I’m proud to be the street grump, at least when it comes to issues of technology, social media, and artificial intelligence. You may have seen me at school board meetings urging limits on phone use in classrooms, or on social media retweeting, reposting, and reechoing warnings from Jonathan Haidt and Jan Twenge about how the technological age is reshaping childhood, and rarely for the better.
I take these concerns seriously. Still, I found myself wanting to speak out loud about the other side of things.
I teach an educational technology course, and I’ve noticed that more and more students are taking the position of so-called “principled Luddites.” That means we won’t use AI under any circumstances. And I can empathize with that impulse.
In his essay “The Dawn of the Postliterate Society,” which James Marriott wrote for the Free Press last fall, he is right that most of us don’t take the threat that new technologies pose to our children seriously enough.
But despair is not a strategy. And retreating into nostalgia or declaring a ban on all new innovations does little to prepare our children for the world they will actually live in. This genie will never go back into the bottle.
There is a better line between desperation-driven Luddism and naive technological optimism. It is a calibrated hope, rooted in reality, sustained by subjectivity, and disciplined by wisdom.
Counterculture theological stance
As a Latter-day Saint, my attitude toward technology is not innovation. It is a natural outgrowth of my theology.
From the beginning of our faith, our tradition has worked to resist both fatalism and fear. Hope is not naive. It’s a moral discipline. The Bible exhorts us to be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” This reflects complementary rather than competing virtues. We are a people who crossed the plains with maps and wheelbarrows, stocked up on grain for bad years, and stayed behind the wheel when the road ahead was uncertain. It is the covenant, not the disposition, that provides this hope.
Central to this theological stance is a robust account of moral agency, an agency exercised under conditions that are never perfect and rarely simple. Just because tools become more powerful doesn’t mean responsibility disappears. It will increase. This certainty makes me skeptical of determinism in any form, whether it appears in the guise of utopian inevitability or apocalyptic despair. Technology does not free us from judgment. It makes our choices even more dangerous.
This theology gives me unexpected calm in the face of artificial intelligence. Our scriptures teach about God in the flesh, about intellect and matter being inextricably linked. This doctrine means that my worth, and that of my children and students, is not contingent on being the fastest, smartest, most efficient mind in the room.
I love my children not because they are smart, but because they are my children. Human beings are physical spirits created in the image of a physical God, with a divine nature and destiny that technology cannot replace. Artificial intelligence may surpass us in certain tasks, and even in many tasks, but higher meaning and deeper identity are still ours.
My confidence does not come from believing that AI is harmless. It comes from knowing what is not a threat.
This confidence is strengthened by the typical Latter-day Saint view that innovation is providential, something to be governed rather than feared. Brigham Young taught that true progress in science and the arts is not a threat to faith, but a gift that prepares humanity for moral and spiritual progress.
“Every discovery in science and art that is truly true and useful to humanity,” he asserted, “was made to prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of truth.” For Young, innovation was not something to be feared, but something to be governed, something to be brought together, disciplined, and served in the service of human flourishing.
Church leaders today continue to model this same positivity and balance. Elder Gerrit W. Gong of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints teaches that “we can be realistic about both the opportunities and the challenges” when approaching new technologies, specifically recognizing that “AI has much to contribute to human flourishing and the common good,” while also being mindful of its limitations. “AI algorithms are not meant to love us, bless us, or relate to us by contract with God.”
“Generative artificial intelligence may provide instant information, but it can never replace revelation or produce truth from God,” the apostle continued.
Moral formation at this moment
It may be necessary to ban some things, but the judicious use of powerful tools has more to do with the formation of morality than with de jure governance. As a teacher, I believe this same logic applies in the classroom and even closer to home.
Yes, we may need less technology, but we will need more intentional agency. Elder David A. Bednar, also of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said: “As AI overshadows the credibility and promise of scientific progress, we may be tempted to naively surrender our precious moral agency to a technology that can only do ‘heavenly thinking.’”
Maybe, as a friend suggested to me recently, it’s a deliberate, purposeful explosion of agency to keep us safe amidst the information explosion of AI. What does this kind of agency expansion look like?
Latter-day Saint missionaries are increasingly expected to use social media and smartphones in their daily work. You need to set limits, create habits, and set norms that allow your phone to be a servant rather than a master. They are expected to be “purposeful” before heading to their phones and are responsible to their mission mates.
When it comes to my own children and students, I don’t think my agency is fully formed. It develops over time through practice and habit. I see this every semester. While young people want to use powerful tools, they often lack the attentiveness, patience, and self-control habits to make those tools truly useful and not just convenient. This is exactly why my classes require the use of technology. Because the only thing worse than bad technology is a completely unprepared student trying to use it.
In my home, technology is not a right to be given or denied, but a responsibility to be earned. I hope to see evidence of basic self-regulation before phones come along or AI becomes the default shortcut in class. This means managing boredom, turning off when asked, completing tasks without constant prompting, and fully participating in the shared task of learning.
Last semester, a student wanted to use AI to generate an outline for an essay. I first asked him to demonstrate that he could stay focused on a single article without checking his phone. He couldn’t do that. The problem wasn’t the AI. It lacked the discipline necessary to use it successfully.
These limitations are not foolproof or permanent. However, habits form character, and character is the basis of independence.
moral demands
After a depressing day recently, I was looking for a little inspiration. President Jeffrey R. Holland had just passed away and I was feeling a little depressed. The inspiration was unexpected. The literal voice of the President of the Netherlands in early 2025 encouraged me to keep trying, keep my head up, and know that God has my back.
God reached out to me through Instagram reels more than anything else.
I’m still worried about technology. I still insist on limits. I still believe that much of it is oversold and inappropriately used. Nothing has changed.
What changed was that I refused to let anxiety have the final say. I don’t believe that God puts us at ease so that we can be relaxed and passive. I believe God reassures us so that we can act without fear.
The moral imperative of this moment is agency, not anxiety. If we can raise children who know how to govern themselves, who can use tools without being controlled by them, who can resist the urge to panic in the face of change, then we will have done what every generation before us has been called upon to do: live faithfully, think clearly, and make good choices regardless of the tools in our hands.
