One resource I’ve found helpful is Axis. It is a Biblical teen parenting resource. It doesn’t always exactly line up with our LCMS teaching; but it provides helpful talking points with parents and kids. My favorite thing I’ve signed up for is their Culture Translator. You can read past ones on their website; but the culture translator can also be send to your email.
The reason I wanted to highlight this is I think they had an excellent discussion and explanation on AI and teens. Many of you know, I don’t post pictures of my kid’s faces to social media. I also try to avoid using pictures of kids faces on our church media when I can. It’s so hard when we get so many cute pictures of them! Something I have to be sure to cover in Vacation Bible School training, but I’ll also tell you now: Unless you are the parent or legal guardian of a child you do NOT have permission to share their picture on social media. It does NOT matter if you’re aunt, uncle, grandma, grandpa, really good friend, or that it’s just a really cute picture. That does NOT grant you permission to post a picture of someone else’s child online. If you get permission from the parents, you may post the pictures, but if you do not have permission you should NOT be sharing pictures.
In the world of AI, there is a lot of fear, especially when it comes to children. I linked the article above, but here is two quotes from it: “Remember Mean Girls? That scene where someone plastered fake pictures of Cady Heron all over the school? Back then, you needed scissors, a copier, and a dirty magazine to cause that kind of damage. Now, all it takes is one image, AI, and suddenly, a child becomes the target of something devastating.” Earlier it mentions, “The “digital undressing” scandal is horrifying on its own. But underneath it is a stranger and more unsettling issue. Laws in the United States treat any creation or even the possession of child sexual abuse material as a serious felony. That matters. But it also means AI companies cannot safely test whether their own systems can be tricked into producing it. If a safety team succeeds in triggering illegal output, they themselves could face prosecution.”
Where is the grace and hope in any of this?
For the Christian, our identity is found in Jesus Christ. In our Baptism, we became a member of God’s family. We believe and confess the triune God. When we repent of our sins, we our forgiven because of Christ’s redeeming work on the cross. We can keep digital images to ourselves and share them with the ones we love and trust. We don’t need to prove a certain life to thousands of our “closest friends.” In this way, we can also protect the precious and vulnerable children God has given us. We can protect them from the world and keep the world from having assess to our children and those we love. We can also point them to who they are in Christ and daily remind them of their Savior’s protection and redeeming love.
I know many people, including myself, have uploaded images of themselves or others to share. When loading them, it never crossed my mind how these snapshots of joy could be used against me or those I love. This type of AI really wasn’t as readily available to everyone even a few years ago. No matter what happens; I can trust in the redeeming love of Christ. I can trust in His death and resurrection. I can also learn to NOT trust every image I see. If you ever see anything strange or inappropriate on the internet (or anywhere really), please, report it to the proper authorities. If you happen not to see those things and take time away from the internet, enjoying the beautiful creation God made for us, that’s fine too.
If you’re interested in receiving the Culture Translator email like I do every week, please, follow this link.