What god you choose to believe (or not believe) in is a matter of faith. Unfortunately, reality is increasingly becoming a matter of faith for some, too. According to a new report from Wired, churchgoers across the country are becoming the target of deepfake schemes, with scammers using AI-generated versions of pastors to steal money from their congregation.
The pastors who appear ripest for replication are, fittingly, ones who have large online followings. Wired highlighted a video recently uploaded by Father Mike Schmitz, a Catholic priest and podcaster who has amassed more than 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube and more than half a million followers on Instagram. In the video, Schmitz shows several deepfake videos of himself that have been uploaded by scammers. Many of the videos seem relatively innocuous, a simple sermon that doesn’t seem totally out of place (though there are some tells that things aren’t quite right, like one in which the fake Father Mike tells listeners, “You’re being watched by a demonic human”).
But the real demonic behavior on display comes from scams. Some of the videos ask for parishioners to pay for blessings, others are calls to secure a spot on a church trip. Unfortunately, those types of things are believable because they are actually real things that religious leaders have done, using the prosperity gospel to line their own pockets.
Schmitz warned his followers about the scams, and he’s not alone in having to issue this type of alert. Per Wired, pastors and ministers from Birmingham, Alabama, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, have had to post similar statements so that their followers don’t get tricked by an AI deepfake asking for money that will never make it to the collection plate.
Pastors like Schmitz—who offered a clear-eyed view of AI in his video, saying that something human is lost in AI—are not helped by other churches that have wholeheartedly embraced the technology. Many churches ran AI-generated audio of Charlie Kirk at sermons after his death, suggesting that it was a message from him in heaven. Such uses of the technology push people further from reality and make them more susceptible to the exact types of scams that are now being employed to take advantage of unsuspecting members of their flock.
The recently elected Pope Leo XIV, head of the Catholic Church, has turned a critical eye on AI. Last year, in his first formal meeting with cardinals of the church, he said that the technology would “pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.” Skepticism isn’t always welcomed by faith-based organizations, but churchgoers would probably be well served by expressing some when listening to the words of pastors online.