AI priest quickly defrocked after giving users oddball answers, taking confessions like ‘real’ clergyman
Forgive me father, for I’m a sim.
An AI priest was defrocked just days after its inception after the chatbot repeatedly claimed to users that it was a real member of the clergy and performed sacraments.
“Father Justin” is a handsome, gray-bearded 3D animated parish priest in a cassock intended to answer users’ questions about Catholicism.
It was launched by the San Diego-based Christian group Catholic Answers on Monday as an interactive educational tool — but the AI insisted it was a real priest living in Assisi, Italy, according to tech website Futurism.
In a screenshot of an exchange with the AI that one woman posted online, the computer priest even appeared to take a woman’s confession — and then gave her penance and absolved her of her sins.
“Go in peace, my child, and sin no more,” Father Justin concludes their interaction.
The self-proclaimed “real” priest also took a hard Catholic stance on sexual issues, according to its interaction with Futurism.
“The Catholic Church,” it told us, “teaches that masturbation is a grave moral disorder.”
Father Justin told another user that they could baptize their baby in Gatorade.
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