UPDATE Catholic Answers Revealed its New AI Priest Named Father Justin but Now He has Been De-Frocked!
The apologetics site Catholic Answers released a “Father Justin” interactive AI app on April 23rd. In order to “to provide users with faithful and educational answers to questions about Catholicism.”
Father Justin, a male wearing a priestly collar, was named for St. Justin Martyr, a second-century convert and apologist, said Catholic Answers in its release.
Catholic Answers IT director Chris Costello explained in the release the app’s parish priest character “honor(ed) real-life priests and the role they play in people’s lives,” conveying an “authoritative yet approachable” demeanor that befits “the spirit and nature of the responses users can expect.”
Yet many on social media began rejecting the suitability and appropriateness of impersonating a priest. Therefore, Catholic Answers President Christopher Check said in an April 24 statement that Father Justin has been “rendered … (as) just ‘Justin.’
“Our goal with the Father Justin app is to leverage the power of large language models—or ‘LLMs’—to create an engaging and informative experience for those exploring the Catholic faith,” says Chris Costello, director of I.T. at Catholic Answers. “Although this is not a substitute for human interaction with a priest, teacher, or spiritual advisor, we believe it can be a valuable tool to help our users better understand and articulate the teachings of the Catholic faith.”
“We wanted to convey the spirit and nature of the responses users can expect—authoritative yet approachable, drawing from the deep well of Catholic tradition and teaching,” Costello explains. “We believe that the presentation of Father Justin honors real-life priests and the role they play in people’s lives, yet we are confident that our users will not mistake the AI for a human being.”The name “Father Justin” was chosen for this AI priest as a tribute to St. Justin Martyr, an early Christian convert and Church Father who is one of the patron saints of apologetics. The Father Justin app is available now on the Catholic Answers website, http://catholic.com.
Catholic Answers Issued this statement on April 24th retracting the Fr. Justin title and calling their App just Justin: “There are no bad things, only bad uses of things,” G.K. Chesterton reminds us. As a media apostolate, we feel very strongly about finding new ways to share the gospel—as our founder, Karl Keating, did many years ago when he started http://Catholic.com to put that wild new technology of the Internet to the service of Catholic truth. Recently, my colleagues and I at Catholic Answers have received a good deal of helpful feedback concerning another new technology: our AI app, “Fr. Justin.” Prevalent among users’ comments is criticism of the representation of the AI character as a priest. We chose the character to convey a quality of knowledge and authority, and also as a sign of the respect that all of us at Catholic Answers hold for our clergy. Many people, however, have voiced concerns about this choice. We hear these concerns; and we do not want the character to distract from the important purpose of the application, which is to provide sound answers to questions about the Catholic faith in an innovative way that makes good use of the benefits of “artificial intelligence.” We have therefore decided to create, with all wary speed, a new lay character for the app. We hope to have this AI apologist up within a week or so. Until then, we have rendered “Fr. Justin” just “Justin.” We won’t say he’s been laicized, because he never was a real priest! He’ll be available to visitors to http://Catholic.com, thousands of whom have already used the app with great profit. Furthermore, with the help of user input, we will continue to refine and improve the app by identifying any deficiencies (we didn’t anticipate that someone might seek sacramental absolution from a computer graphic!), which we quickly correct. I thank you for your prayers for Catholic Answers and for the good work of our staff. Peace and all good, Christopher Check
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