The AI Priest

Catholic Answers, an organization that runs a website dedicated to promoting Catholicism, created and released an AI model last week that answers questions about Catholicism. The AI model, originally named Father Justin, provides a human-like interaction through a desktop browser in which people visiting the AI can ask it questions and receive human-like responses.

The catch is that the AI model answered questions as if it was REALLY a priest, according to the author of this article at Futurism. That is, the AI talked as if it was a real priest, even stating that it lived in Italy and that it was drawn to the priesthood (i.e., becoming a priest). Of course, these are things that an actual priest might really say, so the AI is, in that sense, actually mimicking a real priest fairly well. But the fact that it is not a real priest was a cause for concern for some Catholics and for Catholic Answers, so much so that they adjusted the model so that it was now longer portraying itself as a priest. It is now just "Justin" instead of "Father Justin."

Read the article at Futurism and think about the potentials and pitfalls of using AI to promote a religious group. In particular, ask yourself:

• In what ways can AI be used to help a religious group carry out its mission?
• Would some religious groups be more open to using AI than others? Which ones would be more open to using AI, and why?
• What kinds of individuals would be most likely to benefit from an AI like Justin?
• What are some of the dangers for a religious group from using an AI like Justin?