Bishops warn artificial intelligence ‘can never replicate the soul’

[Michie]

Catholic bishops from Maryland, Delaware, and Washington, D.C., released a pastoral letter this week addressing the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and the Church’s response to the numerous challenges and opportunities the technology presents.

Signed by Baltimore Archbishop William Lori, Cardinal Robert McElroy of Washington, Wilmington Bishop William Koenig, and Maryland’s four auxiliary bishops, the letter, titled “The Face of Christ in a Digital Age,” urges Christians to discern “how to speak and live the Gospel amid the new language and powers emerging through artificial intelligence.”

Released ahead of the solemnity of Pentecost, the bishops write that Christians should not fear the rapid development of technology, which “is not foreign to the Spirit’s work, for God’s Spirit moves through history, culture, and human creativity.”

However, the bishops write: “Will we allow technology to form us in its image — or will we shape it according to the Gospel?”

Continued below.

Bishops warn artificial intelligence ‘can never replicate the soul’

A letter from D.C.-area bishops urges Christians to discern “how to speak and live the Gospel amid the new language and powers emerging through artificial intelligence.”

www.catholicnewsagency.com

 

[The Liturgist]

I’ve been doing specific research in this area which may be of interest to my pious Roman Catholic friends including Their Graces the Bishops in question.

I think AI can be of great benefit to the Roman Catholic Church and to the Orthodox, but it should be used prayerfully and with discernment, and I also think it would be a good idea if we developed formal prayers for the blessing of computer systems including software, including AI systems, just as we bless our houses, automobiles and other things that we have made (I have one service book from the 1960s which includes a liturgy to be used to bless a nuclear power plant in addition to the more usual blessings for hospitals, universities, houses, and so on).

By the way this might be something you might consider reposting in Traditional Theology (I would rather not discuss it in General Theology because denominations less like the Roman Catholic Church or the Eastern Orthodox Church which have an unhealthy obsession with “end times prophecy” and premillenial dispensationalism and other views traditional liturgical churches reject would come out of the woodwork and make unhelpful replies if you were to post it elsewhere.