How 5-day workweek for Indian banks will affect consumers

ByDwaipayan Roy

May 08, 2024

12:45 pm

What's the story

India's banking sector is examining a proposal for a transition to a five-day workweek. Currently, employees work six days a week.The Indian Banks' Association (IBA) as well as the bank unions are reviewing this idea, which aims to improve the work-life balance of bank employees.However, the proposal still needs government approval before it can be implemented.

Concerns

Potential impact on consumers and banking services

The proposed five-day workweek has left consumers questioning its potential impact on their banking experience.Some customers have expressed concerns about possible long lines, and service delays if the banks were to close an extra day each week.However, industry experts suggest this could lead to a greater emphasis on digital banking and mobile apps.

Plans

Strategies to mitigate disruptions in banking services

To counter potential disruptions due to longer closures, several strategies are being considered.These include extension of the working hours, improving digital and ATM services, and possibly the introduction of appointment systems.There are suggestions that the working hours could be adjusted from 9:45am to 5:30pm every day, i.e. an increase of 50 minutes each day.

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Transition

Shift toward digital banking and mobile apps

The proposed shift to a five-day workweek could lead to even higher reliance on digital banking.As a result, customers might resort more to online banking activities such as bill payments, money transfers, and account management.Additionally, mobile apps could become more prevalent for meeting banking needs while on the move.

New pilot introduced in facility which will become Scotland's first digital hospital

Sandhya Suresh
Wed, 8 May 2024 

Clinical support worker Kate Stevenson (left) and staff nurse Meghan Ferrie (Image: NHS Lanarkshire)


In an NHS Scotland first, a hospital in Airdrie has been trialling a hi-tech system to assess patients' health in the emergency department.

The Patientrack digital patient observations system in University Hospital Monklands (UHM) is part of the digital planning for Lanarkshire’s new state-of-the-art hospital.

The system is spearheaded by the Monklands Replacement Project (MRP), an NHS Lanarkshire’s vision for the replacement UHM which will be Scotland’s first digital hospital when it opens in 2031 at Wester Moffat in Airdrie.


Dr Gordon McNeish, emergency medicine consultant at UHM, said Patientrack has been a huge boost in the emergency department, improving patient safety and streamlining staff’s work.

Glasgow Times: Back - Emergency medicine consultant Dr Gautham Balachandran and staff nurse Meghan Ferrie; front -

The NHS Lanarkshire associate medical director for unscheduled care said: "The new system moves away from using paper charts to record key clinical observations such as blood pressure, heart rate, oxygen levels, and temperature.

“Instead, clinical staff enter these onto iPads as patients arrive in the emergency department and are assessed in cubicles.

“The benefit of the system in an emergency department is that it automatically calculates a ‘National Early Warning Score’ (NEWS).

"The score helps us work out how quickly a patient should be seen and how frequently their observations should be repeated."

He said the new approach removes the need to manually search through papers to determine which patients are most ill.

A touchscreen monitor in the main clinical area presents real-time observations, outstanding tasks, and National Early Warning Score’ (NEWS) scores for all patients.

Dr Gautham Balachandran, emergency medicine consultant, said: "We’re all in agreement that Patientrack has improved awareness of who the sickest patients are – we can see it on the big screen or on our PCs.

"It makes the emergency department safer for patients and is more efficient for staff working to assess and treat patients as quickly as possible.”

Kate Stevenson, a clinical support worker, said: "The new technology took a bit of getting used to but we’re comfortable with it now and it’s impressive to see how much it helps clinicians to monitor how unwell patients are."

Donna McHenry, MRP redesign lead who is co-ordinating the use of Patientrack at the hospital, said: “The goal is for the new Monklands to be Scotland’s first digital hospital, using systems that allow the most agile technological assistance for patients, staff and visitors.

“That’s why the current Monklands site is leading the way in taking forward digital advances, such as Patientrack, which was previously introduced on wards and is now successfully working in the emergency department.”

Prospective LGBTQ+ parents terrified as more states consider fetal & embryonic personhood bills

Prospective parents of all identities agree that this legislation will have an outsized effect on LGBTQ+ family building.

By Molly Sprayregen Wednesday, May 8, 2024


Photo: Shutterstock

A new report on fertility legislation has revealed the disproportionate stress it is causing LGBTQ+ people who want to become parents.

The study was conducted by the surrogacy agency SurrogateFirst and found that a whopping 98% of intended parents of all identities are concerned about legislation seeking to restrict family-building services.

RELATED:

Aetna agrees to provide equal fertility coverage for LGBTQ+ people in landmark settlement

Until now, LGBTQ+ people faced a “queer tax” that heterosexual couples experiencing infertility did not.

The agency commissioned the study in the wake of the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling that frozen embryos have the same legal rights as children. The court’s February 16 decision created widespread fear that IVF providers could face criminal charges if they mishandle or destroy an embryo.

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Discarding unused or abandoned embryos is a routine part of the IVF process, and the Alabama court even acknowledged that its ruling would effectively end IVF treatment in Alabama. Several major providers in the state halted IVF treatment in response, leaving LGBTQ+ couples, single people, and those who struggle with fertility issues with dwindling access to the most common method of assisted reproduction.

As other states across the country also consider legislation that would define embryos and/or fetuses as people, many prospective parents – especially LGBTQ+ people, who disproportionately rely on assisted reproductive technology to have children – are terrified for the future.

While fetal personhood bills have largely been used to limit abortion rights in the past, many are now worried that right-wing activists and lawmakers are both actively and unintentionally targeting IVF with such laws because judges could potentially use them to ban the procedure, NBC News explained.

The SurrogateFirst study found that 50% of same-sex couples said they are “extremely concerned” about fetal personhood bills, compared to 41% of heterosexual couples. 67% of same-sex couples also expressed extreme concern that IVF and surrogacy could be negatively impacted by these bills, compared to 29% of heterosexual couples.

Surrogates – whom LGBTQ+ people and especially gay men often rely on to become parents – have also expressed significant worries, with 5% saying they are “extremely concerned” that IVF and surrogacy could be negatively impacted by these bills.

68% of intended parents surveyed agreed that fetal personhood laws will have a larger impact on same-sex parents than other parents, with 15% remaining neutral and only 17% disagreeing.

51% of the surrogates surveyed also agreed that fetal personhood bills will have a larger impact on same-sex couples, with only 6% disagreeing and 42% remaining neutral. But a majority of surrogates (68%) also said the bills will not impact their efforts to help start a family and that they are “determined to help… no matter what hurdles” they face.


At the moment, the laws have not had major impacts on surrogates, with 91% reporting they have not encountered new challenges due to any recent laws or bills.

This is likely because as of now, there are just three states — Missouri, Alabama, and Georgia — with laws in effect that grant personhood rights to fertilized embryos. Arizona enacted a law granting these rights as well, but it is currently blocked. However, a dozen states have introduced legislation this year that would legally declare embryos as people, confirming many people’s fears about the domino effect the Alabama decision would set in motion.

Further complicating the matter, many states already have laws regarding reproductive rights, but they don’t explicitly consider IVF. Now, lawmakers are reportedly trying to figure out how and if existing state statutes can be interpreted to apply to IVF.


The national outrage spurred by the Alabama ruling made it clear that Americans on both sides of the aisle (including a significant number who are anti-abortion) overwhelmingly support easy access to IVF and other fertility treatments. This has placed Republicans in a tricky position, as these court decisions directly stem from their successful crusade to overturn Roe v. Wade.

Now, as lawmakers debate abortion bans and states increasingly grant legal rights to unborn children, the debate has grown over whether embryos count as human beings or personal property that can be used, donated, or destroyed at will. Republicans are now stuck between trying to assure the majority of Americans they support IVF access while also catering to their more extreme far-right backers who want those who want the destruction of embryos to be considered legally murder.

For example, the Heritage Foundation – a right-wing, anti-LGBTQ+ think tank planning to play a large role in the next GOP presidential administration – recently released a set of preliminary policy recommendations for Congress on regulating in vitro fertilization (IVF). The Heritage Foundation is behind Project 2025, a lengthy set of extreme far-right policy recommendations for the next GOP administration.


But while many conservative states may be hurdling down Alabama’s path, liberal states are doing what they can to protect IVF services.

In March, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D) declared his state “an island, a refuge for women across the Midwest who no longer have their rights.” Pritzker has been making it clear that folks in surrounding conservative states are welcome to come to more progressive Illinois for IVF services should their lawmakers pass any restrictions.

And in April, Michigan enacted a landmark law adding crucial protections for LGBTQ+ couples using fertility treatments to build a family.

“The Michigan Family Protection Act takes commonsense, long-overdue action to repeal Michigan’s ban on surrogacy, protect families formed by IVF, and ensure LGBTQ+ parents are treated equally,” Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) said in a statement. “Your family’s decisions should be up to you, and my legislative partners and I will keep fighting like hell to protect reproductive freedom in Michigan and make our state the best place to start, raise, and grow your family.”

‘My community is still dying’ — How the dearth of Black women in clinical research worsens health disparities

byErica Hensley

May 8, 2024

A woman sits on an exam table during a routine check-up with her doctor. (FatCamera/Getty Images)


For many, the July 2023 announcement was a cause for celebration and optimism: The Food and Drug Administration had approved a new Alzheimer’s drug, Leqembi, that appeared to slow the progression of the disease in its earliest stages.

But would it help Black women, the group of people that data shows is most disproportionately impacted by the disease? Researchers wish they could say — but a critical shortage of Black women in the study leaves them unable to adequately assess the answer.

Only 10 Black women in the U.S. had received Leqembi when scientists were testing it — fewer than 1% of the some-1,800 participants in the 18-month trial. This, despite the fact that two women are diagnosed with Alzheimer’s for every man, and that Black women are twice as likely as white women to experience its devastating effects.

“That’s just bad science. It’s not representative of the people who are disproportionately affected,” says Carl Hill, chief diversity, equity and inclusion officer for the Alzheimer’s Association. “Without appropriate participation, it’s impossible to get a complete and accurate understanding of Alzheimer’s in the U.S., much less efficacy and safety.”

FDA spokespeople declined to answer questions about the Leqembi approval process, saying in a statement, “We continue to encourage sponsors to increase the enrollment of all racial and ethnic populations, including Black individuals, into their ongoing studies.” The lead drugmaker, Tokyo-based Eisai Co., said in a statement that while it “would have liked more African- Americans in [this] trial, it is important to remember that patients across all subgroups benefited from treatment with Leqembi.”

Why Black women and women of color in general are severely under-represented in trials like this is a complicated stew of issues that have federal health officials scrambling for answers and activists demanding more be done to erase the inequities. Some like Hill blame racism as a factor. Others note the dispiriting drop in voluntary participation by Black and Hispanic women in such trials. For example, Black participation saw the steepest drop over the past decade — from a peak of 12% in 2013 down to 7% in 2021, a far cry from their 13% share of the U.S. population, according to government statistics.

The reasons for this? Many think it harks back to a long memory by the African-American community of how scientific research once used them as guinea pigs. The well-documented mid-century Tuskegee experiment that withheld life-saving penicillin from Black men with syphilis still haunts both Black communities and research circles.

“Black folks remember Tuskegee,” says Nadine Spring, who manages community-based research, most recently at the Atlanta-based HIV-prevention group SisterLove. “Then you have, most of the time, a white research coordinator going to someone who looks like me and trying to say, ‘Hey, this study might benefit you.’” The response varies from, “I’m not going to be your guinea pig,” to “I’m interested, but I need more time,” Spring says.

The distrust has snowballed into its own stigma and created a narrative that misrepresents some communities as simply too “hard to reach,” Spring says. While understandable on one level, the reluctance has serious downsides. Without adequate representation in these types of landmark studies, efficacy of these life-saving drugs for Black women remains elusive — it’s possible they could be prescribed treatments that work well for the vast majority of the women in the study but not for them.

“Because certain groups, often women of color, haven’t been included in those trials, we may not actually have evidence for them,” says NiCole Buchanan, a psychology professor at Michigan State University who studies discrimination in research. “So now we have sub-standard for some being masked as gold standard for all.”

The Fuller Project analyzed National Institutes of Health trial data from 2018 to 2021, the most recent statistics available, and found that certain research areas stood out for their disproportionate under-representation of Black women. For example, although Black women are more likely than other women to die from cervical cancer, they make up just 3% of enrollment for vaccine research on HPV, the virus that can cause the cancer.

For ovarian cancer trials, Black female enrollment sits at 5%, though death rates are spiking for Black women while declining for others.

The clinical trials gap persists despite efforts to close it — efforts that activists think aren’t rigorous enough. Until researchers began in the 1990s sounding the alarm, the efficacy of a great deal of medical therapeutics was based almost exclusively on how they worked on white men. Thirty years ago, Congress directed the NIH to include an equitable number of women in clinical trials. Since then, white women have gained ground, but Black women largely continue to be left out. By 2020, there was one Black woman for every 10 white women in FDA-approved drug trials, according to research.

There are some signs of change. In an effort to get more people of color into clinical trials, the NIH launched the ‘All of Us’ campaign in 2018 to build a single repository of diverse participants that can be used for various studies. Of the nearly one million participants, only half provided race information, and they were majority white. But, because researchers can pick and choose participant data within the trove, they are starting to identify never-before seen genetic data that will inform future research. NIH offices in Bethesda, MD campaign to increase enrollment for their "All of Us" research project. (Photo by Erica Hensley/The Fuller Project)

In 2022, a congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences called for “urgent actions by federal agencies, Congress, journals, and others to improve the representation of racial and ethnic minority groups and other underrepresented populations in clinical trials and research.”

One finding was that clinical trial organizers may allow themselves to be too discouraged by the “community fear” issue when recruiting from communities of color. The approach makes the difference. Evidence shows that these communities “are no less likely, and in some cases are more likely, to participate in research if asked,” the report says. It notes that the design of trials are critical — that when organizers invest time with trusted community partners at the start of research design, meet patients where they are, and hire diverse recruitment staff — people of color are willing to participate.

And facing increased pressure from government watchdogs and influential researchers at the National Academy of Sciences to improve diversity, President Biden in 2022 signed a law that for the first time mandated the FDA to require “diversity action plans” from researchers. Since June 2022, the agency has been reviewing public comments to finalize the rule, which means drugmakers likely won’t have to submit plans until later this year.

FDA officials declined to comment on how and if researchers will be held accountable to follow the plans. And some worry that the law with its long list of “non-binding recommendations” doesn’t have the teeth to make substantial change.

That’s why some advocates like Hill of the Alzheimer’s Association say the federal government should mandate the composition of racial and gender participation in clinical studies. “When representation is a criteria for funding and approval, you will see a change,” he says.

But the NIH and FDA have been slow to force researchers — including those at pharmaceutical companies, universities and hospitals — to make trials more inclusive, and the harm is compounded by lack of data showing the extent of the problem, research shows.

President Biden in March announced a $200 million investment and prioritization for women’s health research, including a specific carve out for women of color. Researchers who focus on sex differences and health disparities have long called for this and widely celebrated the announcement — with some noting that holding federal agencies accountable to the new commitment will be a continued obstacle.

Equity advocates contend there is an obvious answer: diversifying the workforce that is conducting trials. When academic journals have editors of color, more researchers of color get published, according to the study “Racial Inequality in Psychological Research.”

In another widely noted study, doctors of color help patients of color improve health outcomes. Research enrollment diversifies when Black and brown researchers are in charge, other studies show. Currently, Black women comprise just 1% of research leads.

The Association of Community Cancer Centers recently developed an implicit bias training program for oncologists called “Just Ask.” Sometimes patients lacked access to trials simply because physicians worried that asking might overwhelm them, says Dr. Julie Gralow, chief medical officer for the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

“It wasn't malevolent,” she says, but the outcome was the same — excluding people of color. “It was a benevolent bias. You thought you were protecting the patient, but we should let the patient decide.”

The ordeal of Bridgette Hampstead, a resident of Seattle, illustrates the problems Black women sometimes face when confronting cancer. Hampstead was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1996 — a diagnosis she says was delayed because her doctor wouldn’t approve a mammogram, saying it was unnecessary. After finally demanding the screening, it showed the need for immediate treatment — a full mastectomy. She’s convinced the delay and invasive response could have been avoided if providers had been trained in more inclusive research, she says. Research from the American Cancer Society suggests the same. Clinical trials that might have helped her were available at the time but she says she was never offered one.

Since then, she’s devoted her life to helping Black women victims of cancer avoid similar ordeals. Her Seattle-based nonprofit, Cierra Sisters, derived from the Swahili word for “knowledge,” works with local Black women to ensure they have accurate information after a cancer diagnosis, get appointments with doctors who understand racial disparities and can access clinical trials.

Black women are 40% more likely to die from breast cancer than white women — a gap that has steadily widened since the 1990s, in part because the overall death rate has improved, research shows. Though Black and white women develop breast cancer at a similar rate, Black women are more likely to develop aggressive forms and are slower to get diagnosed.

“After 27 years you'd think it'd change, but it has not changed,” Hampstead said. “My community is still dying.”

 

CULTURE

ON

For Christians Worried About AI, the Devil Is in the Data

BRANDON R. REYNOLDS 

05/08/24

Secular concerns about AI-generated art end when you die. With Christians, it’s more complicated.

For the secular… for the profane… for the fallen… artificial intelligence is a harbinger of a lifestyle change. It threatens the movies, it threatens the demos, it threatens the precious workflow. But for the Christian, AI is nothing less than a crisis of the spirit.

The big story we’ve heard lately is about “Shrimp Jesus,” an AI-generated figure composed of crustaceans. This avatar, and related oddities, clogged Facebook in the past few months with wildly viral posts. 404 Media’s Jason Koebler reported on the situation, wherein “hundreds of AI-generated spam pages are posting dozens of times a day and are being rewarded by Facebook’s recommendation algorithm.” 

Spam or scam, the Jesuses seemed to be proof of what’s called the dead-internet theory: Bots interacting with other bots, self-perpetuating and perfectly happy to evolve in a senseless hellscape of content inhospitable to humans. This reads like anthropocentric cynicism, where if it ain’t human, it must not be good. I like to think of the bots that perpetuate Shrimp Jesus as digital extremophiles, similar to the bacteria that thrive on the superheated volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean. It’s not for us, but it seems to be having a good time.

Shrimp Jesus is a sign that bots are off in a corner of the internet, mumbling darkly to themselves. Photo credit: Fish Lady Abs / Twitter

That story, which was everywhere, might seem at first blush to be about AI and religion. It’s not, though; it’s about the malfunctioning of platforms. (Jesus isn’t used here for any kind of spiritual or political commentary, but only because his well-known image is primed for viral distribution.) But there’s another story that gives us a glimpse of the difficulties faced by the faithful. 

In April, a Christian group called Catholic Answers launched an animated chatbot called “Father Justin” that answers, you know, Catholic questions. Since a popular online pastime is breaking chatbots, people lobbed all sorts of things at the robo-cleric. Father Justin, predictably, went sideways — absolving sins, approving the use of Gatorade for baptism, and claiming to live in Assisi, Italy. Religion Unplugged pointed out that we’ve been here before: 

Nothing that happened during this cyber drama would have surprised anyone who paid close attention to the complex high-tech questions that surfaced in ancient faith traditions during the coronavirus pandemic, such as: Does watching an online Mass count as attending Mass?

The outlet then weighed in on the theological implications:

Creating digital “persons” is going to challenge “what Catholics believe technology can do and can’t do,” said Brett Robinson of the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. “When you start debating what is ‘embodied’ and what is ‘disembodied,’ that takes us straight into questions that are going to make us uncomfortable. … Catholicism is an incarnate faith, and there’s no way around that.”

Robinson went on to say that “if you feel anxious about talking to a real priest, then that kind of human contact is precisely what you may be trying to avoid. Can you solve that problem with an app?” 

App developers think you can. Peruse the Sodom of the App Store and you’ll find multiple offerings that have run the text of the Bible through a large language model, so that the spiritually curious can ask questions and get, apparently, satisfying answers. (You can also submit prayers, or pray for others with a single click.) To judge from the comments in the App Store (take with a grain of salt), users get “clear concise answers that are backed by scripture.” Interestingly, some reviewers say they like that the chatbot will answer questions they feel too “awkward” or “embarrassed” to ask a person, which puts Robinson’s concern about “human contact” being “precisely what you may be trying to avoid” into sharp relief.

The popularity of AI-powered Bible apps suggests that at least some of the faithful don’t mind getting spiritual guidance from a bot. Photo credit: Free Bible Chat

How to use artificial intelligence to augment a spiritual journey? This has become a core question for the faithful. Pope Francis, himself no stranger to AI-generated art, addressed the use of artificial intelligence in a January message:

The rapid spread of astonishing innovations, whose workings and potential are beyond the ability of most of us to understand and appreciate, has proven both exciting and disorienting. This leads inevitably to deeper questions about the nature of human beings, our distinctiveness and the future of the species homo sapiens in the age of artificial intelligence. How can we remain fully human and guide this cultural transformation to serve a good purpose? …

Human beings have always realized that they are not self-sufficient and have sought to overcome their vulnerability by employing every means possible. From the earliest prehistoric artifacts, used as extensions of the arms, and then the media, used as an extension of the spoken word, we have now become capable of creating highly sophisticated machines that act as a support for thinking. Each of these instruments, however, can be abused by the primordial temptation to become like God without God (cf. Gen 3); that is, to want to grasp by our own effort what should instead be freely received as a gift from God, to be enjoyed in the company of others.

Pope Francis is a popular subject for AI art. He also has some opinions about AI’s spiritual implications. Photo credit: Gianluca Brugnoli / Twitter

Christian anxiety about AI is an analog to good-old secular anxieties — same worries about how the technology fits into our lives, about what it might replace, about whether and how we retain our humanity. But unless you’re religious (or reading Christian media), you’re probably not seeing the way the conversation plays out in Christian circles. That rhetoric doesn’t show up in the mainstream… though I would love to see tech bros under the hot lights of some Congressional subcommittee fielding queries from senators about “the primordial temptation to become like God without God.”

Not for nothing, but Martin Luther was uneasy about his era’s paradigm-shifting technology, too. Christian scholar David Bagchi writes that while “Luther once famously hailed printing as ‘the latest and greatest gift, by which God intends the work of true religion to be known throughout the world and translated into every tongue,’” he also 

had a notoriously ambivalent attitude towards what was still the new technology of the printing press. He could both praise it as God’s highest act of grace for the proclamation of God’s Word, and condemn it for its unprecedented ability to mangle the same beyond recognition.

You, like me, may find it interesting that, aside from the odd robot priest, AI text doesn’t seem to stir up as much controversy among Christians (the word isn’t The Word) as AI-generated images.

High-octane AI-art generators like Midjourney have made it possible for users to create images of a Jesus Christ who is far, far more of a snack than the one in the old portrait that Baptist grandmothers kept uncomfortably close to their bedsides. These are not the Shrimp Jesuses, Lord God of Facebook bots, but rather a modern incarnation of pious art. They’re all over Instagram and X and TikTok, along with other Biblical scenes that are designed as spectacle — less Charlton Heston and more King James Cinematic Universe. 

On TikTok and Instagram, an account called The AI Bible presents the Good Book as Summer Blockbuster. It also cleverly nods to what you might call the limitations of human imagination, or just the inertia of tradition, when it compares “what people think” something looks like (the Transfiguration, Moses talking to God) with how the Bible describes it. There’s a whole series depicting how Ezekiel describes the appearance of angels… which, quick Sunday School lesson:

Ezekiel 10:9-10

I looked, and I saw beside the cherubim four wheels, one beside each of the cherubim; the wheels sparkled like topaz. As for their appearance, the four of them looked alike; each was like a wheel intersecting a wheel.

Ezekiel 10:12

Their entire bodies, including their backs, their hands and their wings, were completely full of eyes, as were their four wheels.

Verily, the AI Bible hath generated what commenters call “Biblically accurate angels” as clusters of eyeballs and interlocking golden rings and orbs and feathers and something like celestial barbed wire.

Somewhat less epic is the output from an app called BiblePics. In its Selfies gallery, there’s Abel snapping his final moments as he runs from Cain. There’s Jesus and the gang at dinner, possibly, one feels, the last time they’ll all see each other for a while. Because sure enough, here’s one of Jesus carrying a (misshapen) cross to his crucifixion. And then there’s a “Bible cookout,” which is about what you’d imagine (“Jesus and his disciples fire up the grill”).

In case you ever wanted to see an AI-generated selfie of Cain chasing Abel. Photo credit: BiblePics

Frankly, I can’t tell if this is a joke or what.

An August 2023 article in The Jerusalem Post talks to the Israeli creator of BiblePics: “Sinai Elihai, an esteemed former Googler, growth marketing adviser, and proud father,” who after talking to his young son about the Bible’s “lack of visual appeal and lengthy text,” created a platform “to let Gen Z ‘Binge the Bible.’”

On X, people scoff and argue about the spiritual morality of AI art: “AI is categorically unable to create sacred art under the influence of grace, which can be quite dangerous,” says one user; “ AI is not satanic, it is not a living being and it is not subject to Satan’s deceptions. While there are valid arguments against this statement, one must consider the good christian art it produces,” says another.

I’m swayed by the perspective of Atlanta-based illustrator Ross Boone:

One way Christians have historically interacted with art is through a spiritual practice called Visio Divina. This practice is an opportunity to invite God to speak to us by contemplatively listening to what he is saying while looking at an image. In my own experience, I’ve found that looking at AI art in this way is capable of moving me and evoking a response from me in ways that traditional Christian artwork and depictions of the Bible haven’t.

(Has he seen the crucifixion selfie?)

I usually have an idea of what I might see when I type Biblical themes into the AI generator, but I’m often driven to awe and wonder when the software renders images I hadn’t fathomed myself.

An AI-generated selfie attempting to depict Jesus carrying… a post to put in the yard of a house for sale? Photo credit: BiblePics

Catholics seem — seem; this is anecdotal — to be the most consistently resistant to AI-generated imagery, or at least less enthusiastic about the power of computers to render endless square-jawed Jesuses who are absolutely shredded.

The National Catholic Register, for one, leans toward the primacy of human artists, asking “Why is one far superior to the other?” The outlet quotes Gwyneth Thompson-Briggs, who is (per her website) “a sacred artist in the perennial Western tradition”:

Sacred art is not a composite of popular images on the subject. Sacred art is the work of a trained artist cooperating with the grace of inspiration to create a visual description of a supernatural reality. Machines are purely material and therefore cannot respond to the challenge of communicating a supernatural reality with visual metaphor. 

Where the biggest secular concerns about AI include threats to democracy and workforce, Thompson-Briggs gives voice to an even older danger than job insecurity. “Allowing technology to have such a heavy hand in the creation of an image opens the door to influences beyond the sphere of the guiding hand and mind of the artist,” she told the Register. “It is reasonable to think that the demonic could use this as an opportunity.”

Sure, there are depictions of the devil in AI-generated art, but what if the actual devil was inside the image？ Photo credit: Julius H. / Pixabay

Kathleen Carr, president of the Catholic Art institute, doesn’t think AI-generated imagery is even art, “since it lacks a human’s imagination and hand in creating it.” Her indictment is total: “Artists mirror God by being co-creators, bringing beauty and order into the world in architecture, beauty and art.”

Meanwhile, Joshua Madden, a Catholic theologian at Oxford, goes farther, asking, “Is AI ‘Sacred’ Art Actually Sacrilegious?” He argues that it is: 

The use of AI seems to fail to live up to the standard of Christian worship — that it be rational and spiritual; and to pass off the technologically synthesized conglomeration of colored pixels we might call “AI art” would be to offer artificial worship. Thus, using AI art in the context of prayer or worship would be unworthy of the act.

Pope Francis, for his part, doesn’t seem to come down that hard, evincing the sort of wisdom and balance that makes me hope he gets a dispensation to live forever. In his January message, he writes:

A century ago, Romano Guardini reflected on technology and humanity. Guardini urged us not to reject “the new” in an attempt to “preserve a beautiful world condemned to disappear.” At the same time, he prophetically warned that “we are constantly in the process of becoming. We must enter into this process, each in his or her own way, with openness but also with sensitivity to everything that is destructive and inhumane therein.” And he concluded: “These are technical, scientific and political problems, but they cannot be resolved except by starting from our humanity. A new kind of human being must take shape, endowed with a deeper spirituality and new freedom and interiority.”

I keep coming back to the concept of Visio Divina. I can’t speak to sacred art as inspiration from the divine, or AI art as a vehicle for demonic interference, but I have gazed upon the crazy swirling eyeballs and interlocking golden rings of The AI Bible’s angels and felt… something. Not the Presence that sacred art prescribes, but something more like absence — absence of the familiar, absence of easy meaning. That which destabilizes one’s conception of reality, that which short-circuits the connection between expected and realized. 

Which sounds like an Eastern concept: emptiness. The sound of one hand clapping. The unhewn log. Kill the Buddha at the crossroads. But it also sounds like Romano Guardini and his “process of becoming.”

I don’t think that AI art is the empty vessel, exactly. But maybe it’s worth contemplating these strange unpredictable nonsensical creations of ours, if for no other reason than it might finally bring us closer to God, who gets it.

Photo credit: CoPilot AI