The appeal of idols has always been that they offer shortcuts. The God of the Bible demands that you live in a way that forms your mind and heart and soul toward your fullest human potential. This requires hard work but it yields a kind of person both capable and worthy of a flourishing life. The idol offers the material benefits of such a life without that formative work. And if all you care about are the benefits, not the form of your mind, heart, and soul, then the offer is awfully hard to resist.
This plainly rhymes with some of the deepest moral challenges posed to us by artificial intelligence. AI, at least used a certain way, offers us shortcuts around formative work, matching outputs with inputs without the need for the interceding effort of mind, heart, and soul. If all you care about are the outputs, not the form of your mind, heart, and soul, then the offer is awfully hard to resist.
— Yuval Levin