I wrote an email to my local councillor and within three minutes received back a detailed reply summarising my concerns and promising action – a stunningly quick response.
I was impressed, and grateful for the speedy reaction.
But then a thought came to me. Had this helpful, swift, reply perhaps been written, not by my councillor, but by Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
And, if so, did it really matter?
If my elected representative was making the best use of time by applying AI then surely that was a good thing? Or was it?
Friends asked if I’d have had the same suspicion if the reply had been received the following morning or had been just a brief acknowledgement.
It’s hard to say, but it flagged up to me how AI is becoming such a key part of our lives, and often in ways that we take for granted – like the algorithms that choose what we might like to watch next on TV or read on holiday.
Churches aren’t immune to AI’s increasing popularity. Pope Leo has just advised his priests not to use it to write their sermons. I’d say that’s sound advice for preachers from any denomination.
He told them, “Like all the muscles in the body, if we do not use them, if we do not move them, they die. The brain needs to be used, so our intelligence must also be exercised a little so as not to lose capacity.”
To give a true sermon, the Pope explained, “is to share faith,” something AI would never be able to do.
He advised preachers, “people want to see your faith, your experience of having known and loved Jesus Christ.”
That is so true. A sermon should be preached for that congregation, in that place, at that specific point in time, and be delivered by a preacher who has opened themselves to hear from God as they prepared their message. It’s a massive responsibility, and not to be taken lightly.
Some ministers do use AI to help research some aspects of their talks, and some Christians use AI in their Bible study, maybe even engaging in Q&A sessions with the programme. It can be a valuable tool – but a tool is all it is.
AI is not human. It’s been designed to trick users into thinking it has a personality and maybe opinions of its own. It will never know pain, hunger, disappointment or grief, or a whole range of other human emotions.
And these are the emotions God experienced, living on earth as Jesus Christ. God with us, living and dying as we do. The Almighty came to live among us as human flesh, and not as computer code. Fully God, fully man.
Christ lived, and died, in frail human flesh, and rose from death, underlining the sacred value of every human being.
AI falls far short of that value, no matter how closely it can mimic human personality.
Rev Peter Crumpler is a Church of England minister in St Albans, Herts, UK, and a former communications director with the CofE.
