The last expensive thing

This last Sunday, a friend, Walt Brewer, a minister at the Center for Spiritual Living Central Texas, asked me to look over his talk on AI. I said yes the way I usually say yes to these requests.

His talk, titled “Time Is on My Side,” was a good one. Walt’s argument, stripped to its frame, went like this — we carry a collective belief in the scarcity of time. That belief is an agreed-upon pattern of thinking, and AI may be about to expose it as false.

AI may finally make the old dream of freeing us from repetitive, menial work feel plausible. What I admired in Walt’s talk was that he pushed past efficiency to the deeper question — if AI gives us back time, will we use it for growth and reflection, or simply consume more?

It was a hopeful talk, and I told him so. A Sunday talk has a particular job. It has 30 minutes to send people home with some…