I have a piece on Unherd about the mundane perils of AI for churches…
As AI hype sweeps the world, even churches have become caught up in the craze. Everyone from the generally upper-crust and progressive American Episcopal Church through to Evangelical megachurch pastors has been experimenting with the technology, according to a new report.
Catholics have been offered an app to which they can confess their sins, though this is entirely sacramentally invalid given that the Vatican insists a real human priest must be the channel for God’s forgiveness. Its promoters are keen to air their commitment to “thoroughly protecting privacy”, just in case worshippers are worried the confidences they tap into their phones might go straight to a troll farm in Novosibirsk. One app even claims it offers the opportunity to “Text With Jesus”.
Setting aside the obvious theological questions in seeing artificial intelligence as the voice of God, too heavy a reliance on bots could undermine the social function of churches just at a time when they’re most needed. We are living, after all, in an “epidemic of loneliness” and levels of relationship formation have fallen dramatically in recent decades, especially among young adults.
Unherd paid me for this, and they’d like to get the traffic for it, so to read the rest, please click through this link…
