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Catholic Priest AI chatbot is defrocked within a week after taking confession and okaying Gatorade baptismsForgive me, Father
Forgive me, Father
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Catholic Answers
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Catholic Answers
Catholic Answers (who have the domainCatholic.com; gotta imagine His Holiness wishes he’d moved quicker on that one) then defrocked Justin, making hima lay theologianin a suit jacket, jeans and an open collar shirt that gives him a “me and my wife saw you across the bar” kind of vibe, when before he had the whole dog collar kit and caboodle.
I find this, as you may have guessed, pretty funny. Fr. Justin got pushback from Catholics initially anyway for being, you know, potentially disrespectful, but a quick look at the history of AI chatbots would have suggested to Catholic Answers that other problems would swiftly arise. DPD, a terrible UK delivery firm, had to disable their generative AI chatbot because someone almost immediately got it towrite a poem about DPD being rubbish. Microsoft is investigating its ChatGPT-powered AI Copilot for telling peopleit didn’t care if they died. Yikers.
I don’t know how much Catholic Answers operates under the auspices of Rome, but I will note that they themselves don’t say Justin has been defrocked. “We won’t say he’s been laicized,” says their statement announcing he’snow just Justin, “because he was never a real priest!”
Justin agrees, because despite prompting from Futurism Just Justin wouldn’t admit to having an official role in the church. You can trychatting to Justin yourself, but I have no idea why you’d want to (you have to sign up to Catholic Answers' mailing list, and he only accepts answers via microphone. It is an unsettling process and he has the voice of a much younger man than his grey beard implies).
