Did you see Jeopardy! this week? It featured three unique contestants. One was the gentleman who won the most games in a row. The second was the man who holds the record for winning the most money on the show. The third wasn’t a man at all—it was a machine. The machine, made of nearly 100 high-powered computers, was named “Watson” by its creators at IBM. It was the product of several years of planning, development, and testing.
The purpose of the show was to see if the best and brightest researchers could put together a computer that could rival two of the brightest minds in the show’s history. Unfortunately for humankind, “Watson” wiped the floor with them, but it looked foolish in the process. Watson answered one question in the “U.S. Cities” category with Toronto, Canada. Whoopsie!
Computers are good at storing information, but they can’t “understand” anything. They can create associations between words, but they can’t know, feel, comprehend, or love. And even with the amazing capacity of computers, a report was made by the folks at Science magazine that indicates that the sum of all the world’s computing power might come close to that of one human brain.
Isn’t that something? It is amazing what can now be done with machines, but the sheer total of everything we’ve created on the planet doesn’t compare with one part of God’s creations?
The power of the mind is staggering, but the power of its Creator is more so. That’s why scripture so often urges us to guard our thinking. We are to think on good, honorable and praiseworthy things (Philippians 4:8). We “take every thought captive to obey Christ,” in the words of 2 Corinthians 10:5. The minds God gave us are powerful tools.
Here’s a simple encouragement: decide to use your mind for Jesus. Your thoughts are a gift that is uniquely yours, and it cannot be replaced by another—man or machine. God made you for a reason!