Further Questions on Using AI in Writing a Rule of Life

[[Sister Laurel, in the pieces you put up about using AI with religious or spiritual texts like Rules of Life, you referred to being able trust the text and the person writing the text (or Rule). You also wrote about the presence of some AI in the work as analogous to leaven in a house during Passover. I don't want to argue with your example, but isn't it possible that AI could produce a better Rule, and one of greater wisdom and experience than the person who has been asked to write it? I'm sure some would argue that the Rules some people write could be a lot better than others that are available. Why do you reject such a position -- if you do?]]

Thanks for your questions. I admit that I have been very impressed by some of the conversations I have had with ChatGPT. It has been perceptive and capable of pushing me farther than I might have otherwise gone in certain areas. It has a greater knowledge base than I do in both theology and philosophy,  and allows for conversations and debate in ways that reading texts on the same subjects do not. At the same time, with regard to the project I have asked for help with, a larger knowledge base was not always helpful and I had to limit the degree to which I would allow ChatGPT to push and define the boundaries of the conversation and larger project. Maybe one day I will try to write the book Chat GPT envisions, but for now, learning to limit ChatGPT appropriately allows me to follow up on the project my own mind and heart believe in.

With regard to Rules of Life written for specific vocations, mainly monastic and eremitic, I deal mainly with Rules for and of c 603 candidates. In these cases, it is critical that the candidate write her/his own Rule for several reasons, not least because this is a really wise requirement of the canon itself: 1) such a Rule is rooted in the candidate's own experience of living with, toward, and for God in the silence of solitude, not in anyone else's experience, 2) the diocese discerning whether this candidate has an eccelsial vocation must be able to trust what the person writes, not only to discern the quality of the vocation with which they are dealing (i.e., can and should it be lived in the consecrated state in the name of the Church?), but also to assess the candidate's readiness for making a public commitment, whether temporary or a life-commitment (i.e., temporary or perpetual profession and consecration) the Church herself can look to as truly revelatory and potentially capable of witnessing to the Church's Gospel. 

Rules of Life do not have to be perfect. They are not literary works, or at least they are not evaluated as such! They are evaluated based on the very human content and language the candidate uses, the way they speak about the vocation, their relationship with God, other significant persons, and the Church, and whether they come across as truly knowledgeable or engaging in performative language, for instance. The Rule's language is diagnostic in a number of ways, but it can't function as it should for the careful reader if the candidate did not write it. Remember that a diocese reading such a Rule is making a decision regarding how God is and will continue to work in the life of this local Church in this single unique life. If a Rule does not indicate the presence of an ecclesial vocation at this point in time, or suggests more time is needed for maturation in the vocation,  the entire matter can be reassessed at another time. Moreover, the next time a candidate submits a Rule, this one and the original Rule can be compared, and both the candidate and the diocesan team will learn more about this vocation in the process. The situation shifts radically if the candidate has not written their own Rule, particularly if they relied on AI for this.

Neither are the Rules candidates submit to dioceses anything like a final paper or dissertation. Nor is profession and consecration like graduation and the granting of a degree. They are human documents that represent the conscious reflection on the way God has worked in a particular person's life, and they will have all the limitations that such a document will always have. This is not a deficiency, but a strength. Could AI produce a "better Rule of greater wisdom and experience"? Well, no, not if wisdom is truly rooted in this individual's experience and hard-won wisdom! And not if the Rule will be used by the person (or the diocese) to gauge growth and maturation in the vocation through the years! A Rule of Life is not an abstract document. Instead, it is a deeply personal and intimate text of a dialogue between the candidate/hermit and God in the silence of solitude that will be used over time as a kind of workbook for reflection and spiritual direction. The local Church may also decide to use it in assessing the way it discerns c 603 vocations. At every point, however, the Church must be able to trust both the document and the author of the document as entirely honest. The use of AI in such a context would vitiate such an ability.

Thanks again for your questions. They were fun to take on!

Followup Questions on Using AI for Spiritual Writing

Sister, can one use AI to write a Rule of Life? Do you use AI for your blog writing?

Hi again, and thanks for the questions! If one is using AI to write texts that presume knowledge rooted in personal experience on one's part, then it becomes a matter of pretense. That is especially dangerous and impactful with regard to religious texts. Either one has the knowledge and experience necessary to undertake what one is writing, or one does not. Consider that all religious texts make claims about the human person and about God, or at least higher awareness and knowledge. Are these claims rooted in human experience? Christians believe in resurrection and draw conclusions from that. In fact, they create an entire vision of humanity's future with God, based on that reality. The Gospel stories make clear what an unusual kind of experience the first Christians had had, and what a singular and difficult-to-define event Jesus' resurrection was. The questions of faith include, "Did this really happen?" "Can I trust this testimony and the event it claims is real, or is it all religious or human philosophical nonsense?" In faith, our belief is rooted in human experience and in our ability to trust it. A Rule of Life, especially if one wants to use it for others, functions similarly.

You know that I admire AI and have found it really helpful in carefully limited ways. Pope Leo, it seems, has done the same. But in this area of religious belief, our experience of God, and the creation of human communities that MUST be rooted in such experience, trust, and wisdom, AI has no real place. While your conversations with AI sound similar to mine and have been inspiring and insightful beyond your own, AI is not human, it is not a person, and, as Pope Leo has said, it is "soulless".  (This means it lacks the characteristics of the authentically and uniquely human person.) I have a friend, a bishop of an autocephalous Catholic Church. She uses AI and says it is the best teacher she has ever had in one area of learning. However, she has also had explicit conversations with it regarding its limits in relation to ethics. One of these is a lack of conscience; another is a sense of empathy. AI was clear that it lacked these. It noted other limitations I can't completely recall at the moment, though these had to do with a significant lack of capacity for relatedness or relationships with the users who are depending on AI. I should also note that AI has a tendency to flatter the user, and while this may not truly be dishonest in any way (it may be constructive criticism), one does need to ask AI to be honest with one in getting assessments whenever one begins to feel it is pulling punches in this regard.

So, I think it is fine to use AI for clarifying writing or points of limited understanding --- as when I am working on a chapter and have the sense that something is not working. AI can tell me what that is and why it is not working. It can also explain why something IS working and, in fact, AI is really great for that. It can also help with outlining when there is a lot of material to hold in mind. However, the writing and the experience, along with the wisdom related to these, must be my own. Otherwise, what I present as my own is simply a lie that I am surreptitiously trying to get others to trust. AI knows a lot! Tons more than I do in many ways, and it can help teach me and draw out the implications of what I write. That can give me things to research and reflect on, but it cannot replace that writing or the hard-won wisdom it nurtures and comes from. 

In short, no, I don't use AI for my blog posts, and would never do so (or accept someone else doing so) with something like a Rule of Life. I'm afraid that would significantly destroy one's capacity for trust -- at least that would be so if one desired to pass any part of this text off as one's own work. How would I know which part is one's own work in such a case? How would I know this regarding what is one's own experience as its source or ground? How would any representative of the Church or anyone seeking to bind themselves to such a Rule know what was rooted in human experience and wisdom or not? The use of AI in news stories or pieces on famous people (Pope Leo is a significant example) has made it almost impossible to know what is genuine these days. The use of some percentage of AI in a piece of writing purporting to reflect spiritual experience and wisdom causes the entire piece and its author to become suspect. It works analogously to leaven in the OT. At Passover, the presence of leaven (a source of fermentation or decay) caused everything conceivably touched with, or affected in the way leaven affects them, to be thrown out or burned as tainted. This included several (5?) different kinds of grain, which were removed, especially if affected by moisture. That is as wise today, in these new applications to AI and what we may trust as genuinely human, as it was regarding leaven (hametz) at Passover.