Some clerics have voiced concerns about AI writ large, ranging from the pastoral – how should a priest help a parishioner following an automation layoff? – to the theological – can a language model (LM) be possessed by a demon? (And, if so, is it the same demon that always pops up in the printer when it’s time to produce bulletins during Holy Week?) Others are more optimistic about the possible elimination of drudgery. This divide mirrors the one in the public’s discussion of AI, with one faction wishing to seize the low-hanging fruit, while the other asserts that from the beginning in the Garden, knowledge of when to appropriately seize fruit has hardly been humanity’s strong point. The fact is, if the church implements suggestions for how to use LMs that are as shallow and dehumanizing as the suggestions that have lately come out of secular society, we will live to regret it.

Will AI-generated sermons free up overladen clergy for “real” pastoral work?