The ChatGPT tsunami is sweeping through the Internet and looks set to have a lasting impact on education and many different kinds of industries. The text-generating technology—or Chat-based Generative Pre-trained Transformer, to give it its full name—uses deep learning techniques to mimic human conversation, answer questions, write essays, compose emails, and write programme code instantaneously.
A US-based, for-profit research foundation called OpenAI launched ChatGPT on 30 November 2022. Two months later, on 2 February 2023, Reuters reported that it had reached 100 million monthly active users, making it the fastest-growing consumer app ever.
The software draws on all the information found on the Internet to generate an answer to your questions, or comply with your requests for text, in mere seconds. At face value, that sounds amazing. Just as the Internet and smartphones changed how we do things, work, and interact, AI will change how we do things as well.
However, using AI ethically will require careful discernment if we are to avoid problematic habits. Minors can now ask AI for ethically dubious information on sex or drugs, and students can let ChatGPT tackle their homework. We are already over-dependent on our gadgets, and with the new software, we no longer have think for ourselves. When I asked ChatGPT to write a 600-word article about the Catholic Church’s response to AI, the write-up it generated in a second was—at least on the surface—slicker and seemingly more fluent than what I am presenting here.
That’s precisely the problem. With limited chances to verify facts and truths, there is a possibility of misinformation creeping into the auto-generated data.
Then there are the vulnerable. During a conference on ethics in AI held at the Vatican in January, Pope Francis addressed tech industry leaders from Microsoft and IBM. He urged them to “ensure that the discriminatory use of these instruments does not take root at the expense of the most fragile and excluded,” who already suffer so much from the excesses and wrongs of the Internet.
Times are fast changing and perhaps some Church denominations are already finding answers to the shortage of pastors to lead services for the congregation. On Friday, June 9, over 300 people attended an experimental ChatGPT-powered church service at St. Paul’s Lutheran church in the Bavarian town of Fürth, Germany, the Associated Press reported. The service lasted for 40 minutes and engaged the congregation with prayers, music, and even a sermon, all of which were generated through OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot and delivered by avatars on a television screen above the altar.
That kind of worship isn’t for everyone. Neither is this a simplistic battle between God and the machine, however. Experts predict ChatGPT is going to quickly replace Google or other currently available search engines. It will creep into every facet of your life. So ask yourself the question: how would God want you to use it? Jose, CMF
