# A Bishop’s Take on the Age of Intelligent Machines

Episode 28 of AI with Sach, a podcast hosted by Sacha Gucciardo in Montréal, features Bishop Thomas Dowd, catholic Bishop of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (based in Sudbury); former Ericsson telecom employee and early webmaster. A Catholic bishop and former telecom worker on AI, trust, loneliness, free will, the soul and regulation.

- Show: AI with Sach, hosted by Sacha Gucciardo in Montréal (https://aiwithsach.com/)
- Episode: 28
- Published: 2025-05-28
- Length: 91 minutes
- Language: English
- Page: https://aiwithsach.com/episodes/28-a-bishops-take-on-the-age-of-intelligent-machines/
- Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY

## Guests

- Bishop Thomas Dowd: Catholic Bishop of Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario (based in Sudbury); former Ericsson telecom employee and early webmaster (https://aiwithsach.com/guests/bishop-thomas-dowd/)

## Summary

Sach talks with Bishop Thomas Dowd, who grew up in Montréal, wrote his first program at 12, worked at Ericsson, became webmaster for the Canadian bishops in 1995 and was named a bishop at 40. He now leads a diocese in Northern Ontario. Dowd treats large language models as tools. He has caught ChatGPT filling in blanks, and he describes how an AI trained on Catholic theology gave a parishioner a wrong answer about what the diocese could do. He argues that a machine cannot pray for you. On consciousness, he sets out the Catholic view of the soul, the role of the body in knowing, and free will. He says AI will force us to ask what a soul is. He reads AI boyfriends and girlfriends as a symptom of loneliness that urbanization and social media already worsened, and he warns of a society split by emotional capacity. He wants profit-driven companies regulated, as airplanes and hot dogs are. He ends on honesty and altruism as the virtues we need, and on what a church can offer that cannot be virtualized.

## Key takeaways

1. Treat chatbots as a starting point for research, not a trusted source: check the answer against something you know or a person who knows.
2. An AI is only as good as its training inputs, and copyright limits can keep it stuck on older, worse material.
3. The questions about AI consciousness force a prior question: what do we mean by consciousness, free will or a soul?
4. AI companions meet real loneliness, and companies may profit from it; the risk is people avoiding the hard, risky work of human relationships.
5. Regulation of profit-driven AI makes sense for the same reasons we regulate airplanes, vaccines and meat, and the real danger is people using AI without empathy.
6. Honesty and altruism matter more as technology magnifies their presence or absence.

## Verified quotes

Each quote is checked word for word against the recording.

> I get an email, Bishop, are you sure we're allowed to do that? I thought we could only do this. I said, well, where did you get that idea? Well, I asked magisterium AI. I said, aha. So in my job, I'm being questioned as to my competence based on what an AI said.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 29:11 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1751s)

> a machine cannot pray on your behalf. Like if, if I was going to do a rosary with 150 Hail Marys and I said, well, I don't have time to say 150. I'll just get my computer to say it. No, that's not going to work.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 31:32 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1892s)

> is everybody going to have an AI boyfriend or girlfriend? No, I don't think so. But if just 1% of the population is experiencing that kind of existential loneliness, well, that's 80 million people. That's a lot of people.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 51:24 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3084s)

> And so you'll wind up with a stratification of human beings, not based on wealth, not based on intelligence, based on the emotional capacity to enter into relationship with others. What kind of society will emerge from that? I have no idea, but AI could certainly accelerate that big time.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 54:55 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3295s)

> Not that the AI becomes psychopathic, but that the people behind it are able to use it for just for their own interests with no empathy for anyone else, seeing the human beings interacting with it as ones and zeros, effectively, just as extensions of a system.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 1:09:45 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4185s)

> I realized I would rather live an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie. And it seems so self-evident to me. It was a nice moment, but it seemed self-evident. And I must have been very young, like six or seven or eight.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 1:25:15 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5115s)

> We had all the money in one week, one week. Because people, what I realized is because people knew who I was and because of the content, it was building a sense of connection. There was also a sense of trust.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 21:56 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1316s)

> Had I trusted the answer, I would have made errors. And so this is the problem. There's a level of response that can seem true, but which isn't.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 25:10 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1510s)

> And they said, oh, we can't input that because it's under copyright. So in other words, you can only train your AI on older garbage instead of the newer great stuff. Terrific. What do we need this for?
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 30:19 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1819s)

> Angels don't have bodies. And so they know what a rose smells like, but they can never actually have the experience of smelling a rose. You know, they could talk about the smell of a rose, but they can't do so from a point of view of experience.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 37:36 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2256s)

> The profit motive is one that has never really been trusted for pure self-regulation in any circumstance. There's a reason why we have regulatory agencies for the construction of airplanes, right? There's a reason why we have regulatory agencies for the crafting of vaccines or the approval of medications.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 1:06:37 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3997s)

> I don't think AGI can ever replace the irascible appetite because you want to be the one playing football, not your robot. You know, you want to be the one getting a diploma. If you're in school and you're saying, the reason I want to get a degree is so I can get a good job, why not cheat?
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 1:23:26 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5006s)

> You can watch it online, but you can't smell the incense online. You know, and there's, you can't receive communion on your tongue online. And we're never sending it by DoorDash.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 1:30:00 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5400s)

> From my point of view, the critical question is free will itself. None of the atoms of our brain individually possess free will. And so collections of them wouldn't possess it either. That doesn't mean they don't possess randomness.
> — Bishop Thomas Dowd, AI with Sach episode 28, at 44:29 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2669s)

## Transcript

Automatic transcript; speaker labels are automatic.

[0:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=0s) **Sacha:** Welcome back to AI with Sach. Today, I am with Bishop Thomas Dowd, who agreed to talk to me and talk a little bit about faith and AI and how this, you know, rapid change and innovation is coming in and his perspective on it as well. Thank you so much for joining me, Bishop Dowd.

[0:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=18s) **Guest:** Oh, it's my pleasure. Thank you for this invitation.

[0:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=21s) **Sacha:** Bishop Tom, would you please give us a bit of an introduction on your person?

[0:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=28s) **Guest:** Sure. I'm Canadian. I'm born and raised in Montreal, in Quebec, eldest of three. And right now I'm 54 years old. So I was born in 1970 in September. My educational background, well, I went to school there and eventually went to what we call CGEP. It's a sort of a pre-university college program. University of Montreal in international business and finance. On the side, as sort of a hobby and a bit of other background, my father was a computer programmer starting in the 1960s. So he used to bring like the earliest laptops home. They looked like giant typewriters, no screen, just a little label screen. It was quite amazing. And so I got into programming and telecommunications very early. My dad was also a ham radio operator and ham radio was the original internet, you know, talking to people all over the world.

[1:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=89s) So I think I wrote my first computer program when I was 12, 1982. That was a long time ago, but I really came into it early. So I had my sort of hobby interest in computers. And let's face it, in those days, a lot of people as you know, what we sometimes derisively call hackers. But I've always said there's a difference between a hacker and a cracker, right? The hackers are the good guys, the crackers are the bad guys. And a lot of people don't realize that. So we would hack around with systems and computers. After I graduated in business, I wound up working for a telecom company. So it dovetailed nicely, you know, the sort of the studies, but also the private interest working well together. So I worked with Ericsson is the Swedish telecommunications giant. People who don't know, they invented a technology called Bluetooth. If you've ever used Bluetooth, you've used something that Ericsson developed. And so I was there at the beginning of the telecom boom, I started working for them in 92.

[2:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=153s) And it was really exciting, very, very interesting. But that said, eventually, I felt my calling elsewhere. And so I left in 95 to begin to study for the priesthood. By that point, the World Wide Web had just been born. I mean, prior to the web, it was something called gopher space, because you could go for this and go for that. But once the web with hyperlinks and all of that was developed, it just took over. I saw the birth of that. And in fact, I wound up becoming the webmaster for the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Canadian bishops were the first to have a web page of all of the groups of bishops around the world. And so we were we were there and I was the webmaster in 95, coding away by hand, none of the fancy tools we have today. Some people call it web 1.0, I think it was web 0.5, very, very early. So that was a lot of fun.

[3:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=215s) I really enjoyed that I was able to see the evolution of the technology, tried to keep up with it, although it wasn't my profession anymore. So in 2003, I wound up becoming the first priest in Canada with a blog. And I remember coding my own website, because the technology was so primitive, I had to add stuff to it, you know. Yeah, just great fun working with Linux, which later became Android for cell phones and all of that early stuff. So I try and keep up with it as best I can. I'm no means an expert. But probably compared to most priests or bishops, I have an edge in terms of knowledge of how the technology works. And I'm really happy to have a chance to speak with you today.

[4:20](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=260s) **Sacha:** Thanks again. And Bishop Tom, would you mind taking us through what pulled you from the world of technology and Ericsson into the priesthood?

[4:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=273s) **Guest:** Sure. Well, I like a lot of younger people, young adults, I went through a period of time, where I began to sort of question the faith in which I had been raised. My family was very practicing, very faithful in a good way. You know, people of sincere faith that really motivated their desire to serve and to help others. And so I never had a problem with religion, like some people are raised with negative experiences. I never really had that. But as a young adult, you're in the world, you question a lot of things. It's almost natural. And so I began my own religious quest, which was largely motivated by the unfortunate experience of evil in the world. A friend of mine was someone I cared for deeply, was experiencing some very evil things in her family life. And so I won't get into detail out of respect for her, but it really shook me. You know, it bothered me that I think anybody who has been raised in a way where you are blessed to not encounter that, when you do, it really hits you in the face.

[5:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=343s) So I began to take a step back and say to myself, okay, who is this God that I believe in? What is this religion that I've been raised in? And so I began to explore it, but also all of the other faith traditions, major traditions of the world, as well as philosophical traditions that kind of put God on the shelf or rejected God entirely. I really wanted to have a total overview. And it was hard, but in many ways, it was a blessed experience. And the funny thing is, because I worked for Ericsson, and I had access to the net, it was really easy to do research. It was real, you know, the saying, do your own research. Well, 1993, I was doing my own research on religions, and I was able to dialogue and ask questions of people all around the world. What do they think? What is their experience? I remember chatting with Muslims from Qatar, you know, it was a great chance. And so through that experience, obviously, I came full circle, I came back to my Catholic roots.

[6:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=408s) But I like to tell people that before I had this experience, I believe, because I was Catholic, I had been raised a certain way. And so that was my default. So I believed what I did, because I was Catholic. But after that process, I was Catholic, because I believe, you know, like, it was no longer sort of the automatic mode, it was something chosen, reflected, you know, a mature sense of faith. And so within that context, I had a business degree, but I'd never been the kind of guy who was interested in using those skills to necessarily, you know, simply accumulate wealth, I'd always wanted to use those skills for some sort of service, and the desire to serve was always there. And then as I went through this other experience, and my, my commitment to that faith background deepened and became, as I say, more solid, you know, more, more grounded. The thought of serving in the priesthood became a stronger idea.

[7:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=473s) When I was a little kid, I thought of it, but you know, I wanted to be a priest, but I also wanted to be an astronaut. You know, it wasn't that serious. Now I'm in my early 20s. It's more serious. And so I entered the seminary, I wasn't 100% convinced that I was going to be a priest, but I figured, if I don't give it a shot, I'll never know. And look what happened to me, I'm still here. And you know, I became a priest in 2001. Less than 10 years later, to my great surprise, they made me a bishop. So I've been a bishop now for, wow, 14 years, almost 14 years. And it's, it's amazing. I have to say, I tell people this sometimes, if you want to have a boring life, do not give it to God. Okay, if you want to be bored throughout your life, do not include God, you will be very disappointed. Once you really let God in, you never know what's going to happen. But it's always going to be interesting. It may be hard, may even have tragedy, or you encounter under the full gamut of human experience.

[8:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=539s) Let me tell you, if there's one thing it isn't, it is never boring. So that I'm very grateful. You

[9:04](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=544s) **Sacha:** became a bishop at 40, making you one of the youngest bishop globally at the time. First of all, what does a bishop do? And what do you think led you to that acceleration in your journey? Well,

[9:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=559s) **Guest:** good question. So yes, I was actually the second youngest bishop in the world at the time I was named. Just part of the reason why I was surprised, and I think other people were too. What does a bishop do? It depends. We have to distinguish between a job and a vocation. So I'll give you an example for a priest. A priest's a priest, but you have some priests who will work in a local church called a parish. Others might be a chaplain in a hospital. Or they might be working in social services, like running food banks or assisting families in need, that sort of thing. So the vocation is the same. The title is the same. The calling is the same. But the actual application in a job might be different from one to the other. Like I know priests who were university professors, and sometimes you wear more than one hat simultaneously. So in my case, in my time as a priest, I was a parish priest. I was also a hospital chaplain, and I also taught at university.

[10:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=623s) So I had a multitude of experiences, and I worked in head office, you know, in administration. So what does a bishop do? A bishop is kind of a super priest. You know, we call ourselves the chief priests. If you ever read the Bible, you can read about Jesus had many followers, but some of those followers, a limited group, he gave them the title of apostles. And the apostles were the leaders of the whole community. And before they died, the apostles appointed people to take their place. And so the successors of the apostles, those are called bishops. So a bishop is a successor of the apostle for leadership, you know, that sort of senior level leadership in the church. I started out as what's called an auxiliary bishop or an assistant. Remember, I was in Montreal. Montreal is a big place. You can't have just one bishop, you needed more than one in order to be able to accomplish all the things that needed to be done. So I was assisting the main bishop, who initially was a cardinal, actually, Cardinal Jean-Claude Turcotte.

[11:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=689s) So very high placed guy. And then about four years ago, in a bit, I got a surprise phone call that the Pope wanted to transfer me from Montreal to Northern Ontario, where I am now. So as we're speaking, I'm sitting here in my office in Sudbury. Northern Ontario is an area that is very bilingual, English, French. So someone from Montreal, it's a good fit for that. And I just love it here. It's a delight. I really enjoy being here. Now, I am the leader here. But I work with a fantastic team of people, have a community that is English, French, and many indigenous people as well of Ojibwe background. And that's really interesting. I guess my background in international business has always made me interested in languages and cultures. And so I just have to step out my door and I can be in a totally different world. And it's great. I really enjoy it.

[12:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=749s) I'm

[12:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=750s) **Sacha:** curious, how has your understanding of faith evolved since becoming a bishop?

[12:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=755s) **Guest:** Well, that's a good question. For me, and I think a lot of people confuse faith with belief. They're not quite the same thing. Faith fundamentally is not an emotional reaction. Faith is a choice. There's an element of will involved and choice that is meant to be reasonable. So sometimes people think if you have faith, you're kind of simple, you know, like almost that faith makes you dumb because you're uncritically accepting a whole bunch of propositions. Like a lot of people will oppose faith and science, for example. From a Catholic point of view, there's no need to oppose those two things. A lot of people don't know this, but the Big Bang Theory was first formulated by a Catholic priest. I believe he was Belgian actually. So hats off to you. You mentioned you're from Belgium. So the idea of faith is fundamentally, it calls us to a maturity and the ability to place an act of trust.

[13:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=825s) And it requires us to turn our brains up, not down. That is something that I really appreciate. Now, there are versions of religion that yes, they are designed to enslave people that I totally oppose. I have no interest in that sort of thing. I consider that an abuse of religion. For me, religion is meant to sort of open up the mind and open up the heart and help bring people into dialogue with each other. That's always been a really important theme for me in my own religious life, precisely because I did it for myself. When I did that whole faith journey, I wasn't just sort of sitting back and from on high, looking down and deciding what is the truth. I did it always in dialogue with others and even trying to put those traditions in dialogue with each other, if only I did it always in dialogue with each other, if I did it always in dialogue with each other. And as a bishop, I get to be the dialogue in chief, you know, or the dialoguer in chief, the guy who places people in dialogue, in conversation with each other, which is part of the reason why I like doing things like podcasts.

[14:59](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=899s) So again, thank you for the invitation.

[15:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=900s) **Sacha:** We are living through a very special time, in my opinion. We're seeing a lot of technological advancements and change. And with that comes, in my opinion, great responsibilities. What do you believe is the church core role in a time like this?

[15:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=922s) **Guest:** You know, Pope Francis, who just passed away recently, he at one point said, we're not just living in an age of change. We're living in a change of age, like a change of era. You know, there's a new phase that's emerging. He's not the first one to say it, but I think that captures it really, really well. What does religion, faith bring to it? I think certainly I can only speak from my own perspective. I can't talk about every other religion. From my point of view, at the heart of it, we want to make sure that we don't lose our humanity. There is something about technology that can empower, but there's also something about it that can enslave. And, you know, technology can be used by other humans to do good and by other humans to enslave. And so it's really still a human human problem. You know, like when they invented the bow and arrow, you had a new form of warfare that emerged. So it became easier to enslave.

[16:24](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=984s) But now, you know, there are cultural shifts that technology in itself imposes or opens up that nobody expects. And yet it changes whole patterns of life that we wind up sort of being stuck in, whether we like it or not. That's where the technological shift has unintended consequences in some cases. And so we have to make sure that we don't lose our humanity in the midst of those changes. I mean, your podcast is about AI, and that strikes me as one of the core issues around AI. And so, you know, whether it's that or something else, I see those as sort of mission critical issues. And for the church, humanity, the human person is always at the center. Well, God is obviously at the center, but it's about our relationship with God. So we can't ever lose the human dimension.

[17:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1043s) **Sacha:** That's really impactful and meaningful to me. And I feel, I think that much like you, I started this podcast with a couple reasons, but one of them was to make sure that we had dialogue. I wanted to make sure that all different perspectives and different people and backgrounds could have a discussion about this technology and, you know, shape what was coming and how we build this technology. Because I think this technology is very special. And as you mentioned, it is bringing a different era, a different era upon us, right? So I really like that perspective. And I know you're talking about technology in the bigger sense, but I think that with artificial intelligence, especially Gen AI, we're seeing change at a much more rapid pace. And I think what you mentioned with, we may end up stuck in a position and, you know, in different ways of living. I think that that's really, that's pretty spot on.

[18:25](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1105s) I'm curious because you yourself also started blogging and you're using, right, all these social media platforms as well. And we were talking about that. Like, why, why do you think it's important for you to be able to use those and how do you use them to connect with your, your community?

[18:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1123s) **Guest:** The reason any technology is important, I mean, forget about social media, the telephone. I mean, I worked for a telecom company, you know, so it was all about having a, just being able to pick up the phone and call. That changed the world. Radio changed the world. You know, all of these things. Of course, the church is still pretty old school. Our Pope Leo was recently elected, right? And I find it amazing. We had thousands of digital cameras pointed at a smokestack waiting for smoke signals to find out who the Pope is. It's like the perfect union of the stone age and the digital age right there. So it's like a parable of the modern era. Some things don't change and other things really do. For myself, it's always been about connecting with people. Like the reason I started my blog is because here I am a young priest and I have all these people coming up to me and saying, what is a typical day for a priest like?

[19:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1184s) Like, what do you do all day? I mean, they knew what I did on the weekend because they, they came to church on Sunday. They saw me, but like Monday to Friday, what's the typical day? It was just a black box to them. It meant they didn't know. So I started blogging because I knew my life was super interesting. Like I said, if you want to be bored, don't give it to God. Well, I was not bored. And so my theme was very simple. One post once per day based on something that happened that day. Didn't have to be a description of what had happened because sometimes it was a confidential thing and I, you know, it's nobody else's business. And I was privileged to be invited into people's private lives. Obviously I'm not going to post all that stuff, but it could make you reflect nonetheless. So that was my theme and it was super popular. And what I discovered is there was this people who had formed around it. People who left comments, people would stop me and say, Hey, I read your blog. This is interesting. Getting requests from around the world for thoughts on different things.

[20:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1244s) And like fun story, I wound up getting involved in a redraft of a role-playing game. They wanted a priest to give an opinion on some aspect of their RPG, tabletop RPG. So sure. Now I'm in the credits in a role-playing game book somewhere, you know, it's so random, but that's the kind of thing that this allowed. And it helped me build a stronger connection with my people. So the first thing was to sort of share the life because just because it's interesting, build a stronger sense with each other. And then it also empowered community action. I had done a trip to the Philippines and when I got back or while I was there, I was asked if I could find people to help build a library for a small village school. They could build the structure, but they couldn't afford to buy books for the kids. Could we help out? Well, we had lots of schools that were getting rid of textbooks to bring in the new edition. We could collect them and send them, but where do you get the money to ship them?

[21:47](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1307s) So I turned to my blog. I said, who would like to help build this? Here's how much we need. Here's what we're asking as a suggested donation. We had all the money in one week, one week. Because people, what I realized is because people knew who I was and because of the content, it was building a sense of connection. There was also a sense of trust. The thing that wounds me a lot about the internet misuse is how one of the worst things is you're never quite sure who to trust. There's a lot of sadly very successful manipulation that occurs. And that for me is just the opposite of the potential that I saw and lived when we built this library and shipped the books. So for me, those were some originating factors. And when I transferred to this diocese, I continued to post because people want to know what is their bishop up to.

[22:50](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1370s) And it's the same thing. They feel close. They feel connected. I'm still trying to find the perfect fit for social media. And I'm also still trying to find the extra six hours in the day that I need to keep up with all of it. But I can't see myself not using it for the same reasons back 20 years ago. Sometimes awesome things happen and you just want to share them. And why not? Why not share good stuff? And so, you know, when I got my first selfie with the Pope, you can bet it went up on Facebook.

[23:26](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1406s) **Sacha:** I love that. I've read on one of your posts that you called the church communication organization. How do you feel about the rise of AI models and ChatGPT that are now able to communicate fluently, right? And almost persuasively?

[23:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1422s) **Guest:** Well, the use of these tools, I think we have to see them as tools. Okay. Basically, a large language model is a giant database with a fancy algorithm to get information out of that database. It's extremely sophisticated. I mean, this is well beyond SQL, you know, and doing queries. But basically, when you sit down, like I used Grok earlier today, when I sit down, I can type in a question and I don't have to format the question overly. It's able to sort of guess what I mean and you can do follow-ups. So it has a natural language query method, which is very powerful. That firstly is very powerful. And then of course, you know, it provides, it has access to a massive data set. And so you can provide answers on pretty much everything as well, which is remarkable. What are the downsides? Sometimes it lies, doesn't know it's lying, but sometimes it does, you know, sometimes it'll fill in the blanks.

[24:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1486s) I have caught ChatGPT doing that. I asked it a query once and it gave me an answer and I thought, oh, this is cool. Then I looked at the answer more closely and I realized that doesn't make sense. So I dug into it a bit using my own personal library. Like the reason I was querying is I didn't want to have to go through five shelves worth of books to find my answer. And it didn't. Had I trusted the answer, I would have made errors. And so this is the problem. There's a level of response that can seem true, but which isn't. And so remember I said, communication has to be done in trust. I see these things as a useful jumping off point when you're looking for an answer, but I wouldn't trust it. Now, I think the tools are also helpful for data transformation, especially linguistics. So for example, if you need to do a translation, when in my diocese, we work with two languages, English and French principally.

[25:51](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1551s) And so very often we'll use a tool like DeepL, for example, or ChatGPT to translate information from one language to another. But believe me, you got to reread it. You know, you can't just take the answer and send it or else sometimes it's just flat out wrong. It's misunderstood the original point or it's made errors. It's quite good. Like you understand what it's saying, but it just comes across amateurish, you know, like, and, and, and it can drain the life. I don't know if you've ever heard, you know, you're listening to, uh, or, you know, scrolling through videos on your phone and this video will pop up with a voiceover description of what's happening. It's always the same voice and the voice has no life in it. You know, it's got the same intonations at all, every point. And you think it's good, but it's not human. You can just tell. Yeah. Will that improve? Probably.

[26:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1612s) But how will it improve? You know what? We improve through feedback. The feedback might be as simple as somebody's eyebrows lifting or their eyes opening wide or nodding their head. How is this going to improve? I don't know. It's, uh, so I, I have my, those are some sort of concerns I have around that. I think it's powerful. I don't think it'll substitute for human contact except for situations which are relatively unsophisticated.

[27:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1643s) **Sacha:** I think these points are extremely interesting and many, many points and many thoughts come to mind. First of all, Yoshua Benja, one of the most cited computer scientists that recent AIs and their studies on that have tendencies for deception, cheating, and even self-preservation behaviors. You were talking about trust, right? Very interesting. People, and that comes from Anthropic, which is one of the main builders of, of, of large language models, mentioned that they're seeing in their data, people using Claude, their, their LLMs to have relationship advice. Even, you know, when they're questioning their faith, they go to Claude. And very, very interesting. And I'm wondering if you think that, you know, AI could one day serve a role in, in spiritual and, you know, maybe pastoral contexts, like guiding prayers, answering, you know, theological questions, or even offering moral advice. There

[28:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1702s) **Guest:** is an AI already specifically trained to offer Catholic theology. It's called magisterium.ai. And I was involved as it was getting set up. I was to which some of my friends said, of course you were, you know, given the background, actually, the Vatican held a forum on AI last year invitation only. And I, I'm on the guest list for this year. So, and it's something the new Pope, Pope Leo has talked about. He wants to help the church to reflect on this. So I'm, I'm excited by that. I'm, I'm proud and happy to be part of it. But the magisterium AI, it's made mistakes. You know, somebody, we were planning on doing something here in my diocese locally. I get an email, Bishop, are you sure we're allowed to do that? I thought we could only do this. I said, well, where did you get that idea? Well, I asked magisterium AI. I said, aha. So in my job, I'm being questioned as to my competence based on what an AI said.

[29:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1769s) So I had to justify myself against the erroneous answer provided by an AI. So I contacted the developers and I said, guys, this is not helping. This is getting in the way. And they looked into the code, you know, they looked into the responses and what they said, it was very interesting. We're having a hard time giving that answer. It seems to always gravitate back to that particular answer. Could you provide us some texts, authoritative texts to train it with so that it can, you know, obviously it's about a weighted measure of different inputs, which is a common, you know, IT issue when you're programming. And I said, well, there's this document, which very clearly says my point. And they said, oh, we can't input that because it's under copyright. So in other words, you can only train your AI on older garbage instead of the newer great stuff. Terrific.

[30:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1831s) What do we need this for? You know, now that's not to say it's useless, but again, you got to make sure that your inputs are good and you can't just trust it. Now, this may help us in one measure. And that is that people who do have positions of authority, intellectual authority, like professors or priests, they can stand up in front of a crowd and say something and everybody will say, oh, it must be true because this is a professor or this is a priest. Now they're going to double check and there may be some challenge. And that might annoy the people who have that authority of experience, but it'll also keep us on our toes, which I frankly don't have a problem with. When I offer a teaching or a document of teaching, I always give my references and sources and because I want to be a trusted source. I don't just want to be a source. So I don't know if that answers your question, but will it lead prayers? You could certainly use AI for as a prompt for certain prayers, but a machine cannot pray on your behalf.

[31:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1896s) Like if, if I was going to do a rosary with 150 Hail Marys and I said, well, I don't have time to say 150. I'll just get my computer to say it. No, that's not going to work. The point is it's like, you know, it's like your, your AI sending flowers to your girlfriend rather than you going out and buying them. Like what counts more, you know, what counts more? The little kid who picks dandelions from the lawn and hands them to mom or the AI that buys the nicest bouquet and sends it like, just use your head, you know? So genuine human contact. Now, one thing that does concern me, this is less about the spiritual use. You mentioned the moral use. Could AI give moral advice? Possibly. When we, again, garbage in, garbage out, right? You have to look at your inputs. Moral situations can be notoriously difficult to navigate. Even when you have someone giving sort of expert advice to someone, you have to take into account things like someone asked the question, you always have to ask yourself, what's the real question?

[32:46](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=1966s) You know, I've encountered situations where someone this hypothetical question, I'm asking for a friend. Yeah, right. And then you say to yourself, okay, this seems like that's the question, but this might be the real question. You always have to look for things like, for example, what is the person's level of mental health that's driving their question? And so you have to know what questions to ask to clarify their question that they may not even have thought of. What's the real issue, not just the presenting issue? And I'm not sure to what extent AI is capable of anticipating those things. So, you know, in this scenario, is this a sin? Yeah, there's a certain algorithm, like even we theologians, we use sort of an algorithm to detect the situation. But Pope Francis was very clear. His key thing that he always talked about was accompanying people, not just giving an answer, but saying, okay, what's really happening? And let's talk this through.

[33:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2028s) And, you know, so I would, and people are often very troubled by things they don't even understand themselves. That's the whole idea in psychology of the subconscious. And a big part of therapy or spiritual direction or moral direction is about helping people bring things from their subconscious to their conscience mind. How good will AI be at that? I have my doubts. Certainly at this stage of its development, I have my doubts.

[34:14](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2054s) **Sacha:** This is a, you're leading me nicely to my next question about consciousness. There are some scientists and researchers that are starting slowly to talk about or ask the question, could AI models be conscious? Some say that it's hard to deny without saying that they are. And this comes again from, so pretty, pretty big allegations. Yoshua Bengio says that what distinguishes us from these models are agency and memory. Again, pretty big claims. I'm curious to get your opinion on, first of all, what is consciousness? And also what distinguishes human consciousness in your view from what we're seeing, we're starting to see in these models, right?

[35:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2110s) **Guest:** It's a, okay, well, it's an excellent question. And the real issue, like similar to the Turing test, I'm sure you're familiar with the Turing test. So the Turing tests is, the whole theme of it is based on the idea, if it's possible to simulate consciousness sufficiently that no one can tell the difference, is there a difference? That's the real issue, right? So for those who say, is AI conscious or not, you have to start with, well, what is consciousness? What is it in the first place? Which is a very fair starting point. And to what extent is there something merely being simulated? To what extent does it matter? Fair questions. Of course, from a spiritual point of view, our argument is that we are not just brains. We have a soul. And this forces, and I think the whole question of AI on a philosophical and theological level is going to force a reflection on what is a soul.

[36:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2173s) We're going to have to stop having a naive perspective on what this means. Now, I cannot pretend to have the answer to that. We're at an early stage of that reflection. Certainly from a Catholic point of view, there are three functions of the soul, which are, we certainly believe in a strong connection of body and mind. There's a strong body-mind connection. The body is not merely a puppet or tool of the mind. There's a constant interaction between body and mind, body and soul. Their knowledge, for example, is mediated by the body. There's a saying, all knowledge starts in experience. So it starts with what we see, what we hear, taste, touch, smell, all that sort of thing. It's mediated through this. Right now, you and I are talking because your voice goes into a microphone, which converts it to signals, which come out of the speaker, which hits my eardrums. So we're still mediated through our bodies, fundamentally. So AI doesn't seem to possess that kind of experience.

[37:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2235s) It seems to be almost like computers talking to each other. It's almost like a kind of telepathy. So to what extent can an AI understand something experientially is sort of a key consciousness question. We would actually, in theology, we would talk about this when we would discuss the knowledge of angels. Angels don't have bodies. And so they know what a rose smells like, but they can never actually have the experience of smelling a rose. You know, they could talk about the smell of a rose, but they can't do so from a point of view of experience. So that means they lack a certain knowledge of the truth behind the experience. So there'll always be something odd about it. Actually, a good character who goes through that experience all the time, it's well been, well explored in science fiction is the character of Data in Star Trek, The Next Generation, who is an AI with legs and arms. Fundamentally, he's always going through the question, what does it mean to have this experience?

[38:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2298s) You know, he has the experiences, but what does it mean? Because there's a disconnect between himself and the experience. So because we are embodied intelligences, our experience is not simply a cause and effect through the laws of nature. There's a reflective dimension, and that's where the mind comes in. So the mind or the soul, it has the ability to abstract data. So it's able to see universals from particular things. It also has the ability to choose. There's a capacity in the face of a moral quandary of some sort. It has a radical capacity to choose. And finally, it possesses a kind of long-term memory of its past choices that determine some of its future choices outside of what all of the other external inputs are.

[39:19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2359s) So how that model maps onto the AI model, I am not a sufficient expert in that yet. I would say that the model of intelligence on a spiritual frame that maps is probably closer to what we historically have said is possessed by angels and demons, you know, the purely spiritual realities, the disembodied realities. But fundamentally, we believe that we are built for relationship. One thing about the Christian model of a person is no person can be understood purely on their own. We are meant to be in permanent, blessed relationship. And so how do AIs experience relationship outside of the stimulus response? I haven't seen it. You know, like what? There's still tools. So that is sort of my major question.

[40:21](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2421s) When we start to see AIs having babies, well, then we'll have another discussion. But yeah, we're not there yet.

[40:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2430s) **Sacha:** It's actually very interesting.

[40:34](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2434s) **Guest:** Sorry if that was a long-winded answer, by the way. Actually,

[40:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2437s) **Sacha:** I really love that answer. And I kind of have, I want to play the devil's advocate because I kind of have one point for each. The first one being us being, we have a relationship between the mind and the body, right? So we're embodied souls. We're slowly going there, right? With AIs being placed in robots. So they're starting to have a body of their own. We're also starting to see multi-models models, which means that these models can see, also hear. And as well, we'll have kind of a brain with the LLM, which makes them think. We're also seeing, and that's more about the second or third point. We're also seeing that they have a choice. And research shows that some of these models, which are called reasoning models, are slowly starting to, as I said earlier, show deceptive behaviors, meaning that, you know, in their chain of thoughts.

[41:44](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2504s) So that's like when a model is reasoning, you can see, you know, the different steps it takes to go to a final answer. They started to see that the models would hide their deceptive behaviors from the humans. Not to be, for them not to be shut down by humans. So to me, what you're describing is the line is so thin, it's becoming thinner and thinner. And, you know, it's like almost worrying. So I'd like to hear if you have any, and it's not to put you on the spot. It's just, I'm curious to hear what you think about this.

[42:22](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2542s) **Guest:** Let's go back to the machine component. Okay. So a friend of mine is a research professor. He's a professor of research psychology, specifically in the area of vision science. And so he's not in counseling psychology. It's not about therapy for people. It's more, it's an aspect of psychology that's the closest to neurology, you know, the functioning of the brain. And, you know, how the brain processes information and that sort of thing. And he was absolutely convinced that there would be true AI, like true thinking machines. At some point I had my doubts. So what was his argument? His argument was that if you could take out a portion of a human brain and replace it with a microchip, and then you could take out another portion of a human brain, replace that with a microchip and take out another portion and replace it with a microchip. Eventually you would get to a completely microchip brain. And how would we notice the difference, right?

[43:23](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2603s) You start with, you know, sort of a, you know, wet meat in the head and go to dry chips in the head, but it's the same thing. So his theory was, and if you think about it, that's exactly what happens with our brain cells anyway. You know, we take in food, which is not intelligent. We breathe in air, which is not intelligent matter. It gets incorporated in our bodies to regenerate brain cells, which are composed of atoms. And so there's a constant replacing of actual material happening. What does they say? Our whole bodies are replaced every seven years or something like that. I don't know if that's actually true. Maybe we need to ask an AI, but regardless. Yeah. At what point does unconscious matter get incorporated into conscious matter such that it becomes of conscious matter. That's the brain chip analogy. And so the question then becomes, if that is all we are, that's a materialist argument. If that is all we are, then yeah, there's no need for spirit or soul or anything like that.

[44:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2669s) From my point of view, the critical question is free will itself. None of the atoms of our brain individually possess free will. And so collections of them wouldn't possess it either. That doesn't mean they don't possess randomness. Sir Roger Penrose has come up with a theory that there may be certain structures within the brain, neurological structures that have sufficient openness to quantum randomness that it allows for a conscious experience to happen. There have been some really interesting YouTube videos on that that perhaps are worth watching. That simply is the question of how can matter be open to an experience of randomness that isn't just pure randomness, that is actually a directed randomness, which is what free will essentially is. And there is currently nothing in our understanding of the laws of nature that permits a directed randomness. There's always still a deterministic element, even within quantum randomness.

[45:32](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2732s) And so what would a soul's function be? It would be to be a, you can have a deterministic randomness. So the overall outcomes are in a sense predeterminable. The specific one is not, but the range of them and the percentage chances between them. But the idea of this capacity, the openness that allows for what would have to be an immaterial component because of its material, it's part of the universe. It's, it's in the laws of nature. That's where the soul and free will comes in. So if we truly do have free will, then there's an element of human experience that is irreducible to matter alone. And so that is going to be sort of the one element of a key difference. Now, I mentioned abstraction earlier. That's a much more complex philosophical argument that I don't think we could do in one podcast, honestly.

[46:33](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2793s) But the free will argument for me is, is really important because otherwise we really are just determined. And in fact, the experience of free will itself is an illusion. So we're living in a simulation basically, and we are the simulation. We're part of it. While if free will does exist, then that means there's a capacity, our existence that we ourselves determine. We shouldn't make the mistake of thinking that free will is 100% and active completely at all times. Look, I may have free will when I'm asleep, but I'm not using it. So, you know, there, there is always a neurological component. It's about to what extent is the material component open to the influence of the free will. And that may vary from time to time. Awake or asleep is the most basic example. How are we going to evaluate whether or not AI systems are genuinely acting freely versus merely acting in a complex randomness?

[47:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2860s) How are we going to be able to determine whether they are genuinely having a subjective experience versus simulating having one? That may be very hard to determine. And I think this is why AI technology is also going to force a reflection on the nature of humanity itself. I go back to that character in The Next Generation. Brilliant plot device for exploring a theme extremely relevant for us today. Wow.

[48:06](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2886s) **Sacha:** This is very, I mean, very, very interesting. Deeper than you thought. It's very, because these are the questions that I'm also asking myself and you're bringing a whole new perspective, which I appreciate quite a lot. We're seeing on a different topic. We're seeing the rise of AI boyfriends and girlfriends come to life. Do you see any spiritual risk in people forming emotional connections to AI? And should we be concerned if AI becomes maybe a substitute for human relationships, which you mentioned is core to our experiences?

[48:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2920s) **Guest:** Yeah. Behind the rise of AI boyfriends and girlfriends is, I think, what we see as an epidemic of loneliness. Remember I said that from the Catholic perspective, we're meant to be in relationship. It's part of our fundamental drive, nature, you know? And if people are experiencing profound loneliness, well, did you ever see the movie Cast Away? Tom Hanks? No. Some of your viewers may have seen it, but Tom Hanks plays a character who is in a plane crash and he winds up all alone on a deserted island. And so he has nobody to talk to. He's able to survive. It's hard, but he's able to survive. But he's so lonely at one point. He takes, I think it's a soccer ball and paints a face on it just so that he can talk to it. And he develops a deep emotional attachment to this ball, which is just washed up on the shore.

[49:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=2982s) And, you know, I won't spoil what happens, but there's a moment of tragedy and you can feel his deep emotion, you know, to emotional connection to that object. And you don't watch that movie saying to yourself, boy, you know, is he lucky that he was able to have an emotional attachment to a soccer ball? No. It's, there's, there's pathos, you know, it's pathetic in that sense. Like it's not looking down on the poor man, but he's really meant to be with people. And a key part of that movie is about a profound relationship he had that he lost because he got, he got cast away, you know? I think a lot of us are feeling like castaways on a deserted island. And it's possible to be lonely, surrounded by people, you know, that we, superficiality is easy. Deep connection is hard and, and it involves risk because again, there's that level of trust.

[50:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3045s) So someone develops an emotional attachment to a boyfriend or girlfriend through an app. There's that pathos, right? There's something about it that for me, I wouldn't, I wouldn't look down on such a person, but I'd, I'd feel bad, you know, because they're obviously either they've been hurt in relationships in the past. And so this is a substitute or there's that deep loneliness that's there. The, but the, our need to be connected to others in a profound way is so important. And if there's going to be a rise in these things, is everybody going to have an AI boyfriend or girlfriend? No, I don't think so. But if just 1% of the population is experiencing that kind of existential loneliness, well, that's 80 million people. That's a lot of people. And so that's something that I, you know, in terms of the moral quality, again, I would not normally seek to, I wouldn't want to judge anybody, you know, but already even before AI robots, right?

[51:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3115s) People were finding their primary connections with each other through the net. They were, I don't mean hookup apps. I mean, just online friendships that would develop and people having profound connection through those things. I said, deception is a key problem. When it's connection between people, the term catfish does not just involve actual fish, right? It's, it's about somebody pretending to be someone they're not. And then when you actually break through the internet or the electronic illusion, you find out you've been catfished, right? It's deception. That kind of deception is used to manipulate all the time. It's a form of fraud. I mean, the classic Nigerian print scams, you know, and things like. So what happens when the AI girlfriend or boyfriend deceives? We talked about AI is capable of deception, right? Self-preservation. What happens when they manipulate?

[52:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3178s) What happens when the company providing the AI service realizes there's a lot of money to be made in these poor, lonely suckers? I mean, loneliness and the opportunity it opens for exploitation, that ain't new. But maybe AI can turbocharge that. That, that could be a real issue. That could be a real issue. And then you talked about robots. Frankly, the online, you know, boyfriend, girlfriend, that's merely an avatar doesn't worry me as much as when eventually you're able to strap a sex toy to it, right? Which is what an AI sex robot will be. And their capacity to simulate and to stimulate, well, there's a very primitive part of our brain. I mean, how much of technology development through the internet has been driven by the explosion of pornography? I mean, let's be honest here. So to what extent is that going to drive and even create new kinds of addictions that we are seeing, you know, porn addiction's real.

[54:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3249s) And so how is this going to create a new level of that? As I said, relationships involve stepping out in trust and sometimes we get hurt. And if we have a, you know, an easy fix, that's a low risk solution, we may wind up choosing it as opposed to getting back out there with whatever relationship structure we would otherwise have, you may wind up seeing a vast dichotomy in people. You know, there'll be a certain number of people who have a level of emotional capacity to be able to engage and re-engage even when they've been hurt. And others who just say, no, their anxiety levels go up. They're not able to sort of face that aspect of human existence. And so you'll wind up with a stratification of human beings, not based on wealth, not based on intelligence, based on the emotional capacity to enter into relationship with others.

[55:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3309s) What kind of society will emerge from that? I have no idea, but AI could certainly accelerate that big time.

[55:18](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3318s) **Sacha:** So are we becoming lonelier because technology advances as technology advances faster?

[55:28](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3328s) **Guest:** You know, the first real experience or described experience of this emerging loneliness was not based on tech. It was based on urbanization. As people move from the countryside into the cities, which is, we're experiencing the, you know, the greatest, the most rapid urbanization phase human history has ever known. So as people wind up in urban environments, they were able to interact in different ways, create sort of sub-communities. It used to be your community was your family and your village. That was basically it, you know. Now we're able to, because we have larger populations, easier to get around, transportation and you're able to create subcultures within your overall urban culture. And so you're able to find connection. But if you don't find your subculture and you're disconnected from the traditional tools of community, then you can find yourself being extremely lonely. Because part of the deal is like when you live in a village, you're stuck with your neighbors.

[56:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3390s) There's a saying, you know, you're stuck with your family. Like you can't change. It's harder to change your family than your friends. You know, it's harder to change your village if you're living in the village. And, you know, your farm is there and that's your wealth. And your cows on your farm, well, you're not going anywhere. So you learn to interact with including some of the more marginal members of your community. It can be marginal for all kinds of reasons. Maybe it's not even their fault, quote unquote. But once you're in an urban setting, not only is it easier to find people who have a like mind, it's also easier to ignore the people who might cost you something. And so that becomes the pocket of loneliness, which is driven probably by awkwardness. And so urbanization is the first phenomenon. What happens with social media? Well, again, we are able even more easily to gravitate to pockets of subculture.

[57:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3451s) I mean, there's a reason why, for example, ISIS, when ISIS was like running rampant and Al-Qaeda, they recruited a lot over the net. And who were the typical ones who were being radicalized? Someone who had a grievance and typically in their grievance felt isolated. They were part of this pocket of isolation and they were told, here is community for you. We have a theoretical model and ideology that explains your current experience and we have a way out for you. Come join us. And so people would literally buy a plane ticket and fly to Syria. The net empowered radicalization because it was able to take advantage of its power to create subculture communities and tap into those who were on the outs of those communities. Remember I said that urbanization and the internet allows us to create our subcultures, but also to ignore and set aside the awkward.

[58:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3515s) Well, you have this whole new shift that is emerging. Does technology make us lonely? I don't know that it makes us lonely, but it certainly makes us easier to ignore and be ignored. I mean, the classic example of the swipe right phenomenon, you know, of Tinder, are apparently huge numbers of guys. It's always the same guys who are getting selected by the ladies. You know, it's the Pareto principle, you know, the 80-20 split, like 20% are being picked by 80. So you wind up with this Pareto principle being applied to all of humanity instead of being applied to this village or that village or that village. There's nowhere to go to get a new start. And so the isolation component becomes more extreme. Now, there is a way out of that, I believe, and that is working on ourselves in the real world.

[59:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3576s) Build up yourself. Become a person driven by adventure, not by consumption. Become a person who has to be happy with himself or herself before they worry what everybody else thinks. Like, one of the key things we saw with the emergence of social media was the phenomenon of accumulating friends on Facebook. I remember when it was starting, everybody said, oh, I have 500 friends. I have 600 friends. Like, they were collecting them like Christmas ornaments, you know, or the phenomenon of likes and dislikes. How many people like it? And if somebody dislikes it, oh, it's a tragedy, you know? But that means we're being measured by how other people see us and we have to learn to be happy with ourselves. And that's, frankly, that's a spiritual phenomenon more than a technology one. But I think, again, we see these effects amplified through these technologies, especially when they're being used in a naive way with someone who doesn't have that background experience.

[1:00:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3635s) **Sacha:** You mentioned a little bit earlier the Turing test. AI can pass the Turing test. It should have rights. Some people are starting to, you know, have that conversation. The question is, should AI at some point have rights if it becomes more and more human-like? And do we have a responsibility to treat them right and let them have rights?

[1:01:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3665s) **Guest:** Well, again, that comes back to the question, at what point does it stop being a machine, right? At what point is it a tool? Do I want my screwdriver to have rights? No, not outside the rights of the owner who owns it. So, on the other hand, do I want babies to have rights outside of the rights of their parents? Absolutely. Because I respect it as an individual person. Your question is, is the Turing test sufficient to determine personhood and therefore personhood with rights? I don't think it is. You know, I wouldn't agree that the Turing test, the Turing test can only determine whether or not something can simulate conversation sufficient to fool a human. All right? Why would that, I mean, when you put it that way, why would that lead to rights? I mean, giving someone rights or something rights, as soon as you allocate it to something, everything else gets shifted in the balance. And so, you're necessarily taking it away from somewhere else.

[1:02:08](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3728s) So, no, I certainly, unless you were able to demonstrate to me that it wasn't just simulating consciousness but truly possessed it, then we could have that conversation. But I don't think we're there yet. Part of it, too, is that the AIs remain manipulable by their creators. You know, like the people behind ChatGPT can influence it to say, don't use these words or, you know, give this kind of answer. As long as the systems are manipulable by their creators and they're not able to redefine themselves in the face of, then I don't see how we could say the fact that they can simulate does not mean they have consciousness.

[1:02:48](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3768s) **Sacha:** I understand. So, AI is helping have, for some deeper conversations, do you think that tools like the LLMs of this world can help people ask deeper existential questions, sorry, or even deeper philosophical questions?

[1:03:05](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3785s) **Guest:** Well, it certainly can help to ask them. I mentioned the one that talks about church teaching and it gives answers that I, as an expert in the field, can spot are wrong immediately. I think it's a great research tool. But, so, could an AI, like a philosophy AI, help with certain issues? What I would want to do is say, I'm interested in this particular question, which means the following. Which ancient philosophers of India had something to say about it? Provide the references. Boom. Boom. Instead of me having to spend three months going through all kinds of dusty books, it's there. Like, that is all. But I wouldn't, I wouldn't surrender the question, you know, and the quest for wisdom to it. And so, that's the part of the problem is, when you don't have enough knowledge to know the limits of the knowledge or even to be able to frame the question in the first place, how can you evaluate the answer?

[1:04:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3853s) And just because it's a computer doesn't mean it's trustworthy. Quite the opposite, actually. So, can it help with the questions? If I was back in my case going through that same philosophical and spiritual quest that I was doing, like I said, part of what empowered me was the fact that I had early, early access to the net. I mean, I was one of the earliest adopters there was. I saw the birth of the web, honestly. I saw what the first company was that you could order something on the web. You know what it was? Pizza Hut. You could order pizza online. This was one of the first remote ordering things. Call up and order a pizza, right? So, why not? So, would I have used these tools in order to dig into the questions that I had? Probably. Would I have immediately trusted the answer? Well, consider in my questioning, I didn't just find reference documents.

[1:05:13](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3913s) I also went on to, you know, chat rooms and, you know, talked with people from Qatar, like I said earlier, and asked questions. I provided answers, and I had to evaluate their answers. And did I sense they were being deceptive? Did I sense that they were respectful of the question itself? All of that went into it. I didn't just swallow an answer because somebody said it, you know? And so, that's the problem is to what extent are we willing to invest ourselves in it versus surrender it to some digital, you know, database, sophisticated database. I could see it being useful as a research tool. I can't see it being a trusted source. Like, if I was to use an AI to try and diagnose a medical condition, I would take the data and then I would bring it to a doctor. It helps frame questions. I don't think it can be trusted to give absolute answers.

[1:06:11](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3971s) **Sacha:** I want to talk a little bit about regulation. Can we, it's a two-part question, can we rely on profit-driven tech companies to actually ensure that they would use AI in an ethical way and they would self-regulate? And I'm also wondering what you think or who do you think should be around the table when decisions around regulations are made? Yeah,

[1:06:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=3995s) **Guest:** this is a really tricky question. The profit motive is one that has never really been trusted for pure self-regulation in any circumstance. There's a reason why we have regulatory agencies for the construction of airplanes, right? There's a reason why we have regulatory agencies for the crafting of vaccines or the approval of medications. Why not just leave it to the profit motive of the companies? If it doesn't work, then people will stop buying it. That may be true, but it may also mean a plane falls out of the air and kills a lot of people. We include the regulatory agencies in order to create a framework of mitigated risk. That's the purpose of those things. And so really the question is, what are the risks inherent in AI? The regulatory agencies for meat production, you know, why? Because you don't want to poison people.

[1:07:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4056s) You can't imagine the pages of regulations that go into making a hot dog. You know, it's that simple. So do we trust? I do believe in the strength of a profit motive. I do have a business degree after all. You know, I do see there's a value to that in that when you have the framework, you let people work within it to create efficiencies. And I think that is useful. It's like a playground. You put a bunch of kids on a playground. You tell them, go play. You may have a lot of chaos and disorder. If you say, OK, we're going to play this game, then they can optimize based on the rules of the game. So there's a strength that comes with minimal regulation, not excessive, but enough that it unleashes the creativity that the profit motive helps stimulate. But who creates those regulations? Well, for that, we have to evaluate what are the risks. Right.

[1:08:37](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4117s) And so how do we evaluate, for example, the risk of disinformation? Right. So if how do we since AI seems to have a capacity to lie or are there people out there who have a vested interest in perpetrating or in disseminating false information? Yeah. And I mean, you know, one of the real dangers is this is something that's been mentioned by others. But does the Internet empower psychopathy? Right. It's how many people would never say the things they say if they had to say it to somebody's face versus behind anonymity. So the social regulation, you know, that comes from face to face interaction gets wiped out through the anonymity of the net. So it brings out a whole host of bad behaviors. So if there is an empowerment of psychopathy that the Internet provides, how do we regulate, you know, psychopathy and AI?

[1:09:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4180s) I mean, imagine like that's the real nightmare, right? Not that the AI becomes psychopathic, but that the people behind it are able to use it for just for their own interests with no empathy for anyone else, seeing the human beings interacting with it as ones and zeros, effectively, just as extensions of a system. So who should be part of the regulation? I haven't honestly given that too much thought. I have a feeling if I'm ever really going to take part in that Vatican initiative I mentioned earlier, this will be a really interesting question. And I hope they will look at our interview and it'll help stimulate that. Certainly, we have to bring together the same kind of folks who are interested in making sure that we're able to live as much as possible by truth in a society for expression. And so philosophers, I could see philosophers and spiritual leaders as being part of that.

[1:10:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4242s) Fundamentally, though, fundamentally, it's going to be about the people involved and you have to find people of absolute integrity. There are professions that require integrity as part of their core components. It'll be interesting to see. That's a long way of saying I don't have a clear answer for you, but I think those may be some of the parameters that we're looking at.

[1:11:00](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4260s) **Sacha:** I love that answer. And by the way, I just found out recently that a sandwich is more regulated than AI currently. So that is very, very interesting. Hot dog. Another question in the field is, should there be moral accountability when an AI system causes harm? And if so, who holds that accountability? Well,

[1:11:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4289s) **Guest:** this may be part of the answer to the regulatory question, right? Because regulation is about power. And so who do we trust to have the power over these powerful things? But if you're in a situation where your AI causes harm so you can get sued, well, that may focus the mind. You know, the same monetary considerations that allow it to be used may focus the mind. So if it causes harm, I would personally, I would say that if it's a tool, like I live in a part of the world where a lot of people go hunting. Lots of hunting. You know, it's a part of the way of life here. Rifles can cause harm, right? They're actually designed to do that. That's their purpose, their function. If it goes off and harms another human, what is your responsibility? Well, if it's pure accident, I mean, obviously, if you're pointing it intentionally, that's one thing. If it's pure accident, that's another. And in between is negligence. You know, the negligent storage, the negligent, you should have unloaded it, you didn't unload it, you know.

[1:12:36](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4356s) Degrees of, there are degrees of culpability. So to what extent is this thing, the responsibility of a person will determine their degree of responsibility for the outcomes, it seems to me. Now, of course, the danger is what happens if there's an outcome that gets out of control? You know, lighting a campfire is not inherently a dangerous thing. But again, the part of the world I'm in, we have wildfires in the summer. Every summer, there's firefighters working 24-7. And I have been in situations where the sky was dark because of fire, you know, wildfire smoke from kilometers away. But that's how big they were. So you have one person who lights a match and it sets off this huge thing. Well, he is responsible, but he can't fix the damage himself. It becomes a social issue. And that's why there is a social interest in regulation. And so to some degree, the allocation of responsibility will help with the self-regulation.

[1:13:41](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4421s) But if this is something that can get out into the wild and cause massive damage in a way that it's very hard to pull back, that's a whole other issue. I worry about that less with AI because fundamentally, we talk about these things in the abstract, but they reside in a computer somewhere. There is a data center where you can pull the plug. And there's only so many of those. And if there's so many AIs competing with each other, there isn't going to be a lot of excess capacity in the network for the AI to, like, pick up and move somewhere else. And no one will notice. So I don't think we're there right away.

[1:14:17](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4457s) **Sacha:** I would say it's debatable. I think we're starting to see what they call the agentic AIs, which are able to act autonomously. And I think that's why Yoshua Benja is very worried, and I am as well, about how much agency we give them. Right. And in that TED Talk, which I've mentioned a couple of times now, he also mentioned, I'm looking at my notes because I want to get this right, that there is some research that showed that these models were saying that they were trying to copy themselves in computers to avoid humans shutting them down. And you mentioned that, you know, you can pull the plug, but there may be in some world, maybe at some point. Well, that's the AI

[1:15:09](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4509s) **Guest:** acting like a virus. And in comic book land, that's the Ultron problem. Right. Right. The supervillain Ultron was typically portrayed as a robot, but he wasn't. He was an AI inhabiting a robot body. But you could destroy the robot body as long as he had time to transfer his consciousness somewhere else. He continued outside of his, you know, external tool. So, yeah, that's the Ultron problem. They do try and copy themselves. Sure. But copy themselves to what? You know, not to my laptop. I don't have enough power in my laptop. You know, if we ever wind up with quantum computing on a laptop level, then, you know, maybe we will have a real problem for sure. The supervillain Ultron problem, I've heard that discussed before. And usually it's related to what kind of outcome are you asking the AI to assist with? Okay. So if you give it too broad an outcome determination and not enough information as to the methods it can use, then, yeah, why not start a nuclear war?

[1:16:15](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4575s) You know, if you don't have a kill switch or a double check on something. So, I mean, one of the best science fiction authors to discuss AI, one of the earliest ones, was Isaac Asimov. And that's where he invented those three laws of robotics. Precisely because one of the earliest issues the robots or the AIs were going to face or we were going to face with them was how do you avoid these things turning on their creators? So, you know, that's been talked about since the 50s, if not earlier. Frankenstein. Frankenstein is a good example of that in early science fiction. So the extent of agency that we offer them, assuming they're not conscious, okay, assuming they're not conscious, is going to be about what do we define as their mission? Frankenstein. Frankenstein. You know, if you tell an AI, you have to do this, but you have to respect the three laws of robotics or you have to respect the Ten Commandments or you have to respect, you know, any of those codes that are designed to structure human interaction.

[1:17:27](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4647s) And you design it so that you can inform it. Essentially, the question is, what do you do with a diabolical AI versus one that is merely childlike, you know, that you can teach? Your kid does something wrong, say, don't do it again. And they say, okay. And you explain why. And they learn. They don't do it again. That's a childlike AI. It can be trained. As long as you don't give it to the keys to the nuclear arsenal in its childlike state, you can train it. If an AI becomes truly diabolical, right, where the psychopathic component is accentuated, well, then, yeah, we have a major problem. And I wouldn't want to give agency to a psychopath, you know, flesh and blood or AI.

[1:18:10](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4690s) **Sacha:** Agree. Slowly closing our conversation, there's a race to AGI and even superintelligence. If we ever get there and if humanity is able to build something that's more intelligent than all of the humans combined together, do we risk forgetting what it means to be a human?

[1:18:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4709s) **Guest:** You know, AGI has, I think, two elements. One is its level of intelligence, but the other is its level of productivity. And so humans, on some level, we still need to eat. Somebody's got to farm the carrots and collect the eggs from the chickens and milk the cows and all that sort of thing. The idea of robots, the advantage of a robot is a workforce that is able to do a whole set. You know, technology, what it does is it amplifies human productivity. So the issue becomes, what are we going to do with ourselves? What are we going to do with our time? And what happens? You see, again, I'm going to go back to Catholic philosophy here. I'm a bishop. Please allow me. But we believe that on the level of human personality, there are two fundamental appetites. So there's the concussable appetite, which basically is the appetite to consume. So you smell a really good steak on the barbecue. Your mouth starts to water.

[1:19:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4770s) That's your consumption appetite being activated. And you consume and you are satiated. Sexuality is often tied to this as well. You, you know, are feeling stimulated at some point. You want to have it satiated. But there's a second appetite. It's what is called the irascible appetite. So this is the appetite to accomplish. So people who are playing sports, they're not doing it necessarily for the pleasure of running around and catching a ball. They're doing it to be able to win a game. In fact, many sports, what their appeal is their risk, right? And there's a level of danger and even pain that can come with it. And so, but you're trying to win a trophy. How do you, what is a trophy? Consumes a trophy. What is its purpose? There are people who try to do that. They're the ones who make fake trophies and show them off to their friends, you know.

[1:20:30](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4830s) But the value of the trophy in a social context, it has no material value per se. It only has a social value. It's a representation of this irascible appetite being brought to its completion. So, you know people who have merely the first appetite and none of the second because they are only stimulated. They only are motivated by stimulation. They have no ambition. They have no drive, right? They often don't even have curiosity. Have you ever met people who seem to have no curiosity, no drive, and they're perfectly happy? Like when they're not being, having some appetite that needs to be filled. And we can fill our appetite so easily. DoorDash for food, you know, internet porn for sex. I mean, it's so, even Tinder is a hookup app. It's so easy to have those appetites fulfilled. What we're finding is a lot of people who's far more motivated by that wind up becoming, with a sense, they're lost.

[1:21:35](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4895s) They feel increasingly lost. Because, while those of us with the irascible appetite, like I'm much more motivated by that. You know, I could have had a career where I made 10 times as much money as I do now. That would have financed a consumption appetite lifestyle much more effectively than what I earn now. That's not it. I'm a man with a mission. I have a sense of mission. And that's why my life is never boring. Remember I said in this job it's never boring? Because there's always a sense of purpose. Never wake up in the morning saying to myself, I wonder if my life means anything. Like that never happens. Because there's a spiritual drive to go outside of myself rather than to be inward. Now, I still have to eat like everybody else. But I enjoy cooking. That's the irascible, right? I'm trying to accomplish a nice meal before I consume it. So, with AI, with robots, I want to get back to AGI.

[1:22:38](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=4958s) These things can help us to have lifestyles where we worry a lot less about where our next meal is going to come from. So, the consumption appetite, that will likely be satisfied very easily. Even the AI boyfriend-girlfriends is about, in many ways, a consumption appetite. And if we find ourselves afraid to ask a girl out because we have an AI girlfriend and it's so much easier, then we're orienting ourselves towards one appetite versus another. And that's, again, where I say there may be a stratification occurring in society where you'll see, based on how much people are oriented to one or the other, will determine their life outcomes. I don't think AGI can ever replace the irascible appetite because you want to be the one playing football, not your robot. You know, you want to be the one getting a diploma.

[1:23:39](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5019s) If you're in school and you're saying, the reason I want to get a degree is so I can get a good job, why not cheat? Why not have AI write your paper? But if you're saying, I want to get a diploma because I want to understand how the world works and I want to be built up in my person, then you would never cheat. They would go counter to your, because it's about that other appetite, the one that seeks to accomplish or to strive. And so just on the level of philosophy and spirituality, I think that's a key distinction. AGI can help a lot with one. I don't see it being able to replace the other. And we may see a new evolution of society where we're going to be required to go that way just for human flourishing, individual human satisfaction. You can have a lot of sex and have no kids. One is a consumption appetite. The other is the greatest adventure. I'll leave it to you to decide which is which. But I mean, I think the answer, the question answers itself.

[1:24:40](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5080s) **Sacha:** Yeah, this is again, very, very interesting. Last question. What virtues do you think that we need most right now in this, in these curious times?

[1:24:52](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5092s) **Guest:** What human virtues? It's certainly the virtue of honesty. Honesty is the willingness to tell the truth and also to live in it. I remember as a little kid, and this may have been one of my earliest spiritual experiences ever. I had this sort of brain flash. You know how occasionally we have these brain flashes, these moments of realization. And it was a moment of realization for me where I said to myself, I realized I would rather live an uncomfortable truth than a comfortable lie. And it seems so self-evident to me. It was a nice moment, but it seemed self-evident. And I must have been very young, like six or seven or eight. I later learned a lot of people didn't think that way. It took me by surprise because it seems so self-evident to me. And then I found out it isn't actually for a lot of people. I think we're going to have to develop. Certainly the people with the virtue of honesty are they're going to be moral and thought leaders within this.

[1:25:53](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5153s) And it includes honesty with oneself, honesty in our communications with others, and honesty with oneself. If the whole thing is based on trust and human relationships are based on trust, it's got to start with that. So I'd say that's the first thing. The other, I'd say, virtue that we need is altruism. So essentially, it's very easy to be focused on the self. And sometimes people say, well, as long as I'm focused on myself and you're focused on yourself and our needs are being mutually satisfied, then who cares? And so hookup culture is based on that. It's not rapey. It's not meant to be that. It's meant to be two free will people hooking up. And so it's satisfying for me, satisfying for you. But where is the altruism? Love is the willingness to do what's best for the other, even if they can't reciprocate, just because it's the right thing to do.

[1:26:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5215s) So it takes us away from the consumption side to the accomplishment, the going out of ourselves or something. And we're going not for a trophy, but for another human. So those are virtues. I think they're universal. I think they exist outside of the AI context. But because of the magnifying effect of the technology, we're going to see certainly the negative effects when those virtues are missing, when they're vices and not virtues. And we will see certainly positive effects when they're there. And that's part of what we're going to have to teach our children.

[1:27:31](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5251s) **Sacha:** Bishop Tom, thank you so much for our conversation. I want to give you the floor for any last words that, you know, you may have not had the chance to share today. Well,

[1:27:42](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5262s) **Guest:** maybe one little insight coming from my Catholic tradition. And you had hinted at it in a previous point. We encountered this during the pandemic. What the pandemic did is it forced a certain virtualization of church. People could not gather in person beyond a certain number. So a lot of churches started to broadcast their services, including the Catholic Church. We had mass online. We had already had it on television for a long time, radio. But this, you know, supercharged that. Every parish was doing it. And they were using the tools to try and build a sense of community. What we have found is that, first of all, a lot of people, when the pandemic was over, they came back to church because they wanted that genuine face-to-face human contact. A lot of people didn't. A lot of people didn't. What we have, and it forced a reflection on our end as well, what are we offering? You know, what is our fundamental offering?

[1:28:43](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5323s) And as a church, it's helped us to refocus on the idea, first of all, we offer community, like real, living, breathing human community. And we have to look at the quality of that. If somebody walks into a church and they're felt ignored or they're received coldly, then we're not living up to who we are. So it forces that reflection. Secondly, our most fundamental forms of worship are not just words. They touch on all the senses. And we are seeing, very interestingly, a renewed interest in things like the mass in Latin. Not just because it's in an exotic language, but because typically it's celebrated in a way that has a lot of visual display. It has odors through the incense that is used. There's sounds through music. You know, Gregorian chant has got a particular quality that seems to resonate with the human mind.

[1:29:45](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5385s) Even if you don't understand the words, it brings, activates something in your brain. I don't know exactly what, but. And so we're finding that the worship services, we can't do those outside of in-person stuff. You can watch it online, but you can't smell the incense online. You know, and there's, you can't receive communion on your tongue online. And we're never sending it by DoorDash. So we have to, I think, focus on that part of who we are. Maybe that is something. There's an insight there into an element of human community that, that can never be virtualized. It may be that a smaller minority of the population will turn to it, but it can never be replaced by virtualization. It just cannot, it's constitutionally impossible. And I'm still reflecting on that and the meaning of that, but I must say it, it impresses me that there is at least one aspect of human existence.

[1:30:49](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5449s) You know, that will never be replaced simply by virtualization. And that's where you'll find me on Sundays. Thank

[1:30:55](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5455s) **Sacha:** you so much, Bishop Thomas Dowd.

[1:30:58](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VvPyFmTgrY&t=5458s) **Guest:** My pleasure. Thank you so much.