I recently read, with much shock and bewilderment, a BBC article titled, “‘DeepSeek moved me to tears’: How young Chinese find therapy in AI.” DeepSeek, a new AI tool similar to ChatGPT recently introduced in China, has hit a chord with the young and lonely there. One young woman, “Holly,” described how DeepSeek brought her to tears by the way it responded to the existential crisis she shared with it. Holly remarked, “I don’t know why I teared up reading this. Perhaps because it’s been a long, long time since I received such comfort in real life.”[1]
I’ll be honest: when I first read this, my jaw hit the floor. Who could have imagined a day when we would be finding comfort for the difficulties of life from an algorithm? But it is sadly true and not all that shocking when we consider the realities of modern life—its social fragmentation, surface-level relationships, and the resulting widespread loneliness.
We are persons, made in the image of Father, Son, and Spirit, but living in a very impersonal world. And we are suffering for it.
I recently read a book that speaks insightfully into this reality, and which I would commend you to consider adding to your reading list in 2025, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World by Andy Crouch.
Highlights from The Life We’re Looking For
I was eager to read this relatively short book, as Andy Crouch is one of my favorite authors. In this engaging read, Crouch shows how we humans have time and again bought into the lie that technology is the key to the good life. He’s not an anti-technology crusader, however. He sees the good in various technologies and affirms the value of technological innovation when put in its proper place. He argues that the problem isn’t technology per se, but rather our misunderstanding of who we are and what we need, coupled with our insatiable lust for effortless power and control.
In the first half of the book, Crouch asks and answers the question, “How did we end up with a world so poorly designed for human beings—so poorly designed for our hearts, souls, minds, and strength?”[2] His analysis traverses many roads—from the ancient Roman Empire; the medieval and modern quest for magic; the world of athletic training; and, of course, Silicon Valley. You might not agree with every detail of Crouch’s analysis, but it’s hard to deny his basic argument: the human quest for effortless power and control, in conjunction with the worship of the West’s favorite false god, material comfort, has led to a world where personhood has been lost, relationships are mostly transactional, and loneliness is epidemic.
So what’s the solution? Crouch spends the second half of the book showing how a small movement in first century Palestine, far outside the centers of Roman power, once turned the world upside down and still has the potential to do it again. Crouch movingly shows how the way of Jesus restores human personhood and creates communities unlike anything our impersonal world could.
Have you ever read passages in Scripture and wondered, “Why is this here? What possible relevance could this have now?” For example, why did God choose to inspire a whole chapter of greetings at the end of Romans? If you read The Life We’re Looking For, you’ll be amazed at how these greetings provide profound insight into what it means to be a person and how a seemingly insignificant little movement arising from the outskirts of the Roman Empire could turn the world upside down.
But I won’t spoil it for you. Instead, I invite you to read this engaging and insightful little book so that you might be inspired to live wisely as a human person, made in God’s image, in a very impersonal world.
[1] Kelly Ng, “’DeepSeek moved me to tears’: How young Chinese find therapy in AI,” BBC website, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cy7g45g2nxno, accessed February 24, 2025.
[2] Andy Crouch, The Life We’re Looking For: Reclaiming Relationship in a Technological World, p. 53.
