{"id":51906,"date":"2025-11-25T03:00:57","date_gmt":"2025-11-25T10:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=51906"},"modified":"2025-11-25T05:16:36","modified_gmt":"2025-11-25T12:16:36","slug":"latest-updates-on-ai-and-the-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2025\/11\/latest-updates-on-ai-and-the-church\/","title":{"rendered":"Latest AI Updates and the Church"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been several big AI advancements since I last wrote on the subject.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Gemini 3, the frontier model from Google, was just released. The coding and writing is noticeably, but incrementally better (since they\u2019re releasing models quicker there aren\u2019t any huge jumps anymore like there was from GPT 3.0 to 3.5), but where it really shines is creating interactive apps\/games on the fly (for computer, doesn’t work so great for mobile devices as far as I can tell). I generated:\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

     <\/p>\n

      \n
    1. A first-person, 3D simulation of the tabernacle<\/span><\/a>. I just asked it to create a biblically accurate representation. I didn\u2019t \u201chard code\u201d any details.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    2. I did another one for the Temple of Solomon\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n
    3. I created a flight simulator for flying over the Book of Mormon lands.<\/span><\/a> (This one could have used some additional iterations, and I don\u2019t know my Book of Mormon geography, so I don\u2019t know how accurate it is).\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n
    4. A Noah\u2019s Ark simulation<\/span><\/a> based on some calculations written by a marine engineer in my ward. (I just uploaded the PDF).<\/span><\/li>\n
    5. A family tree simulator<\/span><\/a> that shows your number of descendants given a certain set of parameters.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

      I also tried to make a \u201cfirst person spearer\u201d game with Teancum, but that one\u2019s not ready for distribution.<\/span><\/p>\n

      Finally, not LDS-related, but for our homeschooling purposes <\/span>I made rocket simulator<\/span><\/a> that shows the relative sizes of different layers of the atmosphere. Again, each of these took 1-3 non-technical prompts (except for the rocket ship one, that took 10 or so).<\/span><\/p>\n

      And that\u2019s the main use case here I think. Pedagogy. You can come up with an app or game for learning virtually anything now. We\u2019re not to the point where we can vibe-code <\/span>Doom<\/span><\/i> yet, but it\u2019s coming. One Google executive thinks we\u2019ll be able to vibe code video games this time next year.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      2) A lot of us have excitedly ordered some ancient document in special collections, waited for them to bring the box out to us, and waited with baited breath as we opened the very journal that so-and-so wrote in\u2026.only to have no idea what they were saying because we can\u2019t read old handwriting. And then we realized that they have whole classes on the subject before you have the right to engage in the esoteric arts of archival work with 19th century documents. Well, there\u2019s some evidence that Google <\/span>has solved paleography<\/span><\/a>, so you can upload a photo of whatever arcane document you\u2019re looking at and it will give you a transcription as good or better than a trained human. (So I assume we\u2019ve also solved indexing as well. Thank you for your service, but it\u2019s not like the indexing folks had any idea the technology would be here at this point).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      3) #2 is possible thanks to Google\u2019s newest image generator, Nano Banana Pro, which appears to have solved fine-grained writing details and fine-grained control over images.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      For example, I asked it to create a chart of all Presidents of the Church in anime style, and this is what it gave me in one shot. Besides pulling youthful photos of some of them for some reason, it\u2019s pretty good.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      I also uploaded a boring pie chart we made in one of our BH Roberts reports, and asked it to \u201c<\/span>take this image and put in some really cool-looking subject-specific visualizations and labels. I want to keep the proportionality and numbers and such.”<\/span><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      Finally, I turned the Ammon painting into a photo. It only photo-ized the first layer, but still.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      \"\"<\/p>\n

      And yes, I know that Elder Gong has warned<\/a> about untoward uses of AI. I disagree with him about the inappropriateness of depicting deity using AI, but out of respect for his counsel and to be a good member I\u2019ll decline to do any AI artwork involving deity. It\u2019s not any kind of a moral disagreement and I\u2019m not dying on that AI hill, but by the same token if this has gone by the wayside in ten years without any follow-up I\u2019m going to assume that it\u2019s gone the way of Adam-God or the Deseret Alphabet and I\u2019m not going to feel bound by it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

      3) I\u2019ll have to admit I was a little underwhelmed by OpenAI\u2019s latest entry into the AI movie race with Sora 2, but Christopher Blythe has really taken to it and made some fun LDS-related content<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

       <\/p>\n