What if God is not pleased about the way we embrace new technologies?
November 17, 2025 | Silver Spring, Maryland, United States | Marcos Paseggi, Adventist Review
At first glance there’s hardly anything quite as dissimilar as the Bible story of the Tower of Babel and our contemporary push for artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. On the one hand, some of Noah’s descendants discover they can bake mud bricks to build taller structures; on the other, humans use computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, including learning, reasoning, and problem solving.
At the same time, while the Bible tells us that the Flood was the result of “wickedness” (Gen. 6:5), not much is told about Babel, other than the fact that God “came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built” and was not pleased (Gen. 11:5).
Technology for Its Own Sake
Despite the thousands of years between the Babel story and our contemporary dealings with AI, there is a striking similarity: the development of a new technology for its own sake. The “new tower,” some say, is made, not of bricks and mortar, but data and algorithms.
Technologists and even theologians have noted that “as AI rapidly reshapes the world, erasing language barriers and centralizing global power, the same conditions that led to Babel’s fall are returning—but on a scale never seen before.” They are asking, “Could AI be the key to humanity’s final rebellion?”[i]
The builders of the Tower of Babel had one goal: to “make a name” for themselves (Gen. 11:4). As author and rabbi Tzvi Freeman comments: “They became obsessed with their new invention, building to the sky.” The builders’ goal was not “to provide housing” or “to promote peace and harmony” but just “to become famous. . . . They just wanted to build something big in order to feel big.”[ii]
As Freeman notes: “When you use technology without a purpose, you are no longer its master. You are its slave. . . . Humankind had invented a new technology, and that technology was reinventing humankind.”[iii] He adds, “We develop new technology to empower human beings, providing them greater dominion over their environment, greater convenience, and a higher standard of living. Yet, ironically, our obsession with technology often diminishes the value of the individual human lives it is coming to enhance.” And yes, Freeman says, that includes the algorithms and AI that increasingly dominate our daily lives today.[iv]
Writing many decades before, Ellen G. White pointed out that in the case of Babel builders, their schemes “ended in shame and defeat.” She wrote that “the monument to their pride became the memorial of their folly.”[v]
In that sense, White explained that every time men do things by depending upon themselves, they are “continually pursuing the same course” as the builders of old. “There are tower builders in our time,” she summarized, as she mentions those who distrust God’s guidance and choose instead human reasoning over it to explain processes and beliefs.[vi]
Undoing Babel?
Experts have noted for years the connections between the Bible story of the Tower of Babel and computer-based language models. “The Tower of Babel reminds us of the power and peril of language—our greatest tool, yet also a potential source of chaos,” writes bioinformatician Amal Joseph Varghese.[vii]
In the specific context of AI developments, experts suggest that AI’s large language models (LLMs), which rely on a vast amount of text for performing natural language processing tasks, “have provided new ways to bridge the gap between languages.” The complex algorithms “are trained on massive amounts of data,” so they “can now even generate high-quality natural language text in different languages.”[viii]
All of this, some experts note, seems to metaphorically undo the fallout of the Tower of Babel, as LLMs favor increasing models of automatic translation with language tools that have the power to “enhance our ability to construct and extract meaning from complex systems and facilitate” even scientific communication.[ix]
New technologies are here to stay, and simply rallying against them won’t turn the tide toward the ethical and life-building. What to do instead?
For those who believe in the preeminence of human experience over the technologies it creates, some suggest using language as a tool for brotherhood and collaboration. “There are ways, amazing ways [AI-powered language] tools could serve and enlighten humankind. Most, if not all, are collaborative,” Freeman reminds us. In that sense, he adds, there are people “who are consciously and deliberately contributing to the welfare of humankind. And these are projects that feature an unprecedented degree of collaboration, each individual providing their own unique and valued contributions.”[x]
At the same time, for those who believe in the Bible and its Author, any new technology is bound to have a missional goal. On one hand, it is expected to bring glory to God’s name. On the other, it must be used to serve others and grow His kingdom.
“Every true disciple is born into the kingdom of God as a missionary,” Ellen White wrote more than a century ago.[xi] That mission of sharing God’s story is divinely ordained and all-encompassing—it transcends all ages and geographical locations. The mission was fulfilled by Noah even before the mud bricks of the Tower of Babel came into existence. And it must be also accomplished in the end-times, even in a world of LLMs and other perhaps yet unforeseen developments.
Interestingly enough, the goal of the Babel builders and the Christian mission differ in motivation but share a similar goal—to one day reach heaven. In the latter the dream is not about “making a name for ourselves,” because we already have a name (see Isa. 43:1). It’s more about a personal encounter and cohabitation (see John 14:3). And make no mistake: no brick-and-mortar tower or evanescent algorithm can ever come close to it.
[i] See https://youtu.be/slTiexwBihI?si=lRl79Q8SrfQvdT25.
[ii] Tzvi Freeman, “Is AI the New Tower of Babel?” in https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/6643969/jewish/Is-AI-the-New-Tower-of-Babel.htm#footnote2a6643969.
[iii] Ibid.
[iv] Ibid.
[v] Ellen G. White, Patriarchs and Prophets (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1890, 1908), p. 123.
[vi] Ibid.
[vii] https://medium.com/@amaljova/the-tower-of-babel-and-large-language-models-e6d8651669c2
[viii] Mitchell H. Tsai et. al., “Toppling the Tower of Babel: Large Language Models in Academia,” in https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0952818024000916#:~:text=Conclusion,that%20powers%20science%20and%20discovery.
[ix] Ibid.
[x] Freeman.
[xi] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898, 1940), p. 195.