“AI, especially Generative AI, has opened new horizons on many different levels, including enhancing research in healthcare and scientific discovery, but also raises troubling questions on its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality.”
– Pope Leo XIV
Generative AI tools such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are becoming more and more prevalent in our daily lives. People are now using them to write everything from emails to speeches, to create artwork, and as a search tool.
The potential of AI is huge. It offers the opportunity to increase efficiencies in things like research, design, and data analysis. It allows a small staff—like that of U.S. Catholic—to work more efficiently and free up time for bigger projects.
However, there are also valid challenges and ethical concerns when it comes to generative AI use,. These include things like the environmental impact, misinformation and hallucination, privacy concerns, and threats to intellectual property rights. They also include things like bias and questions about who (or what, in this case) gets to tell the story about the church.
U.S. Catholic and the Claretian Missionaries value human inspiration, innovation, and the creative process. We recognize that AI may offer expediency, but it is not a person. Generative AI is machine learning, and machine learning is not capable of critical thinking, ethical decision-making, or unbiased creation.
In response, we honor the following three overarching values:
- AI supplements, and does not replace, human judgment.
- Human creativity, editorial integrity, and pastoral/theological mission and responsibility are our priority.
- Transparency is essential. We will disclose generative AI, when appropriate, and publicly share a summary of our AI guidelines with our external audiences.
To this end, here are some ground rules about how U.S. Catholic will (and will not) use generative AI tools. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to email us at editors@uscatholic.org.
Written articles
- We do not publish any articles written by AI. All writers MUST disclose any generative AI use to us—whether that be for help with research, writing, or editing. We reserve the right to reject any articles we feel have been produced with significant AI usage.
- We have a rigorous fact-checking process that we do not use AI for. We will not publish any article or any fact that cannot be verified through a primary source.
- We will not rely on AI for editing. Editing is an art that relies on a human eye, and there is also the possibility that AI might introduce errors in the editing process.
Visuals and art
- We will never use AI to edit a news photo or to generate a new photo image.
- We may, for editorial photos, use the AI tools inherent in most software now to adjust the image size, change the background, or remove privacy-related elements.
- We will never publish art created solely with AI, unless it is done for a specific editorial purpose (for example, to accompany an essay about the implications of AI).
- If we do use AI-generated art, we will always disclose its use.
Advertising
- We will never publish AI-generated images in advertisements, either those we create or those purchased by outside vendors.
- We will require paid advertisers to acknowledge any use of AI in their advertisement, and we will disclose this use on their ad.
Brainstorming and research
- We may use AI to generate story ideas. For example, we might ask for potential experts in a specific topic who might be good podcast guests or for resources for a story on a specific topic. However, we will always review its output and analyze it for any bias or untruth. We will never put personal information into AI, and we will never publish any of these internal brainstorming or research ideas outside our internal staff.
- We may use AI for transcription purposes; to transcribe an interview, to find a good audio clip or pull quote in a transcript, or to capture interview or meeting notes. We will always verify this information.
- We may use AI to help us come up with headlines or to optimize online content for SEO practices. Again, there will always be human oversight, and we will ensure that any headlines or SEO additions are done in line with our mission and editorial purpose.
