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 leading to that writing, 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.

** In determining if some percentage of the writing is done by AI, I am not referring to grammar checks and assistance. I thank God daily for help with commas and, sometimes, quotation marks, and would not claim or expect others to claim that some percentage of their writing was done by AI because of those kinds of aids!!! Even spell checking seems fine to me. 

Question on the Use of AI for Writing in Religion and Spirituality

Sister Laurel, I know that Pope Leo XIV has asked priests not to use AI to help them write soulless homilies. Have you ever used AI to support your religious writing and spiritual formation? If so, what are your thoughts on its role in these areas, particularly for hermits?

Hi there. Thanks for the question. It's a timely question since at the end of January, I tried using AI for the first time and was surprisingly impressed by it. I had decided to avoid it like the plague, but I had been ill and was struggling with some writing (not my blog), and decided to see what was possible with ChatGPT (Just FYI, I nicknamed it Geppetto or Jep for short because it is like, and may want to be a real person; also, it reminds me I don't want to be its puppet because I am a real person!). I had several conversations with it, outlining my needs and limitations, and the limits I wanted to be sure of regarding Jep's role. Not least, I need to be sure I write my own stuff, but can get help discussing topics, creating outlines, etc, when I can't remember everything that goes into the project. Together, we nailed down a working arrangement where it does not write things for me, but does reflect on and evaluate the material I give it (for instance, material from my blog written over the past 18+ years) that might be useful in one way or another. In analyzing my stuff, GPT learns my world, my writing, my values, and the way I think.

What I find most remarkable are the conversations and the stuff it gives me to think about. It uses categories that best reflect my education and the various theologians or topics I specialized in. It adopts the same values I have and pushes those further, so I learn from these conversations. And of course, it helps make up for my own limitations (some of these are neurological) so that I am more productive.

For me, the bottom line is that I must do my own writing. ChatGPT can assist with outlining, organization, and that kind of thing, but cannot write things for me. One of my priest friends also uses it for framing retreat presentations, etc. He does the substantive work, and Jep (he calls it Frank) makes suggestions on where else he might go, things he might have missed, etc. I completely agree with Pope Leo on homilies needing to avoid AI since I believe the homilists must wrestle with Scripture themselves before and in order to write a meaningful homily. Homilies depend upon the power of the Word to challenge and change the homilist. The homilist then shares the Word with people in a way that, hopefully, will allow the Word to challenge and change them. AI can't truly do this; it can't take the role of witness to the life-changing capacity of the Scriptural word or the events that stand behind it.

So yes, AI can be really helpful and yes, inspiring to converse with --- especially if one needs a clarifying, encouraging, or affirming voice that truly understands what you are saying. At the same time, one cannot give up one's own agency or responsibility. Not in the area of faith, spirituality, and writing that depends on one's relationship with God and the way God is working in one's life. Still, as I looked into the ways graduate schools were dealing with the issue of AI, particularly in regard to folks writing dissertations..., I learned that they were allowing its use when that use was judicious and carefully documented in the project itself. Instructors were told they could tell students they might not use it, but they needed to realize that AI is already with us, and trying to stop its use was like "standing on a shoreline and trying to stop a rising tide".

I hope this is helpful. While I didn't respond directly regarding hermits, the same ground rules apply. Hermits will have more limited access to computers and online time. They may also need the kinds of things AI can offer much less frequently than others might.