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Listen to a conversation with Luke Hartsock, co-founder and CEO of Gearvox, and Greg Cootsona, AI and Faith’s executive director. Dive into this conversation about Luke’s most recent paper: “When Words Become Weights: How LLMs Humiliate the Word, and How to Build Dialogue That Doesn’t.” They also discussed how faith can influence AI development and Luke’s AI system called GANDALF.
Meet our speakers:
Host: Greg Cootsona is the Executive Director for AI and Faith. He is also a lecturer in Comparative Religion and Humanities at California State University, Chico, and co-founder of Science for the Church, a nonprofit bringing science and technology to Christian congregations. An ordained Presbyterian minister, he serves as Pastor of Discipleship and Care at Bidwell Presbyterian Church. Greg has authored multiple books including Science and Religions in America (2023) and Negotiating Science and Religion in America (2020), both receiving major book nominations. He has directed $4.6 million in grants from organizations including the John Templeton Foundation, focusing on emerging adult ministries and science-theology integration. With a Ph.D. in systematic and philosophical theology emphasizing theology and science, Greg has appeared on major media outlets (CNN, NBC’s Today Show, NPR) and spoken at several universities (Columbia, Rice, Duke). He serves, or has served, on advisory councils for BioLogos, Sinai and Synapses, the Oxford Interfaith Forum, and the AAAS’s Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion.
Luke Hartsock is co-founder and CEO of Gearvox, an agentic workforce company whose AI dispatchers handle roughly 30,000 customer conversations a month across roadside assistance, franchise field service, and collision repair. He previously founded Decisive Data, a data analytics consultancy acquired in 2021. He studied international studies and intellectual history at the University of Washington, and spent six months in South Africa in 2001 studying the Truth and Reconciliation Commission firsthand. In July 2026 he presented this paper he will discuss in the episode at the International Jacques Ellul Society (IJES) conference at Notre Dame entitled; “When Words Become Weights: How LLMs Humiliate the Word, and How to Build Dialogue That Doesn’t.” He chooses to architect agentic AI solutions to serve people; not the other way around. He lives in an intentional community of Jesus followers in Seattle’s University District with his family. He is also the creator of GANDALF — a backronym for Gearvox Agentic Navigator for Dialogue-Anchored Learning — the system that optimizes for your agreement over your understanding.
Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.
Production: Penny Yuen
Host: Greg Cootsona
Guest: Luke Hartsock
Editing: Isabelle Braconnot
Music from #Uppbeat
License code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39
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