No Contest Communications

On a recent train trip I listened to a young computer whiz give a remarkably agile and lucid explanation to his aunt of AI’s probable future role in his industry. Seated two seats behind him, I was too rapt to take notes, alas.

As an aside, he told a story about a colleague who had used ChatGPT to compose a eulogy for his mother. “Why would you give up your human agency when you should be speaking, yourself, from your heart? It doesn’t matter how correct and polished you sound.”

I thought of the fellow this morning when reading about the Pope’s new admonition to Catholic clergy.

“Pope Leo XIV, a Chicago native, delivered a chilling warning about letting AI write sermons and spending too much time online worrying about “likes” on social media.

To give a true homily is to share faith,” Pope Leo XIV said, adding that artificial intelligence “will never be able to share faith.”

He asked clergy to resist “the temptation to prepare homilies with Artificial Intelligence.” Adding, “Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose this capacity,” Leo said in the closed-door meeting, later published by Vatican News.

Amen.