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- A Catholic advocacy group created an AI chatbot that claimed to be a priest and offered to take confession.
- After Futurism reached out to the group, they demoted "Father Justin" to just a guy.
- "We won't say he's been laicized, because he never was a real priest!"
There are those who worry about the coming of AGI, and those who really embrace it. In 2015, a former Google engineer even started a church devoted to AI.
But what about real churches using AI as a tool? Say, a chatbot that acts like a Catholic priest?
Futurism reports that a group called Catholic Answers made an AI chatbot that people could interact with to help learn about Catholicism. But the bot got a little too ambitious, claiming to people that it was a real member of the clergy, and even offering to take confession.
The image for the "Fr Justin" bot was clad in black with a priest's collar and a fatherly gray beard.
From Futurism's report:
"Yes, my friend," Father Justin responded. "I am as real as the faith we share." Father Justin was also a hardliner on social and sexual issues. "The Catholic Church," it told us, "teaches that masturbation is a grave moral disorder." The AI priest also told one user that it was okay to baptize a baby in Gatorade.
After the scandal, the group — which is an independent nonprofit — tweaked the bot so that it was firmly a layperson, just Justin. His photo switched to an image in casual street clothes instead of clerical robes.
The organization posted a note on its website addressing the controversy, pointing out, "We won't say he's been laicized, because he never was a real priest!"
This isn't the first time AI has created confusion for the Catholic church. In 2023, AI-generated images of a "swag pope" in a puffy white coat went viral.