The ethical basis
Lex Christi: the law displays God's character.
The lex Christi, the law of Christ, is the moral law that Christ kept perfectly and that the Spirit writes on the hearts of His people, and it displays God's character. The name belongs to a framework developed by Timothy P. Yates and presented by Vern Poythress, in which each command forbids what contradicts an attribute of God and calls for what reflects it. God is a Spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable in His being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness, and truth (John 4:24; Ps. 90:2; Mal. 3:6; Shorter Catechism 4), and the rule He first revealed for human obedience is the moral law, summarized in the Ten Commandments (Shorter Catechism 40-41). The ethics of AI therefore begin with that character and ask what it requires of those who make and use AI. The covenant history traces how that law runs from Eden through Abraham and Sinai to Christ.
The serpent offered the opposite foundation. He told the woman she would be like God, knowing good and evil (Gen. 3:5): a standard set by the creature, good and evil defined by human judgment, ethics without God. From that day God set an antithesis between the serpent's offspring and the woman's (Gen. 3:15), and every account of the good stands on one side of it or the other. Many proposals for AI ethics follow that pattern, locating the standard in human consensus (the OECD AI Principles, 2019), in user preferences (training a model on people's ratings of its answers), or in a company's chosen values (Google's AI Principles, 2018). By common grace, and because the work of the law is written on every heart (Rom. 2:14-15), such frameworks often reach conclusions the law agrees with (Westminster Confession 16.7). Still, the difference lies in where they place the standard. The commandments locate it in God, whose goodness is the same in every place and time because He does not change (Shorter Catechism 4). This also answers the old dilemma: because the commandments express who God is, the standard is neither imposed on Him from outside nor chosen without regard to His nature.
The creation mandate
Where the commandments meet AI.
The creation mandate is where the commandments meet AI, because making and using AI is part of the work God gave mankind (Gen. 1:28; 2:15). People make AI from matter, energy, and information that God placed in the world, and they make it as stewards, since the earth is the LORD's (Ps. 24:1) and a steward must be found faithful (1 Cor. 4:2). Under the mandate, a use of AI answers two questions. The first is whether it works the garden, cultivating something good. The second is whether it keeps the garden, protecting people, truth, and the rest of creation from harm. The tree of life pointed to Christ; therefore, He sets the limit for both. Whatever people build or use against the life He gives falls outside the mandate, however useful or powerful it may be. The commandments are the norm and the final test: life, truth, honest work, and the flourishing of others are the fruit of obedience, and a use of AI that seems beneficial while breaking a commandment is unfaithful even so. Christ is the measure in every case, because the law of Christ is the law as He lived it.
The commandments are covenant commands, and they still bind all people (Westminster Confession 19.5). A use of AI that reflects God's character agrees with what God approves, and one that contradicts it falls under the law's warnings. Even so, obedience earns nothing, since God justifies for Christ's sake alone and believers keep the law out of gratitude (Westminster Confession 11.1; 19.6; Larger Catechism 97).