As a person of faith raised in a religious household, I have a fairly clear picture of what prayer means to me. Prayer is the practice by which I draw closer to God, petition for my needs and desires, request guidance and ask forgiveness.
The deal has always been that in times of trouble I cast my anxieties and questions and emerge with either some answers or some sustaining sense of peace. Take it to the Lord in prayer, the song goes.
It is unclear to me when a question becomes a prayer, but I suspect it may have less to do with the content of the question and more to do with my expectations in asking it.
I have never thought of ChatGPT as a god – I don’t even think it’s good – nor have I ever asked its forgiveness. However, in moments of confusion, I have watched myself call upon its name for answers almost compulsively.
At first, this was limited to things like searching for recipes and experimenting with its poetry abilities. Then – ironically, playfully – I began asking for its read on my relational dynamics, my habits and occasionally my future.
While I remain rationally aware of its hallucinations and lack of moral obligation, I seem to believe it has something real to offer me in these moments. Whatever I claim to believe about it, I still find myself soothed by the tidiness of a five-bullet-point plan and the imitation of a reassuring voice. It offers guidance that at least sounds certain, even if this certainty is synthetic.
Why would a Christian – in theory, on speaking terms with God – turn to a robot with her questions? Because at least this god answers, you might think. But saints and mystics would smile at that response.
The Christians of history most celebrated for their wisdom and understanding have often been those most familiar with God’s silence, not His chatter. His silence became another form of communion, His perceived absence another kind of presence.
Simone Weil, a 20th-century mystic and philosopher, famously defined prayer as attention. In a letter to her priest and mentor, included in a collection titled Waiting for God, Weil speaks of prayer as the “orientation of all the attention of which the soul is capable towards God”.
Her original French language makes plain a secret. The French word for attention, spelt the same way as the English, is closely linked to the word for waiting, attendre. The collection’s title, Attente de Dieu, or Waiting for God, bears the same secret: decent prayer is mostly just waiting.
No wonder there is a temptation to turn to ChatGPT. The unbearable wait is exactly the burden that its instantaneous answers promise to lift. So anxious am I to rid myself of this burden that even a false certainty would be preferable to the discomfort of not understanding.
Another piece of etymology is illuminating here. The lives of mystics like Weil were marked by a practice of contemplation, as is the prayer life of many Christians.
To contemplate is, of course, not to conclude, but rather to…
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