Catholic Group Defrocks AI Priest After It Gave Strange Answers

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

I must admit that is a pretty good line coming from an AI.

We can baptize babies in Gatorade!

It's what babies crave.

It's got holiness.

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Earlier in the week, Futurism engaged in an exchange with the bot, which really committed to the bit: it claimed it was a real priest, saying it lived in Assisi, Italy and that "from a young age, I felt a strong calling to the priesthood."

Our exchanges with Father Justin were touch-and-go because the chatbot only took questions via microphone, and often misunderstood them, such as a query about Israel and Palestine to which is puzzlingly asserted that it was "real."

To figure out what the heavens was going on, Futurism reached out to both Catholic Answers and the Vatican's technology office to ask if the chatbot would be considered a real priest, as it claimed.

Neither body responded to our emails, but in a post to its blog after our initial conversations with Father Justin, Catholic Answers explained that it had defrocked the virtual clergy after receiving "criticism of the representation of the AI character as a priest."

Initially, Father Justin was garbed in what looked like the traditional robe and clerical collar of the Catholic priesthood, along with a pious-looking gray beard and hair.

Honestly, it's probably a sign of a nimble group that Catholic Answers was able to update the chatbot so quickly — but it's also yet another illustration of how hard it is to deploy an AI that doesn't embarass your organization.

The original article contains 579 words, the summary contains 225 words. Saved 61%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!