It is doubtless a sign of these apocalyptic times that Artificial Intelligence is being applied to everything — including religion. While many fascinating potential uses come to mind, ranging from novel translations to seeking hidden codes, the immediate applications seem directed at replacing actual clergy in counseling and consoling.
There are several very good reasons for this application. For one thing, talking to people is one of the most difficult and time consuming parts of a minister’s job. While face-to-face encounters and helping people to work out their problems can be the most rewarding part of the work, it can be dangerous, too, involving spiritual honesty and intimacy that may cross boundaries. That is why the Catholic Church invented confessionals after all, to prevent such encounters from becoming physical.
The Church has quite steadfastly refused to allow modern technological conveniences to make it any easier. The Holy Office in the Nineteenth Century forbid sacramental confessions by telegraph, and by extension, via letters, the telephone, radio, TV, texting, and internet. It wasn’t so much a case of not allowing “spooky action at a distance” nor was the ruling’s primary concern privacy. Rather, it was a matter of maintaining personal presence and engagement.
This is because Confession is not just a pep talk to make a sinner feel better, but is actually a judicial trial. The reason why the confessor must be physically present is because the priest stands in judgment in the place of Christ (which is one reason why solicitation in the confessional is so heinous, but that’s another story.) Even if all he can require is a few Our Fathers and Hail Marys, full engagement is required so the confessing person knows who the boss is. The power of the priesthood must be maintained.
Of course, anyone who’s comfortable with the risk to their privacy can connect with their local clergy for advice or prayers by any means anytime they want. But given the insecurity of modern email, the Vatican’s decision not to allow entrusting such vital personal communications to such means seems almost prescient.
However, people have resorted to online solutions since the earliest days. Even now, one can confess anonymously on Reddit and elsewhere, but to get honest and helpful spiritual advice is very difficult on the net. People say such stupid and mean things so easily, after all.
So those needing help turn to chatbots. An early attempt back in the era of mainframes was ELIZA, one of the first natural language processing programs. It gave users the illusion of a caring and understanding presence largely by repeating what was typed into it through a conversational script. The developers were surprised how quickly people spilled their guts, and even attributed emotions to the program. The “ELIZA effect” — the natural tendency to project human traits onto machines — was named after it.
ELIZA was adapted to other computer languages and other forms; even religious ones featuring Jesus. This brave new AI world nowadays already has a bunch of Jesus chatbots; and one can “talk” to not only Jesus but many more Bible characters. A website called “Catholic Answers” made an attempt that did not go so far as to impersonate their savior. Their “Father Justin” chatbot only pretended to be a priest, not the Son of God.
That, however, apparently was too much for somebody. Justin has already been defrocked. The chatbot was quickly pulled and reintroduced as a “virtual apologist” in the form of a “lay theologian”. And they are nervously insistent that it’s only for entertainment, not “a replacement for real human interactions”.
Will that be enough to satisfy Rome? Or will the trolls who will undoubtedly gleefully prod it into saying unacceptable things as has already been done with so many chatbots?
These experiments in applied theology are quite interesting. I hope to play around a bit myself. But I will not be surprised if religious chatbots are ultimately condemned by many churches as demonic if they cannot be kept from spouting hallucinations.
I wonder when the first computer will have to be exorcised?