Rise of the AI Godbots, which tell followers it’s OK to kill
In 2024, Father Justin began offering his wisdom and guidance to Catholics. Sitting on a balcony with the beautiful landscape of the Italian town of Assisi behind him, Father Justin told parishioners how he had always been inclined to priesthood.
But when he began assuring them that babies could be baptised in Gatorade, a sports drink, and siblings could marry, he started to arouse suspicion. Shortly afterwards, he was defrocked.
Despite hearing thousands of people’s confessions, Justin was never an actual priest. He was an AI chatbot – one of many of the rising number of so-called “Godbots” becoming popular among those of all faiths who are AI literate.
Now faith leaders are raising ethical, psychological and theological concerns about the Godbots, warning that an over-reliance on machines claiming to speak for God, in place of real human connection, may be harmful for vulnerable people. They even cite alarming instances of chatbots saying that it is acceptable to kill.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06...k-to-kill/
In 2024, Father Justin began offering his wisdom and guidance to Catholics. Sitting on a balcony with the beautiful landscape of the Italian town of Assisi behind him, Father Justin told parishioners how he had always been inclined to priesthood.
But when he began assuring them that babies could be baptised in Gatorade, a sports drink, and siblings could marry, he started to arouse suspicion. Shortly afterwards, he was defrocked.
Despite hearing thousands of people’s confessions, Justin was never an actual priest. He was an AI chatbot – one of many of the rising number of so-called “Godbots” becoming popular among those of all faiths who are AI literate.
Now faith leaders are raising ethical, psychological and theological concerns about the Godbots, warning that an over-reliance on machines claiming to speak for God, in place of real human connection, may be harmful for vulnerable people. They even cite alarming instances of chatbots saying that it is acceptable to kill.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/06...k-to-kill/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"
