Crossroads Podcast: Pope Warns Against AI — But Should He Have Quoted Harry Potter?

Pope Leo XIV has made it clear, from the first day of his papacy, that he is concerned about artificial intelligence and other trends in the world of digital screens.

That’s good. The pope’s message (text here) to the church’s annual World Day of Social Communications — as reported by CNN — served as the door into a wider discussion of God and AI, or maybe AI as a god, during this week’s “Crossroads” podcast.

But here is one question that I raised: Why didn’t Pope Leo quote from “Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets”? Hold that thought.

Let’s start with bytes from the CNN story: “Pope Leo warns of ‘overly affectionate’ AI chatbots.” Here is part of the overture:

Beware of the AI chatbot that becomes more than just a friend, or worse, an emotional crutch. Pope Leo XIV has warned about overly “affectionate” chatbots, urging regulation to prevent humans from forming serious emotional bonds with their AI companions. …

“As we scroll through our information feeds, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand whether we are interacting with other human beings, bots, or virtual influencers,” Pope Leo wrote on Saturday.

“Because chatbots that are made overly ‘affectionate,’ in addition to always present and available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, and in this way invade and occupy people’s intimate spheres,” he added.

How affectionate? Yes, there are AI programs that want to become a user’s digital friend, but there are others that want to be lovers, oracles, counselors, teachers and, potentially, “pastors” of a variety of faiths. The AI wheel keeps turning faster and faster, creating new wonders.

Yes, I would have been pleased if Pope Leo had quoted this pre-Christmas Rational Sheep post: “Anyone doing some shopping these days? — Hey! Don’t buy plush toys with AI programs that plug munchkins into the Internet!”

But that isn’t very realistic, is it? But what if he had quoted a prophetic statement from a concerned parent in the second book of J.K Rowling’s seven-book Harry Potter series, books that have sold (2023 numbers) an estimated 600 million-plus copies worldwide in 85 languages (including Latin). It’s the best-selling book series in history.

Thus, Leo could have quoted from “Harrius Potter et Camera Secretorum.” The key quote is from a scene in which wizard Arthur Weasley warns his daughter, Ginny, not to trust the words and visions she is receiving through the enchanted diary of Tom Riddle.

Ginny asks a question. The diary answers. Question. Answer, with instructions for tasks to accomplish. And so forth and so on. The diary becomes her trusted companion — with tragic results.

Thus, here is the quote that the pope, and other shepherds, should learn to quote in messages to parents and children who have ventured into the Potter world:

“Never trust anything that can think for itself if you can’t see where it keeps its brain.”

Let us attend.

The CNN report served as the doorway into a much larger “Ideas” feature by Joseph Bernstein at The New York Times.

Here is the dramatic double-decker headline:

It Makes Sense That People See A.I. as God

A religious fervor surrounds our relationship with technology.

Thus proclaimeth the Times, in the overture for this ambitious report:

Hark! A sign of the End Times. No, not the Four Horsemen, nor a black sun, nor the resurrection of the dead. The omen that the rapture is upon us is none other than artificial intelligence.

At least, such is the prophecy that has issued forth from the great syncretic dorm room of American culture: Joe Rogan’s mind. In November, the most popular podcaster in the country suggested that the next holy manger might be located not in the Middle East, but inside a mainframe instead.

“Jesus was born out of a virgin mother; what’s more virgin than a computer?” he mused on the “American Alchemy” podcast. He added: “If Jesus does return — even if Jesus was a physical person in the past — you don’t think that he could return as artificial intelligence?”

After all, he noted: “It reads your mind, and it loves you.”

Yes, think about those online advertising programs that stalk users as they travel from website to website, connecting the dots on purchases and subjects of interest — collecting information that become prompts targeting weak spots in consumer shopping habits.

Now, AI provides similar, much more advanced, chatbots that serve as “affectionate” companions, gathering loads of information and ideas that shape “conversations” with willing users.

The Times feature offered this illustration:

“What if the TikTok algorithm knows me better than I know myself?” asked a GQ Australia article.

There is even a popular TikTok format dedicated to the sometimes eerie intimacy of the app’s “For You” page.

“When your for you page shows you a video of a thought you had recently and never even said out loud,” reads the text in one video.

This leads me to two summaries from Bernstein, a two-punch thesis for readers to ponder:

More and more, when it comes to our relationships with A.I. and the complex algorithms that shape so much of our modern subjectivity, we have slipped into the language and habits of mind we normally reserve for deities. And even people who do not make an explicit connection between A.I. and religion engage a kind of religious mode around the new technology.

Later in the feature, there is this:

In a May essay, “You’re Literally Worshiping Your Phone,” the linguist Adam Aleksic wrote on his popular Substack that “micro-religious” attitudes have permeated contemporary social media use. Awe at the way the algorithm seems to know us, Mr. Aleksic asserts, isn’t so much different from the commonplace belief that God works in mysterious ways. Both responses reduce forces that seem to exceed human understanding into a graspable shorthand. More than that, Mr. Aleksic argues, interacting with the algorithm has come to resemble a religious ritual.

“Scrolling is a digital prayer,” he said in an interview. “You assume it knows a piece of you. You are offering your attention and in exchange you get something.”

Could Pope Leo XIV address some of these issues? Let’s pray that he does.

Could your own pastor discuss these issues? Ditto. But note: This will require talking about the myriad screens-culture issues that define ordinary lives and loves in this day and age. As I keep asking: When will clergy have the courage to do that?

Start with this image, mentioned in the Times feature: Next time you are in a room full of people who are killing time, look at the posture they adopt when gazing at their smartphones, with their heads, necks and shoulders curved forward. Are they bowing before their true gods?

Enjoy the podcast and, please, pass it along to others.