I think eventually the question will be how to use AI, not whether to use it. For example, diocesan tribunals can use it to organize the information in a way that helps officials review it more effectively. The problem is how lazy a person is in the use of AI. For example, if a person in a law office or writing a theological paper or even a homily uses AI to find as much information as is available about a certain topic or case, that is appropriate and commendable. But if he has AI write everything for him, that is a lazy, incompetent, and deplorable act. Unfortunately, people naturally prefer the easier and lazier task, but that is not the fault of AI or those who promote it.
I don't know. I wouldn't trust a lawyer or a priest that uses AI as a tool. You have to do as much work to verify whether what the AI says is real or if it is a hallucination. And if you aren't doing that then it is just lazy. It takes as much or more work to verify the AIs accuracy as it would to just look up the sources yourself.
That is true now, but not in the future. As someone said, AI is right now in kindergarten, but in a few years it will have a Ph.D. If I am a scientist, lawyer or theologian and AI has become sophisticated enough to find every publication on the topic I am interested in, then my research will be more complete then if I did individual searches throughout the world on my own. That is not the case right now and I myself never use AI for the reason you mentioned. In fact, my son in college was writing a chemistry lab report and wanted to have me take a look at it to see if there were any mistakes in his conclusion. At the same time he generated an AI conclusion for the report so I could compare it with his own conclusion. The AI conclusion was actually wrong, but it sounded more sophisticated than my son's conclusion which was correct.
This week when I started seeing saints with six fingers on one one hand show up on my parish's social media graphics I emailed my bishop's office to ask if the diocese intended to draft guidelines on AI use. In terms of scope, I imagine it would almost be like writing guidance on the proper use of electricity: yes, you can use it to light the church; yes, you can use it to run a pump in a baptismal font to keep the water flowing; no, you cannot assign the penance of sticking a fork in an electrical outlet. Yes, that last one is a bit silly, but in their podcast episode last week JD and Ed. posited a scenario where a confessor asked AI how to counsel a penitent, so...
I think using generative AI to create sacred art and music and in the creation of homilies is a form of sloth. The creation of art for the glory of God is the giving of time, labor, and effort to God, using AI in the creation of such is lazy. Compensating real human artists is also recognizing what they have created for the glory of God.
I think for the general discussion around AI use to be useful, we need to be very clear about what is being discussed. For example, delineating between agentic AI and generative/predictive AI tools, and what type of work these tools are being used for. Is it a creative or spiritual task? A clerical task? If we are more clear in what specifically we are talking about, we can better make judgements. For example: use of generative AI in writing judicial opinions versus use of generative AI to gather all documents pertaining to a case. The more clear and specific the Church and it's pundits can be, the more productive the conversation.
I think eventually the question will be how to use AI, not whether to use it. For example, diocesan tribunals can use it to organize the information in a way that helps officials review it more effectively. The problem is how lazy a person is in the use of AI. For example, if a person in a law office or writing a theological paper or even a homily uses AI to find as much information as is available about a certain topic or case, that is appropriate and commendable. But if he has AI write everything for him, that is a lazy, incompetent, and deplorable act. Unfortunately, people naturally prefer the easier and lazier task, but that is not the fault of AI or those who promote it.
I don't know. I wouldn't trust a lawyer or a priest that uses AI as a tool. You have to do as much work to verify whether what the AI says is real or if it is a hallucination. And if you aren't doing that then it is just lazy. It takes as much or more work to verify the AIs accuracy as it would to just look up the sources yourself.
That is true now, but not in the future. As someone said, AI is right now in kindergarten, but in a few years it will have a Ph.D. If I am a scientist, lawyer or theologian and AI has become sophisticated enough to find every publication on the topic I am interested in, then my research will be more complete then if I did individual searches throughout the world on my own. That is not the case right now and I myself never use AI for the reason you mentioned. In fact, my son in college was writing a chemistry lab report and wanted to have me take a look at it to see if there were any mistakes in his conclusion. At the same time he generated an AI conclusion for the report so I could compare it with his own conclusion. The AI conclusion was actually wrong, but it sounded more sophisticated than my son's conclusion which was correct.
This week when I started seeing saints with six fingers on one one hand show up on my parish's social media graphics I emailed my bishop's office to ask if the diocese intended to draft guidelines on AI use. In terms of scope, I imagine it would almost be like writing guidance on the proper use of electricity: yes, you can use it to light the church; yes, you can use it to run a pump in a baptismal font to keep the water flowing; no, you cannot assign the penance of sticking a fork in an electrical outlet. Yes, that last one is a bit silly, but in their podcast episode last week JD and Ed. posited a scenario where a confessor asked AI how to counsel a penitent, so...
I think using generative AI to create sacred art and music and in the creation of homilies is a form of sloth. The creation of art for the glory of God is the giving of time, labor, and effort to God, using AI in the creation of such is lazy. Compensating real human artists is also recognizing what they have created for the glory of God.
I think for the general discussion around AI use to be useful, we need to be very clear about what is being discussed. For example, delineating between agentic AI and generative/predictive AI tools, and what type of work these tools are being used for. Is it a creative or spiritual task? A clerical task? If we are more clear in what specifically we are talking about, we can better make judgements. For example: use of generative AI in writing judicial opinions versus use of generative AI to gather all documents pertaining to a case. The more clear and specific the Church and it's pundits can be, the more productive the conversation.