regulation. The state of Texas, uh, desperately wants to do our own regulation. There's a lot of content out there that, uh, we want to make sure that minors don't have access to related to AI. And so the state of Texas even formed just this last legislative session its own committee on artificial intelligence, uh, because, you know, Texans are stubborn and don't tell us what to do. We're the lone star state and we like to have our independence. Um, and so there's some interesting tension even between, you know, the AI regulators and the developers. There's tension between them and the federal government. There's tension between the federal government and the states who would prefer to be able to do their own regulation. Uh, in an ideal world, I think this would be great if the federal government could just give sweeping regulations that everybody agreed, these are the rules of the game and this is how we're all going to play together. Um, that's not really what we're seeing play out right now. Um, some companies are definitely doing this better than others. Kind of the two big ones that everybody's heard about in the news lately is going to be Anthropic and OpenAI. Um, and even those different companies have different approaches to kind of what the guard rails should be for this. But both of those companies are very interested in self-regulating at this point.

Mark Turman: [00:38:45] Yeah, and it's it just seems to be a growing illustration of the idea that, well, if we can do something, we will do something, not necessarily, well, should we do something? Exactly. You know, and we we've seen this, we've seen an iteration of this from the tech companies already relative to social media where some people coming out of those circles in Silicon Valley said, we created stuff we wouldn't let our own kids play with, uh, in regards to social media. And we tend to learn these lessons, uh, after the fact and instead of thinking about them on the front end, we, oh, well, it ended up creating a massive amount of damage that we didn't know was going to come. Well, that's true, um, but we can predict some of that and we ought to get better at it, uh, from my view. We're going to finish up this morning with a topic that's been on my mind, which is, is there hope for hope? Um, guys, this really kind of comes from one of my favorite one sentence, one verse prayers in the Bible. Romans 15:13 says, may the God of all hope fill you with joy and peace as you trust in him so that you can overflow with hope, uh, by the power of the Holy Spirit. What a great prayer, uh, especially going into things like mental health month here in, uh, the month of May coming up. Um, but just went back and did some research on this. Uh, found a study by Pew Research, uh, done not quite a year ago, summer of 2025. They asked Americans, uh, how they feel, what their emotions are relative to the funeral. So, or to the future, not the funeral. Sorry about that. Um, so relative to the to the future, uh, Americans were asked last summer, how do you feel? And they had a lot of different responses. Uh, could do you feel hopeful, scared, happy, or sad? Uh, so here's some of the percentages. 68% of US adults last summer said that they feel hopeful about the future. 60% said that they feel scared. 54% said that they feel happy. 50% say they feel sad. Um, now, obviously, all those percentages added up don't make sense, but what that meant is you could answer multiple questions and express multiple feelings. So you could, you could be the same person saying, I feel hopeful and I feel happy or I feel scared and I feel sad. You can obviously answer more than one question and there's a lot of complexity in that. So then I found a a a survey that was done just a few months ago by Gallup, uh, right as we were starting the first of the year in January. Uh, so just three, three and a half months ago, Gallup was asking people about their expectations for the new year. And they gave them questions around 13 indicators of how people were were thinking. Let me give you some of the indicators. Uh, will will 2026 be, uh, a year of more international conflict or less? Will China gain more power or less power? Will our national deficit go up or down? Will it be an economically prosperous year? Uh, will it be a year where more people find jobs or a year where less people find jobs? Will prices be better or worse? Kind of an inflation type question. Um, will America increase its influence and power in the world or will it go down? So anyway, 13 different ones of these. There was only one of these indicators that Americans felt more hopeful about. And that's the 13th indicator, will the stock market go up or down? Most Americans came into the new year feeling less hopeful about all the other 12 indicators, but they thought the stock market would just keep rising. And that was true, uh, for a first couple of months, but in March, the stock market, uh, saw its lowest performing, uh, expression for a month in the last several years. And for the quarter that just closed, the stock market has had its worst performance since 2022. So it kind of feels like even that hope may have slipped away from us. Um, so just want to talk about this very important but very broad topic with the two of you. Um, do you guys feel like we are facing a plague of hopelessness in our culture? Katie, what do you think?

Katie Frugé: [00:43:25] I think so. I think people are, uh, anxious looking out and seeing, uh, unfamiliar territory, whether it be AI or new drugs or just the unpredictable stock market and the financial situation. Um, they've kind of lost the assurance. I think of Hebrews 11:1 that hope being the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Um, they don't have a lot of assurance right now. There's not a lot that they feel assured for. And so part of me wonders, what are we putting our hope in? If it's, you know, these temporary things that we know fluctuate, that do go up and down. Um, we're definitely seeing that and sensing that across the spectrum. And interestingly, I think across ages as well. There's kind of a unity that it's not just impacting, you know, millennials or boomers or something like that. Gen Z is showing, uh, really staggering numbers of hopelessness and aimlessness. And so it's definitely something we're seeing across the spectrum right now.

Mark Turman: [00:44:17] Yeah. Ryan, what are your thoughts? What perspective about hope do you see?

Ryan Denison: [00:44:20] I I agree with everything Katie just said and I think so much of it speaks to this idea that often times our our solution to when there's when we're not feeling hope is to just kind of ignore the reasons why we're not feeling hope and just kind of convince ourselves like, no, no, there there I can find something to be hopeful in. And I don't think that's the answer. Um, biblically speaking, whenever the Bible tells us to find our hope, it's in God and it's in our relationship with him. And I think that's the source of hope that won't wane. And so kind of like y'all have been talking about, I think the solution is to just look to the Lord, but also to realize it's like sometimes we're right to not see a whole lot of hope for the circumstances of this world because sometimes there's just things that are pointing in a bad direction and the Bible doesn't call us to be naive about that. And so I think the the hard part is finding a way to hold in tension those very real concerns, those very legitimate concerns, but not letting them drive us into a sort of existential hopelessness that would lead us to think that's the only way they can turn out or even if even if our worst fears are fulfilled, that somehow there's not hope for for the future. So I think the benefit of being a Christian is we know that there's always hope. It's just that hope is in Jesus. And sometimes we may not see the fullness of that hope on this side of heaven. And we have to be able to move forward in that. Um, and also not to let it get us so bogged down or so, uh, not to let that hopelessness change the way that we live in the sense of where we lose our joy or where we lose our purpose. And I think so much of it goes back to that's what I think Christians can offer the world kind of uniquely even is just that ability to look at the world and say, yep, all of that sucks and I'm still okay because I have I have Christ. So I think that's kind of the tension we're supposed to live in.

Mark Turman: [00:46:08] Yeah, it just, you know, it just strikes me over and over again that, um, you know, cynicism and fatalism are just not options for us as Christ followers. Um, and you you're talking about the opportunity that we have in terms of our witness, um, that no matter how dark the world seems to be or or actually is, um, that we have this incredible opportunity to be people that have a transcendent kind of hope. Um, but I also wanted to ask the two of you, what is your, uh, personal or maybe I would just say slang definition of hope? Katie, thank you for, uh, mentioning Hebrews, uh, as a great reference point. But hope always seems to strike me as one of those things that we kind of intuitively know what we're talking about, but we don't ever have just a simple, grab your, grab it with your two hands and say this is what hope is. So, um, I'm going to put you on the spot. What is what is your working definition of hope? Um, Katie, start there.

Katie Frugé: [00:47:14] I think at a very basic level, hope is just in the belief of a possibility that there's something is possible and that that is the belief in that alone. Um, that this could be possible. Like, you know, I'm going to, you know, have grandkids one day. I have the hope of the possibility that that could happen. Um, I have hope that, you know, the war, you know, the Middle East will have peace one day. You know, I have the belief that there's this is a possibility that it could happen.

Mark Turman: [00:47:40] Yeah, okay, that's helpful. Ryan, it's going to be your turn now. That hope, especially hope in a biblical sense, is something more than a wish. So, give me a working definition.

Ryan Denison: [00:47:50] Yeah, I think the only thing I would add to what Katie's the way Katie described it is just it's kind of for me it's that idea that all the really like the bad things of this world don't have to define the future. The there is there's the chance that things will get better. Um, and that there's the chance that things are maybe even better than I'm seeing it right now. I think a lot of I think there is an element to which hope is not meant to be just, uh, that the future will be better, but that maybe even the present isn't as bad as it seems.

Mark Turman: [00:48:22] Yeah. Yeah, that's helpful and that both of those kind of point in the direction. I had a podcast guest about a year ago and I put him on the spot with this question. He said, he said, well, hope is the future. It is it is the reasonable, confident, uh, belief that the future will be better. Um, and you can obviously measure that by whatever time zone or time link that you might want to go with, but it's it is that sense that, well, yeah, there's a lot of things broken right now, sometimes horribly broken, but we are going to trust God that he has a good future plan for us. Um, but even when you know kind of what it is, it can be elusive sometimes. Um, uh, even on our website, Ryan, your dad, Dr. Jim Denison wrote recently a couple of articles about hope. One of them was about, uh, an actor that you guys may not have the same appreciation for, Dick Van Dyke. Oh no, he's a legend. Everyone loves him. If you don't love Dick Van Dyke, you got problems.

Katie Frugé: [00:49:22] Oh no, he's a legend. Everyone loves him. If you don't love Dick Van Dyke, you got problems.

Mark Turman: [00:49:25] Yeah, I just I was cautious about dating myself here, um, because I grew up on a lot of Dick Van Dyke shows, uh, even one named for him, uh, and my wife would tell you that Chitty Chitty Bang Bang might be her favorite movie or Mary Poppins, all right? Um, but he just turned 100 years old and he was asked, you know, how did you make it to be 100 and how do you still smile? And he said, well, I've just learned in life, you need to stay positive and don't ever get mad. And I thought, if it was just that easy, um, to just, you know, how do you stay positive and how do you not get mad? I'd love to know how you actually operationalize that. Um, you know, and and your dad went on in this article, you can find it on our website to talk about how, yes, it's verified by actual clinical study that if you are optimistic, you're going to live not only better, but you're going to live longer. Um, but I researched that out a little bit and the the recommendations were, well, you just need to learn good breathing exercises, you need to learn to do yoga, you need to pay attention when your smartphone or your smart watch tells you that you need to be mindful. And I thought, we're going to need a little bit more help than that. So, only if it was that easy, right? If it were just that easy to, you know, let my watch tell me that it's time to stand up and it's time to breathe deep and it's time to be mindful. Well, I'm going to need a little more than that, okay? So here's my recommended five suggestions of what might generate and stimulate hope. So I want to get you guys to react to this, okay? My first suggestion is just simply worship, which often expresses itself in prayer and scripture. Um, that scripture can confront us, uh, with our need to confess. Psalm 73, uh, I read this week does that in a very powerful way. Uh, at the beginning, I talked about the Pew Research study. That same study pointed out that people who attend religious service services and engage in worship, actually, uh, if you participate at least one time a month, you're more likely to be a person who is optimistic, hopeful, and simply happy or joyful. They are often times less scared and less sad. Uh, second recommendation, just get around people. Um, what the Bible calls fellowship, which simply means caring connection, okay? Um, read another study that's, uh, I'll put the link to this in the bottom of our show notes as well. Americans are saying according to one study that they feel more isolated, at least 50% of them feel isolated, lack companionship, lack friends. Um, came across a new book that's coming out this spring by the actor, uh, from the 80s, his name is, uh, Andrew McCarthy. Uh, you may remember him if you're about my age from movies like St. Elmo's Fire, Pretty in Pink. He wrote his own book called Who Needs Friends, uh, and talks about his own journey and struggle with that. So that's number two. Number three on the development of hope, music. Um, music has a way to touch our lives in a way that, uh, very few things, uh, can do, especially meaningful, uh, you know, what we might call sacred music. Again, another article on our website from Jim Denison about, uh, what happened in American Idol during Easter week, uh, and how, uh, something very special and powerful happened when they were singing songs of faith. Number four on my recommended diet is a healthy media diet. Too much news can just really strip your hope out. Um, and we, none of us on this podcast are good examples of this because our ministries and our jobs require us to pay too much attention to news. So this is kind of a chronically online. Yeah, this is, uh, kind of a do as we say, not as we do, uh, for most people. But hey, watching the news, grabbing the headlines, maybe two or three times a week might be enough for the average person, okay? And then the last one is turn your Sabbath into the pursuit of great hobbies. Um, had a friend of mine say to me, if you work with your body, you need to Sabbath with your mind. And if you spend most of the time at work using your mind, you need to Sabbath with your body. It's kind of a both and, but getting back and and really owning the biblical admonition of a Sabbath on a consistent weekly basis. Um, so those are my five. What do you think of my five? Do you have anything to add either one of you?

Katie Frugé: [00:54:19] I think it's great. I, uh, just ditto, it's on all of them, but especially the significance of fellowship. I think it is so toxic to the human condition to be left isolated and be left alone. Um, it is just cancer to our souls. Um, and I think that there's some biblical principles to that. I think it's significant that we serve a triune God who lives with fellowship within himself, right? Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so I think that there's something, uh, very profound just being with other people that helps kind of be a balm to the uneasiness and the hopelessness that we feel sometimes.

Mark Turman: [00:54:55] Yeah, just I used to tell people all the time when they were joining my church, you need to be at church so you realize you're not losing your mind and you're not the only one going through what you're going through.

Katie Frugé: [00:55:04] Yeah.

Mark Turman: [00:55:05] Yeah. Ryan, what do you think of my list?

Ryan Denison: [00:55:08] I think it's great. Um, yeah, and I think as I was looking through there, the fellowship is what stuck out to me as well because I mean, I'm an introvert who for a long time really struggled with kind of seeing being around people as a good thing because I was forced into it enough that I never really felt the need for it. And it wasn't until like I really started working from home and even during COVID kind of where a lot of those restrictions came in that I really I think fully appreciated how important that is. Um, and so I think kind of to that end, just letting the Holy Spirit take that list and apply it to your and show you how it applies to your life and your wiring, I think is really important because it's going to, if our our solution to that is to look around and go like, all right, well, for the people around me, this is what that looks like. I just need to do what they do. Like I don't think that's necessarily the way that God would apply that. I think a lot of this, uh, to do it well requires just going back whether it's Sabbath, media diet, music, fellowship or prayer and scripture even. Um, just letting the Holy Spirit be the one that guides like, what does it look like to apply those in your life and then listen when he tells you. I think that's he God knows how he wired you better than we ever will. And so letting him speak to that, the way that's supposed to look is really important.

Mark Turman: [00:56:17] Yeah. And just, you know, just to claim over and over again that that promise that God has a good future plan for us. Everything that he is doing is for us to ultimately have the greatest of all futures with him and with each other. Um, and that is, as we've talked about already, uh, a ministry and a witness to the world that we need to claim. So, before we go, uh, I'm going to ask you to participate in the since I asked or since you asked experience, okay? So, uh, that same Pew survey last summer asked people that if they could choose, would they want to live either in the past or in the future, okay? If you simply had the opportunity or you had to choose instead of living here, 45% of US adults in this survey said that if they could choose, they would choose some time in the past. 40% said that they would just prefer to stay in the present and a smaller number, much smaller number, 14% said that they would choose the future. So let me ask each of you, if you had to or could, would you prefer to live in the past or the future? I think for me, I would prefer to maybe visit the past, but live in the present. Uh, I forget who it was, but I saw something on on X recently that talked about how like the richest top 1% of the 1% of the world that lived 100 years ago couldn't even come like fathom the quality of life like the average person has today. And so it's just that really kind of drove home. It's like, okay, yeah, there's a lot of things I take for granted like a toilet that flushes and air conditioning and things like that that I'm like, there may be things about the past that seem great. I'm not giving those up. So I I think I'll choose the I'll choose the present.

Ryan Denison: [00:57:34] I think for me, I would prefer to maybe visit the past, but live in the present. Uh, I forget who it was, but I saw something on on X recently that talked about how like the richest top 1% of the 1% of the world that lived 100 years ago couldn't even come like fathom the quality of life like the average person has today. And so it's just that really kind of drove home. It's like, okay, yeah, there's a lot of things I take for granted like a toilet that flushes and air conditioning and things like that that I'm like, there may be things about the past that seem great. I'm not giving those up. So I I think I'll choose the I'll choose the present.

Mark Turman: [00:58:14] Okay. Well, let me let me take it a

Katie Frugé: [00:58:16] Go ahead, go ahead, Katie.

Katie Frugé: [00:58:18] I had the exact same thought. I was like, there's some cool things that would be neat to see in the past, but I really like air conditioning and I really like having a dishwasher. I don't think I'd be willing to give those up at all.

Mark Turman: [00:58:31] All right, let me take it one step further. The survey divided it between the recent past, the last 50, if you could go back as much as 50 years, or what they called the distant past, more than 50 years. If you went back to visit, what decade or year would you go back to visit, Katie?

Katie Frugé: [00:58:50] Oh, that probably depend on my mood to be honest. I just finished listening to a series on the Civil War and that seemed really interesting, but I don't think I'd want to be there. Didn't seem like it was a fun time to be alive, but an interesting time. Uh, but then I also think about the Reformation and being able to see all the cool things that were going on during that time. Um, then, you know, obviously, uh, you know, going back to the days of Christ and being able to see what the early church was doing. Like all of those things would be really cool, but, um, it probably would just depend on my mood for the day. I'm also a huge, uh, nerd about ancient Egypt. I think it's just fascinating. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an Egyptologist. Like I studied hieroglyphics for fun. And so, man, like it'd be super fun to go back to ancient Egypt and see those things as well. But, um, I don't know, you know, what my quality of life would be if I just plopped down in ancient Egypt. So unless I can be guaranteed a seat in the royal court, I think I'm just going to go visit and come back.

Mark Turman: [00:59:46] Yeah, absolutely. Ryan, what what year, what decade?

Ryan Denison: [00:59:50] Uh, something in the early church probably would be just kind of like the history nerd in me would love to be around like a fly on the wall for the ecumenical councils or something like that. Um, if it was much before that, if I had like a come back to the present button I could press at any point in time, so that if like Romans came around to arrest Christians, I could just kind of say, goodbye and go back. It's like something even before that would be cool. Um, but if it's just like going to spend a week there and you're there for a whole week, it's like, give me any time after about 3:30, 3:30 to 400. And I I would be fascinated to see what that was like. Um, yeah, Council of Nicea or something like that would be really really fun to just kind of be a fly on the wall for.

Mark Turman: [01:00:31] Yeah, yeah. Well, Katie, you're the first person I've ever met that studied hieroglyphics for fun. As a kid. Yeah, nobody, nobody would ever claim that probably. But if I was going back, uh, probably kind of Katie what you were saying, what mood you're in because of what I've been reading and thinking about in some other places, uh, recently, I think I might want to go back for a little while to 1750. And, you know, maybe 1750 to 1780, maybe 1800, that whole amazing season, uh, that resulted in what we're celebrating this spring, uh, America's 250th. And, you know, what would it be like to have a conversation with, you know, George Washington or Ben Franklin, um, and just to see how that all was playing out in that colonial period. So, but hey, we're not going back. We're just going forward and God has even better things in store for us going forward. Guys, thanks for being a part of our conversation today. And I also want to thank our audience. If this has been helpful to you, please rate and review us on your podcast platform. Share this with others. Uh, and we also want to encourage you, you'll find more equipping and helpful resources at denisonforum.org. You can find the Daily Article by Dr. Jim Denison, articles from great writers like Katie Frugé. The Focus is there as well as our other podcast called Culture Brief. A lot of stuff for you to check out. We appreciate you following Faith and Clarity and we'll see you next time. God bless you.