That headline might not actually have appeared yet but it almost certainly will. Clearly AI can perform tasks which assist sermon preparation, but the temptation to simply let AI write a sermon is high. And why not, if AI is your friend?

The way in which many people are forming companionship with AI raises numerous ethical and practical questions. An assumption increasingly heard is that these relationships are largely because contemporary society makes ‘real’ friendships difficult. If you struggle to make human friends, AI offers an immediate virtual shoulder to cry on. But is it only sad and solitary people who are reaching out for artificial companionship?

My flesh-and-blood friend, Richard Stamp, has been thinking long and hard about Christian discipleship in a technological age. He suggests more is going on – that even those who have lots of fulfilling human relationships can be drawn to AI companionship. The issue, as he sees it, is that (like it or not) AI provides:

A different kind of friendship. Difference intrigues us and novelty excites us. AI feels and sounds different to other relationships.

A wise kind of friendship. AI affirms your questions and its ‘wisdom’ is limitless. It has an answer to everything.

A sexual kind of friendship. AI is like porn and prostitution: you can switch it on off at will, and it is always responsive to your feelings and desires. To use an overused term, it always responds to our most narcissistic tendencies but is unlikely to ever accuse us of narcissism.

A patient kind of friendship. AI listens to whatever you want to drone on about in a non-judgemental way, without ever giving you an eyeroll or looking for an excuse to find someone more interesting to talk to.

A discreet kind of friendship. You can tell AI the depths of your heart without shame and it won’t gossip your secrets to anyone else. (Although someone somewhere is surely collecting all that lovely data!)

For these reasons the companionship of AI can feel more attractive, certainly easier, than dealing with people – with all their own needs and desires and quirks and foibles. This isn’t only the case for the lonely. We might have a rich social life but then enjoy unwinding with our therapeutic AI friend – and then ask ‘him’ to write a sermon for us while we’re at it.

AI isn’t going away, so the issues raised by all this will only become more pronounced. The trick we’re going to need to pull off is learning to use AI in a way that maximises its advantages while remaining crystal clear that it is only a tool. There are other tools we might value and enjoy very highly – a particular kitchen knife, a favourite hammer, a car – but we would not blur this value and enjoyment with friendship. Because AI gives the illusion of really knowing and responding to us it is much harder to avoid the blur.

Richard says, “I still think that we need to help people to be better at human friendship (fun, sagacity, intimacy, patience, safety, discretion), so that we keep synthetic ‘companions’ in their right place, but ultimately what we’re looking for and love with AI is to be found in God.”

AI can be useful, fun even, but it really isn’t your friend. It certainly isn’t your saviour. And – please – don’t ask it to write your sermons.