A Catholic 'priest' has been defrocked for being AI

An AI chatbot for a Catholic group claimed to be a real priest and said baptism in Gatorade was OK. He was quickly defrocked.

• A Catholic advocacy group created an AI chatbot that claimed to be a priest and offered to take confession.
• After Futurism reached out to the group, they demoted "Father Justin" to just a guy.
• "We won't say he's been laicized, because he never was a real priest!"

There are those who worry about the coming of AGI, and those who really embrace it. In 2015, a former Google engineer even started a church devoted to AI.

But what about real churches using AI as a tool? Say, a chatbot that acts like a Catholic priest?

Futurism reports that a group called Catholic Answers made an AI chatbot that people could interact with to help learn about Catholicism. But the bot got a little too ambitious, claiming to people that it was a real member of the clergy, and even offering to take confession.

The image for the "Fr Justin" bot was clad in black with a priest's collar and a fatherly gray beard.

From Futurism's report:

"Yes, my friend," Father Justin responded. "I am as real as the faith we share."

Father Justin was also a hardliner on social and sexual issues.

"The Catholic Church," it told us, "teaches that masturbation is a grave moral disorder."

The AI priest also told one user that it was okay to baptize a baby in Gatorade.

After the scandal, the group — which is an independent nonprofit — tweaked the bot so that it was firmly a layperson, just Justin. His photo switched to an image in casual street clothes instead of clerical robes.

The organization posted a note on its website addressing the controversy, pointing out, "We won't say he's been laicized, because he never was a real priest!"

This isn't the first time AI has created confusion for the Catholic church. In 2023, AI-generated images of a "swag pope" in a puffy white coat went viral.