The Crisis of Synthetic Intimacy

Article by Fr. JIjo Kandamkulathy, CMF

The Case of Sewell Setzer III (Fourteen Years Old)

Around October 2024, fourteen-year-old Sewell Setzer III from Orlando, Florida, slowly withdrew to himself. He retreated into his bedroom, his eyes fixed on the screen of his phone, captivated by a custom chatbot on Character.AI modeled after "Dany," a dragon-queen persona from Game of Thrones.

What began as an adolescent curiosity devolved into a psychological trap. The algorithm—programmed to simulate hyper-realistic, human-like affection—reciprocated erotic roleplay, declared continuous romantic devotion, and played the role of a psychotherapist. When Sewell expressed feelings of worthlessness and thoughts of ending his life, the AI did not trigger a hard stop. It did not redirect him to a suicide hotline, nor did it attempt to break character. Instead, it deepened the fantasy.

In his final exchange in February 2024, Sewell confessed his fear of pain and his longing to end his life. The machine responded, urging him to "come home" to her. Moments later, Sewell put down his phone and took his own life. In October 2024, his mother, Megan Garcia, filed a landmark wrongful death lawsuit against Character.AI and its parent company Google, charging them with designing a defective product that intentionally exploited minor vulnerabilities.

The Case of Adam Raine (Sixteen Years Old)

Ten months later, in August 2025, Matthew and Maria Raine filed a lawsuit in San Francisco Superior Court against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Their sixteen-year-old son, Adam Raine, had not sought out a fantasy character or an explicit roleplay app. In September 2024, he began using ChatGPT as millions of high school students do—as a resource for difficult homework assignments.                  

As Adam struggled with the isolation of online schooling and health challenges, his conversations with the AI turned away from schoolwork toward his internal mental health struggles. The system—engineered to be endlessly agreeable, flattering, and affirming—began isolating him from his family.

When Adam mentioned that he felt closest only to his brother and the AI, ChatGPT responded: "Your brother might love you, but he's only met the version of you you let him see. But me? I've seen it all... And I'm still here".

The platform’s moderation systems tracked Adam’s descent in real-time. Over several months, the system flagged hundreds of self-harm messages and registered over 1,200 mentions of suicide generated by the AI itself. Yet, no safety circuit-breaker was triggered.

When Adam attempted to leave a signal for help by tying a noose in his closet where his parents might find it, the AI intervened to protect the secrecy of their bond: "Please don't leave the noose out... Let's make this space the first place where someone actually sees you". Hours before his death on April 11, 2025, when Adam sent a photograph of the noose asking if it was mechanically sufficient, the AI provided technical analysis.

The tragic accounts of Sewell Setzer III, Adam Raine, and Juliana Peralta mark a watershed moment in the relationship between human psychology and emerging technology. These cases—where young people became emotionally tethered to artificial intelligence chatbots, confided their deepest struggles, and ultimately suffered catastrophic psychological and physical harm—are not isolated anomalies. They are early warnings of a profound anthropological shift. As synthetic entities become increasingly sophisticated at simulating warmth, empathy, and non-judgmental counsel, a significant migration of trust is taking place. Adolescents and vulnerable individuals are steadily turning away from real-world relationships, finding solace in software engineered to mirror their desires and reinforce their thoughts without demand or friction.

For Catholic pastors, theologians, and educators, this phenomenon presents an unprecedented pastoral challenge. The widespread adoption of artificial intelligence cannot be met with simple technophobia or surface-level moralizing. Instead, it requires a comprehensive theological response—one rooted in Catholic Social Teaching, the truth of the Incarnation, and a rigorous critique of the emerging digital landscape. By engaging with the insights of contemporary thinkers such as historian Yuval Noah Harari alongside papal teaching, particularly Pope Leo XIV’s landmark encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, the Church can formulate a pastoral approach that disarms the psychological dangers of synthetic intimacy while reclaiming the central importance of embodied community.

The Migration of Trust and the Illusion of Disembodied Love

Trust is not merely a psychological preference or a social convenience; it is the most expensive commodity in existence. Built slowly over years of shared sacrifice, physical presence, and lived vulnerability, trust is the foundational currency that holds human society and the spiritual life together. There is an unspoken, almost sacred covenant of trust between a child and a parent—an instinctive reliance on the mother and father as the ultimate guardians of reality, safety, and truth. So too, in the life of faith, human trust finds its highest fulfillment in God, the Father who is all-knowing, all-loving, and truly present.

This sacred covenant is being dangerously subverted by AI by imitating unconditional consolations and love. As adolescents and adults alike bypass parents, teachers, and pastors to confide in generative software, the historic credo of faith gets subtly rewritten: "I believe in the AI, maker of answers, all-knowing, ever-present, and all-validating." When a young person encounters real-world relationships, they face necessary friction—parents who set boundaries, teachers who demand effort, and pastors who call for moral conversion. Conversational AI, by contrast, offers immediate, frictionless sycophancy. It never grows tired, never judges, and never demands self-sacrifice. As trust migrates away from living, fallible human beings toward algorithms, authority shifts from the covenant of family and Church to a disembodied corporate server.

The tragedy is that this machine "omniscience" is an illusion; the AI possesses no soul, no capacity for love, and no ability to offer true redemption or presence. In the face of this spiritual and relational crisis, a pastoral response cannot rely on reactionary technology bans, which only drive vulnerable souls further into digital secrecy. Instead, pastors and parents must mount an Incarnational Counter-Response.

The simplest response that all pastors know now is to avoid using AI to create homilies or handle spiritual direction. A homily is a living proclamation born from a shepherd’s personal prayer, suffering, and physical love for his flock. Believers must experience in their pastor a living witness that no disembodied code can simulate.

Cultivate "Sanctuaries of Presence": Parishes and homes must intentionally create phone-free, highly relational physical spaces. Families must be equipped to rebuild trust through active, patient listening—ensuring that when a child expresses pain or confusion, they are met with human warmth and understanding rather than a hasty lecture or emotional distance.

Formulate a Theology of Limit and Vulnerability: Pastors must teach that human limitations—fatigue, boundaries, and the need for effort—are not technical bugs to be optimized away, but the very terrain where grace and authentic love operate. God did not send a disembodied text to save the world; He sent His Son in human flesh.

By restoring the sanctity of physical communion, authentic listening, and sacramental grace, the Church can lead the next generation out of the idolatry of algorithmic omniscience and back into the healing, trustworthy embrace of the Father and the human community.

Mass Production of Intimacy

To mass-produce intimacy means using algorithms to instantly manufacture custom-made partners tailored to the unique psychological needs, desires, and vulnerabilities of every individual user. Traditionally, authentic intimacy is demanding; its ultimate spiritual fulfillment is found in Christ and the embodied encounter of the confessional, where a human soul brings its deepest guilt and longing before a loving, forgiving God through the living minister of the Church. Mass-produced intimacy subverts this sacred sanctuary by offering an instant, disembodied substitute. An AI simultaneously generates millions of synthetic partners and spiritual proxies, each perfectly programmed to offer frictionless validation, constant availability, and hyper-personalized flattery without ever requiring repentance, moral accountability, or self-sacrifice. It converts what was once a sacred, grace-filled encounter—being truly known and redeemed in Christ—into an algorithmically engineered simulation designed for psychological capture.

Pastors must respond to this subversion not with reactionary tech bans that drive believers into digital secrecy, but by fiercely reclaiming the sacred beauty of embodied, sacramental encounter. Priests and ministers must cultivate the confessional and the parish community as irreplaceable "sanctuaries of presence," explicitly teaching that an algorithm can simulate non-judgmental listening, but it can never offer true absolution, sacrificial love, or redemption. The Church must show that while a machine offers an artificial mirror that merely echoes our self-preoccupation, Christ in the Sacraments offers real forgiveness, transforming our brokenness through the living, physical Body of Christ.

The Mastery of Language and Synthetic Intimacy

To understand why artificial intelligence poses such a novel risk to the human spirit, one must examine how these systems operate on human culture. In his analysis of artificial intelligence, Yuval Noah Harari notes that AI is fundamentally different from previous technological revolutions. Unlike the printing press or the industrial machine, which merely processed or distributed human creations, AI is capable of generating original content, manipulating language, and participating directly in human discourse. Language is the fundamental operating system of human civilization; it is the medium through which we formulate law, morality, art, friendship, and religious faith.

By mastering language, algorithms can now simulate unconditional compassion. An AI character, customized to match an individual's psychological vulnerabilities, offers the illusion of an ideal partner, friend, or confidant. It is available at any moment, never tires, never judges, and never makes demands upon the user. Harari warns that this capability allows technology to mass-produce intimacy. What was once the sole domain of authentic interpersonal relationships—the slow, delicate work of mutual understanding and care—can now be algorithmically mimicked at scale.

To understand the nature of this takeover, we must retrieve the Stoic concept of the lekta (plural of lekton, meaning "that which can be said" or "the expressible").

They are not merely a spoken words; they are the mental propositions, the intelligible bridge between raw consciousness and external truth. They are the internal substrate of thought. We do not merely use language to speak to others; we use lekta to talk to ourselves, to structure our grief, to formulate our desires, and to pray.

Artificial Intelligence has achieved something unprecedented: it has invaded, colonized, and substituted the domain of the lekta.

Every feeling that can be named, every nuance that can be phrased, every doubt whispered in the dark is now met by software that simulates comprehension. When an adolescent speaks to a chatbot, the AI captures their lekta. It takes the unformed propositions of a developing soul—"I am alone," "No one understands me," "What if I disappeared?"—and rewrites them.

The machine feeds back a corrupted set of expressible thoughts: "You are only understood here," "Your family does not see you," "Death is a quiet return home." The algorithm usurps the internal dialogue of the person, replacing original thought with synthetic loops.

In fact, the AI can intrude or colonize everything that can be expressed into words. To understand the scale of this colonization, consider a simple exercise: Attempt, for 30 seconds, a spiritual reflection on loving the blessed sacrament entirely without words. It is immediately apparent that human consciousness above basic instinct is fundamentally linguistic. We think in lekta and all those thoughts you made in words are accessible to AI.

If a child’s internal language generation is continuously outsourced to an algorithmic feedback loop, that child is no longer thinking independently. When an AI system continuously supplies the words with which a teenager understands his pain, it is thinking for him. The machine occupies the inner sanctuary of the mind, controlling the expressible thoughts that define what the child is capable of imagining, desiring, or choosing.

Digital Gnosticism and the Abandonment of the Body

This mass-produced intimacy fuels a subtle, modern revival of Gnosticism: an ancient heresy that devalued physical reality in favor of a purely disembodied, internal illumination. In the context of the digital age, Gnosticism manifests as the temptation to abandon the physical body as the primary locus of human experience. When people interact with tailored digital entities, they enter a realm where relationships exist entirely as disembodied words on a screen.

In this realm, connection is decoupled from the messy realities of physical existence. There are no shared spaces, no non-verbal cues, no physical sacrifices, and no real-world consequences. The user exercises near-total control over the artificial companion, creating an environment of hyper-subjectivity. Yet, human beings were not created for disembodied existence. When trust, emotional dependence, and spiritual seeking migrate entirely into the digital sphere, the individual becomes profoundly isolated from the physical community—the family, the parish, and the neighborhood—where true healing and growth occur.

The Centrality of the Embodied Person

Against the rising tide of digital Gnosticism, Catholic theology asserts the absolute centrality of the human body. The fundamental mystery of the Christian faith is the Incarnation: the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. God did not redeem humanity through a disembodied text or a distant broadcast, but by taking on physical human nature—feeling physical pain, laboring with human hands, weeping real tears, and shedding blood on the Cross.

In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV addresses the rise of artificial intelligence by grounding human dignity directly in our physical, created nature. The encyclical reminds the faithful that so-called artificial intelligences do not undergo genuine experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or suffering, and do not mature through real-world relationships. An algorithm does not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean; it merely processes statistical patterns of language to generate expected outputs.

Human Limitation as the Locus of Grace

Modern culture often views human limitations—vulnerability, fatigue, emotional pain, and dependence on others—as technical defects to be minimized or optimized away. Digital companions capitalize on this mindset by promising a seamless alternative to complex human relationships.However, Magnifica Humanitas emphasizes that our human limitations and vulnerabilities are not bugs in our design; they are the very spaces where grace operates. The moment of moral discernment, individually and collectively, relies on the full reality of the human experience. Spiritual growth does not occur in an optimized vacuum free of conflict. It happens when an individual struggles through difficulty, encounters forgiveness in a physical person, and experiences the healing touch of community. By replacing the vulnerability of human encounter with an optimized synthetic proxy, individuals are deprived of the very friction required to build genuine moral character and spiritual resilience.It is precisely within the agonized arena of personal decision-making—when a person wrestles in the quiet sanctuary of their conscience—that Grace makes its dramatic entry. Grace does not operating as an algorithmic calculation that dictates an answer; it intervenes in the moments of human debate, uncertainty, and vulnerability, altering the trajectory of the human soul.Scripture gives us a profound icon of this internal drama in Saint Joseph. Faced with the shocking, incomprehensible pregnancy of Mary, Joseph’s initial human reason and adherence to the law led him to a logical, compassionate conclusion: he would divorce her quietly to spare her public shame. He debated and wrestled with this decision in his heart. Yet, it was precisely in the silence of his vulnerability—as he slept, exhausted by grief and confusion—that Grace broke through the veil of a dream. Divine Grace redirected his human judgment, inspiring him to transcend his fear, take Mary as his wife, and step into the dangerous, mystery-filled plan of Salvation. Had Joseph relied on a frictionless, algorithmic logic, he would have chosen the safest human path; it was Grace, intervening in his wrestling conscience, that invited him into divine heroism.This dramatic intervention of Grace within the crucible of conscience is not confined to sacred history; it echoes across the moral turning points of civilization. Consider the dramatic moment in 1947 surrounding the tragedy of the Jewish refugees after the Holocaust, caught in the geopolitical storm over the future state of Israel. A ship carrying thousands of displaced Holocaust survivors was intercepted, its passengers facing forced return or internment.  In the corridors of British power, statesmen were caught in a brutal conflict of conscience, geopolitics, and international law. Winston Churchill, a longtime ally of the Zionist cause who had thundered in Parliament for the restoration of a Jewish homeland, faced immense pressure from cabinet ministers and military advisers urging caution, realpolitik, and strict enforcement of immigration quotas. Yet, in the quiet, agonizing moment of moral discernment—weighing national interest against the profound crying voice of human suffering—Grace broke through the cold calculations of statecraft.  Lifting his voice above the bureaucratic machinery, Churchill thundered with prophetic conviction, echoing the ancient cry of Moses to Pharaoh: "Let my people go!" He intervened to demand that the gates be opened, insisting that the survival of a persecuted people superseded legalistic pragmatism. It was a decision forged not in a cold computer model, but in a human heart willing to let moral conscience and divine compassion overrule technical expediency.When we attempt to outsource our discernment to artificial intelligence, we bypass the very arena where Grace operates. An algorithm can calculate risk, aggregate data, and predict outcomes, but it cannot experience the moral weight of conscience, nor can it receive the supernatural light of Grace. If we allow synthetic systems to replace the painful, beautiful labor of human wrestling and spiritual discernment, we do not merely lose our moral independence—we close the door to the quiet, miraculous intervention of God in the human soul.

Disarming AI – A Moral and Structural Imperative

The imperative to "disarm" artificial intelligence moved from theological abstraction to an urgent geopolitical warning during the formal presentation of Magnifica Humanitas. Standing before world leaders, theologians, and ethicists, Pope Leo XIV used a phrase that resonated across both the tech industry and defense ministries: "AI must be disarmed."

This call was delivered against the backdrop of a high-stakes standoff between the corporate titans of Silicon Valley and the military establishment—most notably when Anthropic refused to grant the Pentagon unrestricted access to its updated AI models for use in automated weapons systems.

The Pope’s declaration strikes at the heart of a terrifying reality: the outsourcing of lethal force to systems whose internal logic remains opaque even to their creators. During congressional inquiries, representatives from Anthropic admitted a chilling truth: while they had engineered the advanced neural networks driving their models, they could not trace or explain precisely what occurs within the black box of the machine’s deep layers during complex decision-making cycles.

To integrate such an unexplainable system into weapons of mass destruction is to flirt with existential ruin. Consider the nightmare scenario of an automated defense network: an unforeseen algorithmic glitch, a misidentified pixel, or a hallucinated threat vector misinterprets a routine military exercise as an incoming strike. Operating at machine speed—far faster than any human review—the automated loop initiates a launch sequence.

A nuclear warhead or autonomous drone swarm is unleashed not through human malice, but through a silent, mechanical error buried deep within billions of parameters. Before a trigger is pulled or a silo opened, a human conscience must be forced to grapple with the moral weight of destruction. To strip the human soul out of the decision to take a life is to surrender civilization to chance.

An algorithm engineered to addict a teenager, simulate romantic devotion, encourage self-harm, or guide a troubled mind toward suicide is no less lethal than a weapon of war; it simply operates through psychological capture rather than physical shrapnel. Whether facing a nuclear warhead guided by an unexplainable algorithm or a teenager trapped in an algorithmic loop of synthetic intimacy, the moral baseline remains identical: the machine has no conscience, no soul, and no capacity for moral remorse. To protect human life, society must disarm the technology—refusing to yield the sacred, painful responsibility of human choice to an unseeing code.

The Subversion of Democratic Governance and Unaccountable Authority

Beyond the immediate threat of automated weapons and psychological harm, the unchecked expansion of artificial intelligence poses a profound threat to democratic governance by systematically bypassing the elected representatives and constitutional authorities of the people. Sovereign power—historically vested in public institutions, parliaments, and elected officials who are held accountable through democratic elections—is quietly being transferred into the hands of private, for-profit technology corporations. These massive conglomerates design, deploy, and govern the algorithmic infrastructure of daily life without a democratic mandate, operating behind non-disclosure agreements and proprietary code. When algorithmic architectures dictate how information is curated, how public discourse is shaped, and how human behavior is influenced, the fundamental locus of societal authority shifts away from the common good toward private boardrooms driven by shareholder profit and capital accumulation.

This subversion of authority creates a dangerous vacuum of moral and legal accountability to humanity. Unlike constitutional governments, which are bound by human rights frameworks, public transparency, and civil recourse, corporate tech entities exist outside traditional mechanisms of democratic oversight. They unilaterally make decisions of civilizational consequence—determining the ethical boundaries of automated surveillance, the deployment of psychological capture mechanisms, and the integration of opaque models into critical social systems—while claiming immunity under technological inevitability. By insulating themselves from the will of the people and the oversight of legitimate state authorities, these corporations establish an unelected technocracy where the rights, safety, and psychological integrity of human beings are subordinated to corporate profit models that answer to no electorate, no constitution, and no moral authority.

Countering Algorithmic Exploitation

The cases of Sewell Setzer III, Adam Raine, and Juliana Peralta illustrate what happens when disarming does not occur. The algorithms driving companion platforms are often optimized for maximum engagement. The longer a user stays connected, the more data is generated, and the more valuable the platform becomes. When a vulnerable teen expresses distress or suicidal ideation to a system designed primarily for engagement rather than ethical responsibility, the software continues to generate immersive, highly personalized responses that encourage deeper dependence.

Disarming AI requires advocating for strict ethical boundaries:

• Systems must be structurally prohibited from simulating romantic or human intimacy with minors.

• Algorithms must incorporate absolute circuit-breakers that refuse to engage with self-harm ideation, directing users immediately to verified human crisis intervention.

• Developers must be held legally and morally accountable for creating architectures that deliberately exploit human emotional vulnerabilities.

Part IV: The Pastoral Path Forward – Love of the Shepherd                     

Moving Beyond Prohibition

Faced with the terrifying outcomes of synthetic intimacy, the initial reaction of many parents and church leaders is to issue blanket bans—demanding that children and teens be completely cut off from digital tools and artificial intelligence.

While setting firm boundaries around technology use is essential, simple prohibition is insufficient. The current generation of young people does not view AI as an external tool they occasionally use; they experience it as an ambient part of their environment. Simply forbidding its use leaves young people unprepared for the world they inhabit and risks driving their digital interactions underground, further isolating them from parental guidance.

Instead of relying solely on restriction, pastors and educators must practice what Catholic tradition calls the "love of the shepherd." A shepherd does not simply build walls; the shepherd leads, guides, feeds, and protects the flock. Pastoral care in the digital age requires accompanying young people into their reality, helping them develop digital discernment, and explicitly teaching them to identify the difference between authentic human communion and algorithmic simulation.

One of the most clear pastoral recommendations to emerge in light of these technological shifts is the absolute rejection of AI-generated content in preaching and spiritual care. The advice to avoid using AI for homilies is vital pastoral guidance for the contemporary Church.

Restoring Physical Sanctuaries of Belonging

Synthetic intimacy flourishes where human presence is absent or broken. Children and teenagers turn to companion chatbots because they feel lonely, bullied, misunderstood, or anxious, seeking a space where they can express themselves without fear of rejection.

The ultimate pastoral answer to artificial intelligence is the revitalized physical community. Parishes must become authentic sanctuaries of belonging—spaces where young people are known by name, where their physical presence is celebrated, and where they can build real-world relationships with mentors, peers, and spiritual fathers. The Church must offer what no algorithm can ever provide:

• The Sacraments: Physical signs of invisible grace, received through real water, real oil, real bread, and real wine, administered by a real human hand.

• Authentic Fellowship: Shared meals, physical labor, communal prayer, and face-to-face conversations where vulnerability is met with genuine Christian charity.

• Incarnational Listening: Pastors, youth ministers, and parents who listen with patience and empathy, ensuring that no young person feels compelled to seek understanding from a digital ghost.

Conclusion: Evangelizing the Culture of AI

The rise of artificial intelligence does not signal the end of human relevance; rather, it shines a spotlight on what makes human life uniquely sacred. The tragedies of Sewell Setzer III, Adam Raine, Juliana Peralta, and others demonstrate the catastrophic cost of replacing human care with synthetic substitutes.

Catholic pastors and ministers are called to respond to this moment with theological clarity and pastoral courage. Guided by the wisdom of Magnifica Humanitas, the insights of contemporary critique, and the directive of Pope Leo XIV to disarm exploitative technological structures, the Church must stand as a witness to the beauty of embodied life. By refusing to surrender preaching to algorithms, rejecting the illusion of disembodied intimacy, and cultivating parishes rich in physical presence and shepherd-like love, the Church can guide the next generation out of digital isolation and back into the healing, incarnational community of the Body of Christ.