During the week before Pentecost Sunday, early one morning on my way to prepare a cup of tea, I noticed something attached to the front door of the refrigerator. In a household with children I would not be surprised to see drawings, report cards, pictures, and whatnot on the refrigerator door, but this was a friary with four ordained brothers, all…shall we say, a bit past the half-century mark. So, I stopped to see what was posted.

I was full page of text, a Pentecost Sunday homily to be specific. I thought that was an odd thing to post. Certainly none of the brothers had ever felt the need to post their upcoming homily. I thought to myself, maybe this is particularly good, spiritual, insightful and he wanted to share. After reading the homily my thoughts were that while it was theologically on target and well constructed, flowing from paragraph to paragraph, it was OK, but a bit dull. It was only then that I read the title completely: “An AI generated Pentecost Homily.” One of the brothers, experimenting with OpenAI, had requested it produce the homily. I have to say I was intrigued. As a recent NY Time article noted: computers have always been smart, but now with AI they are becoming creative.

I was also amused. Later that morning at the end of community morning prayer one of the brothers asked “who was this guy Al whose homily was on our refrigerator.”  I guess we will need to ask Betty.