Then the Lord said to Joshua,
stretch out the javelin that is in your
hand toward Ai,
for I will give it into your hand.
And there you have it straight from scripture,
God opposes
artificial intelligence.
But when many people see advantages to these
generative tools,
how can we celebrate the virtue of stories
made by humans?
Lorehaven has one way, a hashtag campaign along
with buttons and book stickers
just launched at Realm Makers called hashtag made
by humans.
You will get to hear about that and
the entire Realm Makers 2024 conference in today's
episode.
Speculative fiction, like no other genre, reflects the
creativity of God.
If you look at the scriptures, you're gonna
have to see that God uses imagination
more
than rational discourse.
We are supposed to be image bearers for
a vastly creative God.
Reading fantastical fiction opened a portal
in my imagination
for a place other than just a materialistic
world.
I experienced the gospel story with the mind
of someone who loved adventure and loved the
idea of light conquering
darkness. We're
wired for stories that reflect how we see
the world in ways that are true.
The story is either pointing to Christ or
it's pointing to our need for Christ.
Welcome back to fantastical
truth, the podcast from lordayman.com
in which we explore
fantastical stories for God's glory. I'm me, Steven
Burnett, the publisher of Lorehaven, coming to you
live from day 1 of Realm Makers 2020
4 on July 18th.
I'm also, by the way, the author of
a new science fiction novel releasing early next
year from Enclave Publishing and its title is
Above the Circle of Earth.
And I'm Zachary Russell. And unless you are
listening to this podcast from a Borg cube
or from a jar factory in the future
of the brave new world future, I hope
you're not listening from there. You were made
by humans, and so this is episode
223,
why celebrate stories
made by humans?
And the Realm Makers Conference is also made
by humans. So many humans, Zack, they are
trickling in. They are about to pack out
this exhibit hall for this, farewell stop. I
suppose it needs to be because Realmmakers has
been here in the Sheraton Westport Chalet Hotel
in Saint Louis for 5 years off and
on going back to 2018,
I think it was. We did a stop
in New Jersey, I think, and then we
also had the virtual conference for the lockdowns.
But if you have not been to Realmmakers
before, you're gonna miss your chance at being
here in this formerly home hotel for the
conference
because, I have it on good authority that
next year the conference is getting even bigger,
but it's already pretty big right now.
So many authors, so many creators, publishers,
everybody who's anybody who's making more Christian made
fantastical fiction
made by humans,
by the way. Because
bots do bots things, and humans do human
things. We're gonna talk more about that, as
we move forward.
Yeah. Steven, this is my 5th time to
be here since that 2018 conference. That was
my first time.
It's just amazing to think about how much
it's grown, how much it's changed,
how much the entire world has changed since
then. You know, just today,
OpenAI
made an announcement
about,
gpt4oMini,
Advancing cost efficient
intelligence.
So so much packed into that. This is
a big announcement. I don't exactly know what
it means because I'm not an AI researcher
guy. I just like to play around with
the thing because it amuses me.
But it's just amazing to have this
AI world thrust upon us.
Now, the the and this is our 1st
writer's conference, really, since this is all I
mean, this has all happened since the last
Realm Makers. It's kind of incredible to think
about. I mean, there there's been AI kinds
of things for a while, but I I
feel like we are really living in the
era of AI. Now whether that means it's
actual intelligence, it's an actual
entity with a consciousness, well, I think that
remains to be seen.
But we are, you know, having to grapple
with this now. So I I really like
that this year, for this podcast, at at
this conference, we are going to talk quite
a bit about this. About what is the
intersection of technology,
AI, other digital tools, worlds with the fantastical
worlds that we create.
Zack, do you know what else is made
by humans? It is everything at Lore Haven.
We use tools, of course, but nothing generative.
All of our reviews are made by humans,
occasional articles.
These weekly podcasts, it is so important to
us from a theological
perspective
and a biblical
anthropological
perspective,
a scriptural view of human beings and their
purpose in God's universe, that we make these
things by ourselves without generative help, and you
can subscribe free at lordayman.com.
Choose the updates you're going to get, whether
it's monthly or every week or so when
we have the reviews and podcasts out. By
the way, we did suspend reviews in order
to prepare for realm makers, but they are
going to start up again
this week as we release this episode. So
subscribe free lorehaven.com.
You can also get that secret access code
to join our lore haven
guild. More on that later on in this
episode.
By the way, our next book quest in
the Lore Haven Guild is for the Nightmare
Virus by Nadine Brandes and our top sponsor
today from Enclave Publishing.
Some viruses go after the body, but the
nightmare virus goes after the mind.
When dream technology goes wrong, a virus spreads
across the globe, trapping people in a universal
dreamscape.
They call it the nightmare virus.
King Cross is determined to find a cure
if he can decipher his brother's chicken scratch
formula notes.
But when he gets infected, he has only
22 days until he's trapped in the mental
prison forever.
Now every time he falls asleep, he must
fight in a nightmare arena until he earns
his freedom to live in the new world
that exists only in the mind. Then he
finds a way to manipulate the nightmare to
change it by mere thought.
Forced to navigate a world of night beasts,
mistblades, and half truths,
Kane turns his focus to survival.
Will he continue searching for a cure, or
will he swear allegiance to the nightmare?
And the bigger question might be, will he
even have a choice?
Enclave Escape presents The Nightmare Virus by award
winning author Nadine Brandes, available now wherever fantastic
books are sold. You can order online or
ask for it at your favorite bookseller or
your local library.
By the way, enclave Publishing is a division
of Oasis Family Media, which also makes audiobook
versions of all of those titles. You can
see more in the show notes for this
episode, 223,
or go to lorehaven.com/podcast.
By the way, tonight, we're having a release
party for the nightmare virus. I'm looking forward
to that, and Zach and I will be
back after the completion of Realm Makers day
1
going into tomorrow.
We're here in day 2 of Realm Makers,
July 19th, a Friday evening just before the
beginning of the costume costume banquet to celebrate
the realm awards.
Zach, how is your 5th Realm Makers, conference
experience been so far?
Yeah. This has been a really fun one.
I brought my middle daughter with me this
year. So she's in the teen track with
about 30 other teenagers
in person and 8 more online. So that's
been fun. I brought my oldest daughter here
3 years ago.
And,
Realm Makers is a place of refuge is
what I've realized.
More than anything else, it's it's feels like
home. A lot of people have said that.
And it's always a place where you can
learn more. And so we had a lot
of great
stuff we learned from Alan Arnold's keynote on
Thursday night, the first night.
So, I thought we could jump into talking
about that.
His overarching theme
was
living the real story
that God has told not the artificial
or the counterfeit story.
So as we're talking about artificial intelligence, a
lot in our culture,
He says the deeper problem is the counterfeit
story
that we are often
given by the enemy and that we repeat
to ourselves and
basically,
the real story is God at the center.
The counterfeit story is humanity at the center.
And that's what Satan really ultimately tempts us
with. It's putting ourselves on the throne.
And that's what leads to everything else that
goes wrong. I was just thinking of that
famous tract with those famous little diagrams. Self
is on the throne,
interests are disordered. But when Christ is on
the throne, all interests, including the human imagination
and creativity, are rightly ordered. Zack, I'm really
glad you got to that Alan Arnold keynote
because I think I am o for 3,
keynote speeches right now just because sometimes I
forget. There is a writer's conference going on.
I'm so busy at the Lord Haven booth.
And Lacey and I, my wife have been
running the quest system here and telling people
all about, the good work of Lorehaven,
that I'm not able to go to the
classes. I'm gonna try to get 1, maybe
2 tomorrow,
Saturday, but that may be about it. And
I almost wish that we'd, been able to
coordinate with Alan Arnold or something and say,
hey, we're doing this campaign called hashtag made
by humans.
It sounds like he's going more for the
biblical foundation of imagination,
talking more about the positive of human imagination
rather than this arguably
counterfeit
imagination
that we get with a lot of the
generative AI that we're seeing. I can say
too, that by this point, we've been giving
away the little pins made by humans for
people to do our debut quests at the
Lorehaven booth. I've not seen anyone say, yay,
go go gadget AI.
Most folks are fairly opposed,
to the lot of it. And so they're
super happy to get that pin. We had
somebody last night on Thursday who said, rolled
the she rolled the d twenty, and she
got the number for the Made by Humans
quest. And we just asked that discussion starter
question,
hey, what do you think
about generative AI
to make novels? And without missing a beat,
she said, I hate it.
So there is a hot take right there.
And we're trying to be careful, because you
brought up some of the nuance in a
previous episode Yeah. About how AI goes into
spell check. It may go into some of
the, machinery and the software that we run.
But I'm specifically singling in on generative AI
to make the novels themselves. And that, I
do think, is a counterfeit imagination.
It may not have been what Alan Arnold
was thinking of, but it is the first
application that I make. He absolutely Oh, he
did go there. Talked about that. Okay. Okay.
So
AI can only create
according to the rules it's been given.
And so
AI has probably gobbled up every story
writing book that there is. Every novel writing
book, screenplay writing book,
every short story, every anime writing book that
there is.
Okay. So it's good at analyzing stories,
but it's only going to create something from
that. Right?
And so, Alan's point was, if all you're
doing is creating stories that are formulaic.
So just taking what's already been made and
just regurgitating
it. He said,
AI is going to kick your butt every
day of the week. Because AI is going
to do that way better.
But if you are creating stories with God
and letting God
take your story of your life
and apply it to the story world that
you're creating,
AI can never replicate that.
Because that's something unique to you and that's
something
that's unique to God's power.
So I thought that was really cool that,
okay. And as I've said before, yeah, there's
some positive things you can do with AI.
And I know you're not a fan, Steven.
I like the AI voice audiobooks.
I cannot get into it. I wish I
could. Some people have been reading, for endorsement
my novel using the AI voice. And I
the last time I tried that, I was
bursting out laughing out loud because
all my dialogue, my character is so near
and dear to my heart are sounding so
ridiculous
with the AI voice. But I'm glad it
works for you, and I'm glad it works
for others. Well, I think what I like
about it is it's totally flat. It's emotionless,
And so you hear every mistake
and it just perfectly like it. It doesn't
skip a beat. It just will read every
typo and every grammar mistake back to you.
And so in that way it can be
very helpful.
But I would not want to actually pay
for an audio book
that's voiced by AI. I do want an
audio book that's voiced by human. Now here's
here's the interesting thing though.
As I said an AI voice is gonna
be flawless.
A human voice will not be.
And so as we talk about made by
humans as we talk about making things with
God,
it isn't going to be that perfect
shiny thing that an AI can crank out.
So that's to me the really interesting thing
to think about. I've bought books off from
here from realm makers that I found typos
in. I'm like, I know these went through
so many revision passes,
but somehow there's a typo.
I've listened to audio books where there's an
awkward pause or where there's a little bit
of a stumble over a word.
But then I have to remind myself. Okay.
That means it's made by human.
Because a machine would not make that mistake.
Right?
But Alan says, you know,
when you're thinking about AI
stories, AI art, there's this quote he read
by Sydney j Harris who said, the real
danger is that men will begin to think
like computers.
And I I definitely,
you know, can see that happen in culture
when everything revolves around gaming the algorithm.
Well, really, the algorithm is programming you. If
that's all you're doing in life is trying
to
beat the algorithm, you're you're gonna get beat
by it. But Alan made a really good
point. He said, the actual or the bigger
danger
is becoming untethered from God.
Really, what it can become is an idol.
It it can become something that we try
to create a life with
that replaces the life God is making with
us.
And divorcing our art from our spiritual life
with God. Yeah. We all use tools. We
we use Microsoft Word. We use we use
all kinds of Scrivener and all kinds of
other tools to write. We use all kinds
of tools to edit. But when you're actually
creating the story,
if it's coming from a machine, then it's
just coming from machine, then it's just coming
from what everyone else have written.
And, you know, I think the best word
people have used to describe AI stories is
it's more like a forgery.
It it's this mishmash of things that other
people have made. But the bigger problem is,
Alan said, is having a life that's a
forgery.
Having a life
that is centered around humanity. As you said,
humanity is on the throne. Person or self
is on the throne.
God is not on the throne.
But when you go back to the life
that God intended, where God is at the
center,
where we are not just creating stories, but
creating a life that centers around God, That's
when you're actually gonna make a good story.
So it's really interesting. A lot of what
Alan has talked about is really just pin
the spiritual disciplines.
And because he one of the things he
said, in his continuing session was that an
unexamined life leads to shallow stories.
You can't have
a shallow life and have deep stories. And
you're only gonna have a deep life
if you go deep with God. That's a
fantastic point. That'll preach. This guy sounds like
he knows his stuff. Got some wisdom in
there. Lots of years with the industry as
well as in his own spiritual disciplines. We
should try to have him on the show
sometime. On the practical level, I've talked to
a few authors here. This has happened, just
since the advent of good old Chatt g
p t, everybody's favorite bogeyman that I still
don't think I've used, by the way. There's
a few authors here I've talked to. I
saw one pass me by just a moment
here at our makeshift studio.
She was saying that her books were included
in the AI scraping, and she only found
out afterwards.
So there out there is some techno zombie,
shambling about,
that now can repeat
in the voice of this author or these
authors, you know,
as if some voice cloning by way of
words, now repeating phrases and language and scraps
of imagination that it's just reprocessed.
And that to me, I mean, it brings
to mind all the cyberpunk stuff that you
Yeah. Probably know a lot more about. Like,
that is just kind of gross,
to think about some zombie that can just,
you know, click click click its head to
the side and then start talking to you
in the voice of someone who's not there,
that's rather terrifying.
That is something I do think is is
inhuman as opposed to human. I'm thinking of
the quote now from Arthur Weasley from Harry
Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
where, Ginny Weasley gets hold of something like
the fantasy world equivalent
of a dead voice.
Where there's like pieces of a villain's personality
that have been enchanted into this object.
And she is now followed after it and
gotten hoodwinked by
spiritual component there. And Arthur Weasley is incredulous
and he says, Ginny,
how many times have my mother and have
your mother and I told you? Do not
trust the thing if you can't see where
it keeps its brain.
I don't
know where the AI brain is. It's scattered
all around. It's drawing from the electrical grid.
It might generate power outages someday. I can't
see your kids' brain. There's no soul there.
There's no spirit. And so that's why I'm
strongly an advocate for stories made by humans.
Hashtag made by humans Yeah. For the glory
of God.
Yeah. And and, you know, I look at
AI as it's an opportunity
for us to stand out by not using
it. That sounds weird.
But Alan was in his continuing session, was
talking about a writer he talked to
who there was some outage with ChatGPT. Because,
of course, big tech is always having outages
for some reason or another. And this writer
says, I don't know what to do now.
Oh, that's not a good place to be.
And I was like, wait a minute. Chechi
BD has been around like a year or
2. Right? How did you write before that?
Like, have you forgotten how to do that?
And and he went into he had a
great quote. He he started talking about how,
you know, you kinda have to find analog
ways to live
to unplug from these artificial stories.
And he said, for example, he doesn't use
his phone
as a alarm clock anymore. He got an
actual alarm clock. And he says, I don't
have
a smartwatch
to tell the time.
I just have a dumb watch with hands
that move. And he said, no one can
call me on my watch. And I thought,
when else in history would that have made
sense to say, no one can give me
a phone call
on my watch.
And, you know, this is something I did
driving up here. I'd made sure to get
a road atlas just in case our cell
phones went down. We lost them. They broke.
GPS didn't work. Cyber attack.
You know, we have to have those analog
backups.
But again, going back to the fact that
AI can only
output what its input.
AI cannot pray.
Right? And so that is the advantage we
have as human authors. We can pray to
God,
invite God into the stories that we're making.
And that's gonna take it to a whole
new level.
Alan made a great point about how
similar to this.
He said a problem with a lot of
fiction that's coming out from Disney, from Hollywood,
from Netflix, from Amazon.
It's going not only against according to these
formulas, but it's totally ignoring the supernatural
world. All it concerns itself with is the
physical world and saying, this is real. Or
all it concerns itself with is human depravity.
Well, that's real.
But there's a lack of hope because there's
a lack of the supernatural.
And I love how Alan said, that's actually
not real. That's not realistic
to to have a story without the supernatural.
And he took it back to when CS
Lewis wrote That Hideous Drink.
And there was someone that reviewed it and
said, well, this is an interesting thriller and
you know, political intrigue, but the supernatural kept
breaking in. And so the so the reviewer
was with the n I c e. Yeah.
Exactly. Literally missed the entire point of the
exercise. He did not understand the assignment. Well,
that's why we at Lorehaven try to find
the best stories that are not only made
intentionally for the glory of God, but also
are made by humans, which, by the way,
includes our 2nd sponsor, friend of the show,
Jamie Foley, who's also here at the conference.
I am sitting right across from her booth,
and it is the Catrosy Revolution
Series.
Imagine being able to read Game of Thrones
without the guilt, and not everyone has to
die. In the epic fantasy quartet, the Catrosy
Revolution,
the elementals have decided they're gods,
and humans are fuel for their fire. Now
this latest novel from Jamie Foley, book 3,
Lotus Fall,
will release this summer.
Thrones have been toppled and battle's won, but
the war of the gods is only just
beginning.
The heir to the wolf tyrant is faced
with a heritage of violence, Ru Selsake.
He lives in defiance of his father's evil
and his inherited attraction to elemental power.
His adoptive father offers a better path. But
with the blood of false gods burning through
his veins, can Sausage harness enough power to
protect imperial princess Vilya and simultaneously
resist the temptation that corrupted his ancestors?
Next is the jade witch.
The Darkwoods seek justice for their fallen kin.
Together at last, but on the run, Brook
and Lissander
flee Jadenvaiv in the midst of political turmoil.
Determined to aid her people even while facing
rejection,
Brooke chooses to trust Felix's directive to locate
Lillian's ancient vault and steal her most prized
possession,
the future seeing dream catcher.
And, finally, there is the lady god slayer,
Qi'ra, who found everything she never knew she
wanted.
Now, the choice remains. Hide with Rione and
pray for the war to end favorably, or
risk it all to do what is right.
Visit emberhawk.com
to find the Lotus Fall hardcover, paperback, ebook,
or audiobook.
You can also preorder directly from the publisher
atfayettepress.com
to get a signed copy of Lotus Fall
along with some super sweet swag. Get all
those links in our show notes for this
episode 223
or at lord haymond.com
/podcast.
Alright. For chapter 2
of our coverage of Realm Makers 2024,
We're gonna talk about day 2 of the
conference. So what's been happening on Friday,
both in some of the, the main sessions,
the elective
sessions,
the realm awards ceremony,
and some conversations that Steven has had, around
the Lord Haven booth.
So, Steven, this morning, things kicked off with
this great talk from Carla Hawke,
who,
is known
by her book, Fight Right and also her
website of the same name. And she's releasing
a,
a sequel to that, Fight Right round 2,
appropriately named.
And so she goes into all different kinds
of things that authors would need to know
about writing good fight scenes.
The really interesting thing about this is she
said that,
juries now, because of how everyone is aware
of shows like CSI,
that,
jury members expect certain kinds of detail
to be presented
by
the prosecutors
for certain kinds of, you know, information that
could clear someone's name by the defense, like
DNA, fingerprints,
video evidence, whatever.
And, she made a really funny point that,
did you know that koalas can have human
like fingerprints? Like, how many koalas have been
prosecuted for, you know, human crimes, either
or how many koalas have gotten away with
murder? So that was kind of funny. But
this was a really interesting observation she made
about how stories
have actually changed culture, how they have changed
the justice system.
And because of shows like
that, readers
of thrillers and crime stories and action stories,
they expect a certain amount of detail in
those stories.
And so Carla is is your gal for
learning all that out.
She made a really good encouragement to all
the writers here. She says, if you don't
think you have what it takes,
keep doing it until you have what it
takes. I just thought that's that's great.
You know,
we're we're gonna talk about the Realm Awards
in a minute. But what's so,
common, I think, for a lot of writers
here, Stephen, is especially if you've been here
a few times,
you've been you've been here many, many years,
and you're not one of the Roan award
winners. You know, you're not a finalist.
You don't even have a book, that's published
yet.
It it can feel like,
am I crazy for wanting to do this?
Is this just a a pipe dream?
Because maybe I don't really know what I'm
doing. I don't know why I'm here. I
don't know why I'm writing. I could be
doing a number of things. I could be
playing video games. I could be catching up
on my,
you know, my YouTube or my Netflix watch
list, which I'm only ever adding to. I'm
never actually watching anything. I just really, they
should make a plan where that's all you
do is you just add stuff to your
watch list.
So it can be kind of discouraging,
to be one of the many other authors
here. But, you know, Realm Makers is not
a,
an environment where everyone is,
jealous or back talking or all this kind
of stuff.
It's such an encouraging place. It's really incredible.
But what do you do if you're that
author who's still trying
to get a book published or get it
noticed or get it sold?
And so her talk was all about this.
It was all about her journey
of of going from unpublished, you know, clueless
writer
to now,
I guess, best selling author. Well, what I've
always appreciated about Carla, and she's been with
the Realm Makers, almost since the very beginning,
I think, is that she writes about and
talks about and demonstrates in person, has demonstrated
in person before,
the goodness of the human body. How the
human body works.
Why these physical details matter.
I think that is a healthy corrective, not
just for understanding things like self defense and
the mechanics of a fight scene, the emotion,
what's going on when the adrenaline hits, and
some of the myths that you see in
movies and streaming shows and in books.
She debunks all of that stuff. But I've
always appreciated, just my take on it, is
that, she is actually helping to counter
some of the Gnostic assumptions
that Christian stories have.
I have heard people pitch books, like, to
me, not like I'm, you know, acquiring, but
I guess I've got one of those faces
where people want to tell me their stories.
It's probably why I'm doing this job.
People will pitch their stories and, I'll look
at books sometimes and, you know, maybe some
of these are books that we've declined to
review at Lorehaven,
where the author seems persuaded that the physical,
the humanity of the characters is the least
interesting thing about them. And what matters most,
what the author finds most interesting about the
character
is the spiritual side. You know, the soul,
the spiritual component of the human, whether they
call it soul or spirit or whatever.
And as a result, unfortunately, the story tends
to suffer.
Because the story seems accidentally ashamed of the
idea of the characters being human. And so
when she's talking about fight scenes, and this
is what happens when you hit here, and
if you punch to the nose a certain
way, like, you could actually kill a bloke.
He's not just gonna shrug that one off
and then be perfectly fine peeling himself off
the street. No. Humans are made this way,
and humans can be unmade
in this way or other. So that's one
way that I think, what she does helps
to incidentally reflect that theme of stories that
are made by humans. Not just made by
humans,
but that are about humans. You know, there's
a famous Lewis quote that God likes matter.
He invented it. And so, when we go
too far afield in to generative AI and
all that, as you were saying earlier, Zach,
you know,
these things don't have a soul.
These things, they're not even really an imagination.
They're just auto filling. They're training on what
actually humans have said,
and the closer I think we can get
to humanity, the closer we can get to
better Christian made stories.
Yeah. You know, we are not just ugly
bags of mostly water, as an alien and
Star Trek said.
We are fearfully and wonderfully made.
So I was talking,
earlier with Steve Smith, the president of Oasis
Family Media, one of our main sponsors for
the show. Thank you, Oasis.
And,
Steve recounted a conversation we had with him
when he was on the podcast for our
Steve saga. And apparently I can't even barely
remember this, but I made a comment that,
you know, why is there not any Utopian
fiction? Why why is it all dystopian? Because
it'd be boring. Right? There's no conflict. No
story. Right. And so it sent him down
a rabbit hole, he said. And he has
spent 100 of hours
researching and reading and listening to Utopian fiction.
Now, most of it is a lot older.
It's like back from a 100 years ago.
It's,
I think, Arthur c Clark in in sort
of that era of science fiction. I think
there'd be a whole lot of it that
would have been, like, someone just propagandizing.
Yeah. Because he thought he could found the
community,
you know, in 19th century America that was
gonna get it right. We were gonna move
past all this religious stuff. We're gonna go
off all in the woods and be a
commune. So they'd write a novel imagining what
it would be like, and usually, they ended
up trying it themselves and then wiping out
spectacularly.
Oh, yeah. I mean, and these are people
that didn't always realize that the utopia they
were creating,
is only kind of utopying for some people,
depending on your ideology
or, you know,
physical makeup or whatever.
And so, yes, it might be utopian for
one group of people, but not for most
people.
And so,
apparently some,
you know, utopian fiction inspired the,
inspired Hitler. I feel like I'm breaking Godwin's
law, whatever it is.
But but Steve told me all about this,
about these
utopian stories that
influenced a very dark period in, you know,
war, world history.
But we we are talking about, like, what
is it about
both utopian and dystopian that really misses the
mark for a lot of people?
And it's that
neither one is telling the true story of
humanity. Right?
So you're either trying to tell a story
where
humans are basically good
and or or at worst, we're neutral. And
all you have to do is put in
the right programming
and people will do the right things, or
they're already good. You know, we're we have
a spark of the divine in us.
Anything is possible that we put our minds
to.
But then dystopian is like the equal and
opposite error that only bad things will happen
and everything will go from bad to worse,
that there's no redemptive
value. And that also is
is obviously very depressing.
At our table tonight at the rum awards,
there was a kind of a side conversation
happening. It was interesting between,
one of the teen writers that's here and,
another lady. And they were both talking about
why they hated the end of The Hunger
Games. Doesn't everyone hate the end of The
Hunger Games? Because everybody dies, there's no hope,
and, you know, heroin gets married, but it's
really no happy ending whatsoever. Right. It's probably
happened all over again. And, you know, the
person she's trying to save the whole story,
does. And
by the hand of the person that she
thought loved her
And the other guy that loves her is
kind of a train wreck of a of
a person.
And, you know, not really through any fault
of his own, but through this horrible world
that's created,
where there really are no heroes that emerge.
The people that rise to power are just
as bad as the people they took power
from.
So what's the point? Like, you don't really
change anything.
It doesn't really get any better. It kinda
gets worse.
So, yeah,
that kinda depressed me too when I read
it, now that I think about it. That
was about 10 years ago.
And so dystopian fiction
also misses the mark because
it's a story without
redemptive
power,
without the supernatural
breaking into the real world.
It's not realistic. And it does it's not
that it's not realistic because there's no Christians
or some Christian message.
Look at what Jesus said about
God loves people so much that he sends
rain on the good and the wicked. Common
grace. Yes. Yeah. And so we see that
all throughout the world, all throughout history.
We've seen that with
some recent events and some other events in
our history when,
certain people could have been killed
or certain,
nuclear missiles could have been launched that weren't,
or that in, there's a story, in fact,
in, in Russia, of all places, of the
former Soviet Union.
If I had the story right, the captain
of a submarine from the Soviet Union
was given the order to fire
his nuclear missiles.
And this was some kind of mistake that
happened,
and he refused.
And he wanted to really be sure that
we were actually at war, you know, that
we're DEFCON won.
And, because he refused and tried to get
more
information, we're still alive today. That's pretty amazing.
And, again, that's in the Soviet Union. Like,
God broke into that situation. He breaks into
other situations,
so we have to have stories that reflect
that. Now, a more recent example, of course,
Zach, on my way to Realm Makers, I'm
listening to because we've just done our Left
Behind Legacy series. A better example, by the
way, of a dystopian with hope at the
end because Christ Literally Returns,
the Left Behind series.
I was listening to the assassins portion of
the Left Behind audio drama. Listened to 2
episodes. The last one ended with gunfire.
Riding in the passenger seat, getting some rest
while my wife is driving. And I sit
up and I think, I think I'll, check
on my phone, see what I may have
missed in the meantime, Realmmakers
hype, you know.
Instead, there's a message from my brother to
the siblings chat saying,
somebody just shot a former president of the
United States, and it appears to be a
flesh wound, but wow.
He literally dodged a bullet, and to some
extent, American society dodged a heck of a
lot of political and social upheaval.
Because if something worse had happened to him,
well, first off, it's a human life loss
Yeah. Then it is a president no matter
what you think about him. And secondly, there's
gonna be a lot more people mad at
a whole lot of other more people, and
we're already seeing that now. You know, we
avoid the political issues here, but you do
see then the hand of God there.
Providentially guiding things and arranging the story,
away from utopia, obviously. We're not gonna get
that until Christ does return,
but certainly away from dystopia also.
His hand is providentially guiding things. So I'm
not a big fan of utopian, and
increasingly, I'm not a huge fan of dystopian
either. But Zach, if you want to, we
can talk about the categories that did win
big
at the Realmmakers Conference. Probably why some of
our listeners are here. Zach and I probably
have a little bit of a strain in
our voices, but we're just letting that, on
through because we are literally recording this the
evening after the Realm Awards banquet,
on Friday, July 19th.
They get together, for those who haven't been
to Realm Makers, you have the option of
dressing up in costume.
They even have like a costume award.
For the first time, my wife Lacey and
I actually got to get on stage because
we were nominated. In fact, I'm sitting here
right now in my Tom Bombadil
outfit. I am speaking through
a very convincing
fake beard, in fact.
Looking like, Middle Earth's ageless being,
with one of the most beautiful women in
Middle Earth. I even had a tray with
water lilies on it. Yeah. We're gonna post
some photos for sure, if you haven't seen
them already. But, enough of that. It was
wonderful just to see all of these costumes
then
made by humans, And to celebrate, as before,
all of these stories,
audio stories, cover design,
short fiction,
and full length published novels
that have been made by humans. And so
I have the winners list here real quick.
We haven't, you know, read all these books,
obviously, but lots of folks wanna know these
winners. It's the 2024 Realm Awards celebrating the
best Christian made fantastical fiction that they got
entered in,
of 2023,
starting with the best, short story Flash Fiction
award for inversion
by Cathy McCrum.
She's been on the show before talking about
her series there. I don't know if that's
set in the same universe or not, but
there's an honorable mention there too. You know,
I don't think I can mention all the
honorable mentions. They are indeed very honorable. I
will have the whole list posted at lorehaven.com,
and I'm sure Realmmakers will also post that.
Best novella, Shattered Echoes by Hope Jean Jian.
I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.
Best novel audiobook,
Rogue Pursuit by Becky Dean. She's been on
the show talking about that series. I think
that was just last summer, actually. Yeah. That's
the audiobook version. Rogue Pursuit by BL Dean,
narrated by Sierra Klein.
Best cover design, apparently, a neck and neck
competition between 2 designers,
but the winner was, Kirk DuPont, who designed
the cover for Steel Fire from the Gods.
That was a book that, Jamie Foley was
talking about, designing a bunch when we had
her on the podcast earlier this year.
Debut author,
Suspended in the Stars by EA Hendricks. That
one picked up a few more awards here
too. Yeah. That one looked really good. In
fact, I I sent a picture of it
to,
my oldest daughter who's at home
and my middle daughter who's here with me,
they both said, I wanna read that book.
It looks so good. Okay. We got a
copy of it. Well, it looks to be
science fiction as well of some kind. So,
genre colleague props there from me and Zach.
Best middle grade winner on Hidden Wings by
Adaire Elise. Now they pronounce these names correctly.
I might mispronounce your name. So if so,
direct all inquiries to podcast at lorehaven.com.
Best young adult novel, also Suspended in the
Stars by e a Hendrix.
And the combined category of horror, paranormal, and
supernatural
fiction,
this one is Almost Paradise by Brian Timothy
Mitchell. If my memory serves correctly, he won
in that same category for his first book
last year, and we had him on the
show last summer. Yeah. For Infernal Fall. Infernal
Fall. That was book 1. He's also been
a sponsor of this podcast. So way to
go, Brian. Yeah.
Just owning that category,
2 years in a row at the Realm
Awards.
Best Fantasy
Song of the Selkies
by Sarah Pennington. That had a very interesting
opening, which,
Scott Miner read most dramatically.
Best Science Fiction, When Death is Coming by
Jen Woodrum.
And then there's the Reader's Choice Award, which
is a little different from these. They have
official judges and structure for all of these
other categories. But the reader's choice is one
where people actually go to the website and
then vote. And they have methods to, you
know, screen out repeat votes and bots and
stuff. So, it's very much a more populous
focus there. Anyway, the winner of that was
A Bond of Briars by Aaron Phillips. I
think we reviewed that one at Lorehaven, and
if so, I'll try to put that link
in the show notes. And the 2024
Realm Award for Book of the Year goes
to
also the Fantasy
Award winner, Song of the Selkies by Sarah
Pennington.
Now, Zach, I'm looking at the cover here.
This does not naturally look like a book
for blokes, but
it obviously swept at least 2 categories here.
And I remember the author was extremely happy
to get that award. I love seeing these
awards be given out. I love celebrating these
stories
made by humans. Guys,
bots can't make these kinds of stories. And
even if they could, they should not,
because ethical reasons, because God has made human
beings to make stories, the bots are at
best tools that we can use
to get us places. And bots aren't gonna
lose their voice like we have,
cheering and screaming for one another and and,
others. Or trying to project in a crowded
room. Right. And, you know, when you were
up, I definitely lost my voice Oh, thank
you. And, Yeah. We we have a clap
off for the best costume person. And, yeah,
this is what I said earlier, is that
everybody really needs to support everybody else. You
know, I'm up there going, like, and you
go, I hope we win.
But then, you know, hey, it feels good
to, you know, lose to the young lady
who has the semi animatronic
dragon on her shoulder. I mean, come on.
That's a special effect. You gotta support that.
Well, to put a video for that or
or something in, Instagram or show notes or
something is pretty incredible.
So the other thing that's important about Made
by Humans is relationships.
That's what we saw so much tonight. We
saw people cheering for one another. In a
few cases, an author wasn't here to take
an award and a friend
took it for them. We saw authors thanking
other authors and and their beta readers and
their
their family and all the people that helped
them make it. And that's what's so wonderful
about this is that this really
is often a community effort. And, Steven,
this is what has really surprised me over
the years when I,
you know, 10 years ago or something thought,
oh, maybe I could write a book because
you can just do that all by yourself.
You don't need anyone.
It's not like making a movie or even
writing a screenplay where you need a ton
of people to make a movie or even
a short film. A book still needs a
lot of people. And one of those kind
of people you need for a book if
you're
publishing with a traditional publisher is an agent.
This is someone who
goes through the contract and make sure there's
no landmines. And that was a seminar I
went to this afternoon taught by Steve Laube,
the president of the Steve Laube Agency. And
now my publisher? Yeah.
And, boy, there's there's so much to cover
that he went through. He he printed out
this whole thing of these
book contract clauses. And you you read it
and you scratch head. You're like, what's wrong
with that? Other times,
certain things jump out.
And there's some things that are,
I I would say, pretty interesting for
readers to know about. For example,
there is a thing called a moral turpitude
clause.
And Steve said, you know, have you turpitude
ed today? Like, what what is that word?
Like, it's such a weird phrase. That sounds
like something you'd use as a paint thinner.
Right. Yeah. Like turpentine.
Yeah. And, now this clause
explains why there are many books that suddenly
disappear from the Christian
bookstore because the writer had some kind of
scandal,
or perhaps,
more than a scandal, perhaps a criminal action,
or a major moral failing and lost
his or her position at a church or
a ministry or some other kind
of profession, got a divorce,
in any number of things.
And, you know, once that happens, that book
isn't gonna sell, especially to Christian readers.
Well, the problem is
these book contracts have the
wording
of in the event that an author is
publicly
accused
of an act of moral or duty. So
So it's a bad kind of cancel culture,
perhaps. Yeah. So all that someone has to
do is go on social media and accuse
an author of something immoral.
And, a publisher can say, well, alright. We're
pulling out. Or or or fake immoral, like
Right. According to the new morality. Like, oh,
they're a bigot because they said something that's
from the bible. And, yeah, that won't do
at all. Right. So one so when Steve
talked about this section, he said, look, we
we try to change that because contracts can
be changed before they're signed.
We try to get that changed to say,
okay, there has to be a,
a court decision
or a preponderance of evidence or an admission
by the author of whatever the issue is.
And,
yeah. And and then there were other things
about, like,
publishers trying to give themselves the right to
alter
a human's book,
and make them pay for it.
Make them pay for the editing or the
the changes and we've certainly seen this with,
the certain kinds of, you know, sensitivity
reading,
because again, there's a whole new morality that's
taken over corners of publishing.
And so that's, you know, that's not a
great clause there. And that's it's like a
different kind of machine that's happening. Right? It's
not necessarily an AI,
but there's sort of this, like,
consensus
mechanism that happens in our culture that's
that that gets filtered out through these social
media algorithms of like, oh, this,
you know, this is the way to look
at this and this is not the way
to look at this. This is how you're
supposed
to feel about this or think about this
issue.
And those are always changing.
And,
so but,
one really funny thing that happened in this
seminar that that's been going on a lot
is this trend overheard at realm makers. So
the kinds of things that
you wouldn't just hear at a writer's conference,
That you only hear at realm makers. Okay?
Because any writer's conference
is gonna have awards. They're gonna have book
contracts. They're gonna have how to show, not
tell, how to self edit,
how to market, all that kind of stuff.
And Realm Makers is so interesting for the
ways that these
conversations happen.
So, for example,
Steve talked about a clause in one of
these contracts where it said, the publisher has
the right throughout the entire universe.
And,
Steve kinda fought the publisher and said, don't
claim you own the rights on Saturn.
The entire universe would not just be our
local solar system, which is not even that
local, but
a far, far galaxy away. Like, that's, rather
absurd and domineering.
Yeah. What an interesting phrase. Somebody was obviously
into some science fiction a little too much.
Right. And, he he really tried to take
them to task over that, and they, you
know, they always said they wouldn't budge on
it. Another thing that Steve said, another overheard
realm makers is, what if we got tired
of Oasis Family Media and we sell your
book to Satan Incorporated?
I would love to know the context of
that. But on second thought,
let the context escape me on this late
night. Let it stand on its own and
make me forever wonder.
That's funny. Yeah. Hashtag overheard it, role makers.
That's a good one. And he ended the
time by saying, I love scaring you, so
I hope you'll hire me. Okay. There we
go. Oh, also overheard at role makers.
Finally, our 3rd sponsor is the Lore Haven
Guild. In a moment, I'll talk about what
we did at the conference for the physical
version of the guild at our booth here
in the exhibit hall. But the fun will
continue after realm makers 2024
has closed because the guild is actually our
Discord server, the castle in the cloud. And
you can portal into this castle for our
amazing monthly book quests
into the best Christian made fantastical novels that
we found.
But you gotta subscribe free at lordaymond.com,
then we send you that link,
to enter the castle. By the way, those
who've already subscribed,
you have the link in that email. We
put it into every successive email we send.
So if you haven't joined, then now is
a great time because we are about to
start that quest into the nightmare virus
beginning of this Thursday,
August 1st, led by my friend, Elijah David.
Subscribe free at lorehaven.com,
and you can get that link also in
our show notes to join the Lore Haven
Guild.
So we host the Lore Haven Guild year
round on our Discord server. But for the
Realmmakers conference, we basically were able to rebrand
our booth, which we've had for several years
at that event,
into the Lore Haven Guild in person.
And one thing that we really enjoyed this
time, was debuting our new and improved
Quest system.
We just got finished giving away, some of
our awards, these handcrafted,
drinking vessels
that were hashtag
made by humans. So specifically,
one human,
my wife Lacey's mom, Esther Jones, who does
pottery and artistry and paintings.
Everyone just really admired these drinking vessels, and
I did too. And I will tell you,
Zach, it hurts to give them away
just a few minutes ago. In fact, we
just gave one away, to a person who
made, the winning pitch,
for this podcast. So we'll be working on
getting him set up for some equipment, and
then having him on the show, maybe in
another few months or so. But we also
had these, I think I've mentioned these, made
by humans pins and stickers.
And part of the quests were these debut
quests, where we just roll the dice, really
simple,
and then give someone just a really quick
30 second or so assignment to do right
there at the booth. And in reward, they
could get a pin or a sticker that
says, hashtag made by humans.
And so many people, Zach, when I asked
them the question,
this kept coming up actually,
as if a providential turn of the d
20. This kept coming up, the question,
what do you think about the use of
generative AI
in creating things? So many people, without missing
a beat, would look at me and just
say, I don't like that. I am not
a fan. I hate that. And so, instant
award for the pin, you know. There was
a few people who were saying, you know,
I have a more nuanced view on that.
I think it's okay to use that for
idea generation, and maybe some marketing here and
there. But I think the consensus is universal
among our questers,
that nobody is a fan of using generative
AI,
this,
counterfeit imagination,
to replace the genuine imagination that God has
given us. And as you'll go through in
a moment, I think we heard a lot
of that also said at, some of the
panels and keynotes, here at Realm Makers. Yeah.
Today was really interesting, Steven. We had
a theology
of science fiction taught by Steve Laube. Alright.
My man. Then we had an, artificial intelligence
panel
by Alan Arnold, who we've mentioned before.
And also,
Alan broken. Alan broken. It was the 2
Allans. Yeah. And Alan versus Alan. And yeah.
Except they were really on the same side,
I think. Yeah. I kept thinking if you
abbreviate that to AL in certain fonts, it
looks like AI. Looks like AI. Yes. Well,
you know, Joshua went up. I think we're
actually living in a simulation because this is
too weird. Glitch in the matrix.
And Alan
Brokin,
I think he works for a tech company
and he works in AI. And so he
kinda had that behind the scenes technical perspective.
And then we had a closing keynote from
Chris Skaggs talking about
video games. He's with Soma Games.
So we're a lot of technology talk today,
which is very interesting. And,
you know, Steven, I've had so many thoughts
about this.
I I wanna throw a curve ball here.
This will kind of mesh a lot of
this together. Sure, Zach. It's only after 10
PM, and they're closing the books for around
us. So my catching arm feels great. Go
for it.
Isn't AI made by humans?
No.
No. Because it is, it Let me think
about that.
AI, I think, can be started to be
made by humans, but it's like winding up
the robot,
with some sort of, infinite spring on the
inside and then just goes up off by
itself crashing into things.
Because it's programmed, yes, by humans. But the
information it's collecting and regurgitating,
that's not made by humans. Yeah. But it
has the illusion of being made by humans.
If I call it a counterfeit imagination, not
that it's a non imagination.
It's a counterfeit
that occasionally looks like the real thing, but
ultimately is not.
Yeah. Alan Brogan actually had a good way
of saying this from a technical perspective.
He said that the large language models, first
of all, are given the input of, like,
everything.
Just all kinds of human knowledge and input.
A lot of it from the Internet that's,
not factual and maybe not meant to be
taken factually, but they, yeah, they don't care.
And then secondly, it uses an inference engine.
So it it infers what the truth is
based on this collection of input
that, you know, some humans have filtered somewhat.
But even those,
filters have some ideological
base bias to it.
And so that's why we've we've probably all
seen these,
things like, hey, make a joke about Buddha.
No. I can't do that. Make a joke
about Mohammed. No. I can't do that. Well,
certainly not. Make a joke about Moses. No.
I can't do that. Now make a joke
about Jesus. Okay. Here you go. Yeah. Here's
a pretty funny joke about our lord and
savior. Yeah. Right. Apparently, he can take it,
but all the rest of these idols got
really thin skin. Yeah. And that actually,
you know, Alan talked quite a bit about
this in his final continuing session today
that don't underestimate
the fact
that the world is at war with Jesus.
That all the the heaviest opposition
falls on him.
You know, the the world hates him.
It's always hated him, and it's gonna hate
his followers.
But hold on to that a moment. And
what Chris
talked about in his closing keynote was
and Alan has mentioned this too is,
so what?
So what if the world hates us? Let's
get out there and make stuff. The world
doesn't apologize
for making,
weirdo versions of Star Wars
or other things that we've loved all our
lives and now are being oddly modified.
They don't apologize for this. They don't apologize
for their ideological,
insertions into stories or games or books
or other kinds of art. So why should
we apologize?
We we have in, Chris talked a lot
in a very theological terms about
how Jesus has the authority and the power
over this whole Earth.
And we need to not be afraid
of of being creators with him,
because,
the whole Earth belongs to him.
You know, I really enjoyed this, AI panel.
I thought at first, there were only 2
panelists.
2 men both named Alan. Then I realized,
they're actually very well chosen.
Because, Alan Arnold has been a Realm Maker
staple for quite some time. I'd love to
have him in my podcast sometime, and maybe
not just recreate that panel, you know, you
need to go to that event, because it's
a pretty premium stuff there.
But his big thing is, the humanization
of stories, you know, and the biblical world
view that's behind the creation of stories. And
I wrote down some quotes from him. He
said,
AI doesn't have a soul, but it does
affect our soul. Mhmm. And then later on,
when compared with other technologies that people say,
well,
they said back then that the electricity and
the telephone were going to ruin the world,
so aren't we just being a little too
resistant to change?
And then, in response, Alan Arnold said, electricity
doesn't have a world view. A telephone doesn't
have a world view. But AI has a
world view. And I really resonate with that
world view language, because that's a lot of
what we do here in fantastical truth. And
then, Alan, broken, chimed in, chimed in there
later and said,
electricity
didn't give you an
AI girlfriend.
So this here, that's a counterfeit. Not just
a counterfeit imagination, but a counterfeit person that
fools you into thinking it's real. And in
that case, you know, they didn't even need
to go to the trouble of making a
synthetic skin, you know, synthetic, you know, robo
body of a girlfriend, which can get even
more creepy. It's just an app that's talking
like a girlfriend.
And if you're fooled by that, then it's
hacking your imagination, and it almost has this
spiritual effect,
Almost like you're talking to some spirits and
all the warnings we used to hear about
kids don't play with the Ouija boards. You
might not like what you're talking to, and
it might get spooky.
That's the same effect, I think, from some
of this AI stuff. But on a happier
note,
everybody here at Roll Makers
is a human, and they're making stories. So
every story they're making one way or another,
unless they're generating AI when I'm not looking,
those stories are made by humans. I mean,
we talked in the last segment, about some
of the amazing award winners, that we saw
last night at the costume banquet.
Lacey and I, and a bunch of us
here at the, at Lore Haven
booth, have also been able to talk with
so many people and hear their stories. Not
just about the stories they're creating, the books
they've written, but the stories of their lives
that help to drive these stories. And the
deeply human ways in which Christ has reached
out to them to help bring them to
himself, often through,
the wonderful gift
that is stories. I was just talking with
people, some of the, the debut quest stuff
that we have has been very specifically conversation
starters like the kind we would have here
on the podcast. It says, do this in
30 seconds, and then 5 minutes later,
we're still talking about it. And so that's
why, you know, at least I'll be selling
books next year when my book comes out,
made by humans, by the way. But that's
why I just love coming to Realm Makers
for these conversations,
to meet people, to sign them up for
Lore Haven. And we've talked to a lot
of people, Zach, who've listened to this podcast.
I should have been writing down all the
names of the people we've met. Just I
just wanna say, if you're listening to this,
week or so after the conference,
the Realm Makers energy continues.
Shout out to all of you all. Thank
you so much for listening to this podcast.
And I'm looking forward, by the way, to
the Grand Rapids conference. We talked about that
with JJ Johnson several episodes ago. It's made
that announcement official tonight.
Yeah. I was really excited to that final
keynote to hear about the Realm Makers Expo
next year, the partnership with all these other
Christian creative,
groups and industries
and fan,
fandoms.
And,
you know, just this point that Chris Skaggs
made that
Christian creativity is on the rise.
Every category
of Christian art and media has been blowing
up
in recent years decades.
And I think it's something really unique
to Christianity.
Because
Jesus talks so much about the only way
to really love God
is to love
your fellow Christian because you're part of the
body of Christ.
You can't say,
I love God, but I hate these Christians.
I love God, but I hate my family.
You know, that that doesn't work.
Loving others is so integral,
and that means a more collaborative approach rather
than a competitive approach. That's something we've heard
about a lot at this conference.
And I I think that, you know, he
had a very bold vision for what Christian
creativity could look like in many different
sectors. Not just books, not just video games,
music, movies,
role playing games, all kinds of ways that
Christians make culture.
Why shouldn't
we make the best stuff out there?
Why should we shy away from it? Why
should we try to,
you know,
put our best foot forward, not just individually,
but as a community
and really support one another
in these
industries. And and I like how he said,
look, there's no excuse for mediocrity.
We're not just saying support
people because they're Christians.
Yeah. Yeah. Don't be a support zombie.
But we are,
we are expecting the best of one another
in ourselves. But it's that it's that support
of one another that enables
that best effort.
And I think we're gonna have a really
unique perspective on things lines like science
fiction. I love science fiction, Steven, because we
are living in a science fiction world. I
mean, when we were growing up watching Star
Trek, The Next Generation, and they talk to
the ship and the AI voice or they
go on the holodeck and they interact with
these computer generated,
fake people, We all thought, that'll never happen.
And now,
it is basically happening
and everyone's trying to make sense of that.
And I think as
Christians, we can lead those conversations
and we can also
portray
truth about these technologies
in our stories
in a way that others can't because they
are lacking that supernatural perspective that kind of
oversees
supersedes all that. Now, I will say, I
and this is a probably a topic for
another podcast.
I do think there can be a danger
of Christians being anti technology, anti culture,
just wanting to go back to how the
things were,
and in sort of getting into this gnostic
view that all that matters is the spiritual
life. Get rid of all your wires and
your code and all your devices.
Now I think, again,
we can offer wisdom to others
and the wise way to use things,
the boundaries. And I I like how, I
think it was Alan.
Which one? Yeah. There you go. There's Alan.
Named Alan. 1 of the Allans. You can
take that to the bank. Yeah. And I
think it was Alan Brogan that said, if
you look at the history of the Dust
Bowl,
what happened was That was yeah. Yeah. Was
it there were these sharecroppers on these large
farmlands,
and then,
you know, automation came around. The the the
original version of it, like tractors. And all
of a sudden,
these farms,
these big farm owners didn't need the sharecroppers.
They basically got rid of them. They used
all this automation to just
plow plow plow, and then they ruined the
land.
And it because of the ways they did
it, it created this dust bowl. So then
what did they do?
They surrounded their farmlands with hedges.
And I think this is you know, we
all joke about pray for hedges of protection
or whatever. It's a big Christian culture joke,
but there's something to that. Christians understand the
dangers of things, I think, a little more
accurately,
than than the secular world does. And so
I think as we
enter into these technological spaces, but also these
storytelling
spaces about technology,
we're gonna have a perspective that I think
a lot of people are hungry for because
a lot of people
are feeling that angst
when they see their friends getting addicted to
an AI girlfriend or,
or or just throwing their whole entire lives
away to video games.
And it
that are designed to addict people, that aren't
designed
to bring glory to God. Just don't say
That is the unique opportunity we have as
Christians.
Alan Brogan actually wrote an article about this.
Turns out, Zach,
several years ago,
almost 3 years ago exactly, called artificial intelligence
could never gain a god given conscience.
He was calling this 3 years ago. It's
part of his, professional vocation, apparently. So I
actually asked him in the question and answer.
I said, hey, Alan, you said that you
wrote that article. Like,
yeah. Maybe we need to revisit that and
get a Snyder cut edition of that article,
or at least a sequel,
about what things are looking like now.
But my favorite, element of this is indeed
not just, you know, coming across like a
Luddite or complaining about chat gpt gonna take
over the world and send all the terminators
to destroy us. I'm gonna celebrate stories, hashtag
made by humans.
And that is a key element of what
Lorehaven does. And we're gonna have more at
the site, lord willing, and time available,
about made by humans, what that's about. And
speaking of those guardrails or those hedges, like,
I foresee us putting in even some policies
about the books we review. You know, I
don't know if it's as simple as, you
know, check a box if your cover is
completely made Check the box if you are
a human. Exactly. But, you know, could we
have check a box if your book was
written by a human? Or, you know, has
any element of the book been generated? That's
the important thing. Generated by AI, generative AI.
And I have to work on the wording
a little bit. And I'm thinking out loud
here because it's late and I need to
stop, and we need to pack up. But
expect to see some of these, hedges at
Lorehaven, because, we do have
a responsibility, I think,
to curate stories that are made by humans.
Not to punish anyone who drifts into using
a chat
GPT too much or generative content, But we
do wanna encourage, stories that are made by
humans. Because humans gotta support humans. The bots
gotta do bots things, and the humans gotta
do human things. And,
the one problem though with Zach, with bots
is that they never sleep. But we gotta
sleep. It's getting late. They're closing the book
store. It has been fantastic. Zach, any closing
thoughts just personally
as a human being who's gotten too little
sleep this weekend? As per usual at Realm
Makers,
what have been your thoughts about Realm Makers
2024?
Yeah. I may have already said this earlier.
Like you said, it's kinda late. I can't
remember. But Realm Makers really feels like a
refuge.
It it's where the Christian creators get together
to support one another,
to,
to have fellowship,
to,
really invest in one another, invest in relationships.
I'm seeing people hugging around me as you're
saying this. Right. I'm getting the illustration.
Yeah. It is,
it is so different
from other kinds of conventions that you can
go to.
You're not just coming here to get something.
You're you're people come here to give something.
A really funny moment happened earlier
where I was meeting with,
I saw one of my friends that came
with me from Austin,
Josh, meet an author I know named Lindsay.
And I said, oh, I'm glad you guys
met. I I've been wanting to introduce you,
Lindsay, to my friend Josh. And she's like,
he's actually my friend, Josh. He was on
my street team years ago for a book.
I'm like, oh, what a fun connection.
And, you know, because we all live in
different areas, they'd never met in person. And
this was his first realm makers. And it
was just those fun kind of connections like
that
that where else are you gonna find that?
It's
it really shows the importance of meeting in
person. I mean,
we've we can't beat that drum enough that
and I think because we've all felt that
from the Zoom years that or from the
COVID years, however you wanna call them. We
are on Zoom too much. We are on
email too much. You know? We have Discord,
but we're on that too much. There's no
replacing
that time together because
God hasn't just made us minds and spirits
and emotions that are disembodied
on Internet
wires. Like, we are people with human bodies.
We're made by
our our works are made with human hands,
you know, human
eyes and minds. And so,
it it's one of those ways to really
guard against
just kind of getting lost in
I don't know. Just too many
just lost in cyberspace, but also
somehow just lost too much in,
really disconnected ideas about what Christian storytelling should
be.
Because I think there's a lot of, like,
theoretical debate about what Christian book should be.
But then you come here and you actually
meet the authors, you hear their stories
of what it means to them
and and why they wrote it in that
way.
And, and then what it means to other
readers.
And one of the coolest things last night
at the award ceremony
was to see 2 of the teens that
are the teen track dress up as characters
of the authors that they came here to
meet.
Like, what what a fun connection. So,
to your listener, you know,
we want you to join us next year
at the Realm Makers Expo. There's gonna be
so much more than books there. We're gonna
be talking about in future episodes.
Save the date, July 18th to 20th, Grand
Rapids, Michigan.
Don't put anything else in the calendar. You
should meet us there.
And I will look forward to that event.
I'm probably already planning for that event. But
the one thing I've not planned for, Zach,
is our next episode of fantastical truth. Maybe
it's in my notes somewhere.
My eyes are too blurry to see it
right now. But, faithful listeners, we're so glad
that you're joining us on this journey, which
is a part of a world much bigger
than us. The Realmmakers world, all these other
groups that we're joining up with for the
Realmmakers Expo next year, and then ultimately, the
body of Christ, which even though we have
so many different skills, and giftings, and vocations,
and some people may not even know what
the heck to do with this fantastical storytelling
idea, It's all one church. It's all one
body.
All made by humans, but ultimately, all humans
are made by God. And that's what I
wanna keep in mind as we continue to
seek and find his fantastical truth.