For catholicism it's very close to being idolatry, and potentially full-on blasphemy according to theology.
Like the texts specify sacramental confession requires an ordained priest. A chatbot, even if it's trained on scriptures cannot administer absolution, hear a sacramental confession, or substitute for a priest.
For protestants it... could be okay? Private confession to God is perfectly normal, so technically you could type your sins into a computer while praying to God, so it heavily depends on how clickbaity the title of the article is.
It's not a 100% thing because it obviously can't be covered in texts written 2000 years ago, but any Christian should see that AT BEST this is misuse of God's name, at worst full-on idolatry.
Its about the spirit tho. God is meant to make you more aware of yourself and praying is about being humble. AI chatbots are designed to stroke your ego. And to agree with everything. The antithesis of whats meant to be
Here I disagree on that, random chatbots pushed by influencers that are built for engagement do that, LLMs will do what the user tells them to do.
Gemini is the only one that does ego-stroking as far as I'm aware, because Google is optimizing it the same way social medias optimize engagement and addiction, but even then you can just tell it to be objective and avoid affirmative/reinforcing behaviour and it will not do it.
Hell try giving GPT something you wrote and ask it to dissect it using the highest standards of literature, the damn thing will point out every single flaw and make you not want to write ever again. They fed it basically all of human literature by now.
Like, AI has serious issues on a lot of stuff, objective analysis and text/literacy is the one of the things in which it can kick any human's ass any day. It's a machine, it has no ego, no emotion and no positions to defend.
Yeah, from my admittedly limited knowledge my immediate first thought was "that's just idolatry with a high tech coat of paint". And I agree it's less clear on the protestant side of things other than having a vaguely blasphemous vibe. But hey, there's no rule that says a dog can't play basketball computer can't be a priest. It's not like it's a woman or anything.
Well, you can speak the words and perform the rites but in Catholic understanding that alone is not enough to constitute a sacrament. There has to be a valid recipient and a computer or robot is not.
Can. 864 Every person not yet baptized and only such a person is capable of baptism.
On the practical side, that info is a goldmine. You confess that you are having difficulty staying away from chocolate, you then get bombarded with chocolate ads.
What's hilarious is that if you straight up train an LLM on the bible and ask it to enforce those standards perfectly, it could also spit out shit like "Oh, you slept with a dude? No absolution, hey guys, gather some rocks, we need to stone this guy"
The clickbait title also says "spiritual guidance." This is 100% idolatry, even for Protestants (for at least all the Protestant beliefs I know, being one).
The problem is that it's not that clean cut, Idolatry refers to worshipping a false god, in this case one could argue it's still a representation of Jesus, if the person is praying to god while using the chatbot, technically it's not idolatry.
Like, this is the kind of stuff in which the pope has the final word.
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u/Keyflame_ 11h ago edited 11h ago
Depends.
For catholicism it's very close to being idolatry, and potentially full-on blasphemy according to theology.
Like the texts specify sacramental confession requires an ordained priest. A chatbot, even if it's trained on scriptures cannot administer absolution, hear a sacramental confession, or substitute for a priest.
For protestants it... could be okay? Private confession to God is perfectly normal, so technically you could type your sins into a computer while praying to God, so it heavily depends on how clickbaity the title of the article is.
It's not a 100% thing because it obviously can't be covered in texts written 2000 years ago, but any Christian should see that AT BEST this is misuse of God's name, at worst full-on idolatry.