No one wants a soulless sermon – that defeats the purpose – and Pope Leo XIV has taken steps to ensure that Roman Catholic priests don’t deliver one.

Artificial intelligence, the new pontiff said in a recent meeting with clergy, “will never be able to share faith”, which is what giving a homily is all about. Resist the temptation and write your own words, he urged.

But that point of view is increasingly on the margins.

Not every workplace is a pulpit, and AI is an unstoppable force in almost every field.

That doesn’t mean there’s general agreement on how to use it and what the guidelines and guard rails should be.

As battles over AI rage in places as far-flung as Hollywood and the Pentagon, there plenty of high emotion, but nothing like consensus.

In perhaps the most high-stakes battle, AI company Anthropic is fencing with the Pentagon about key restrictions on AI use by the military. Huge contract with the defense department are at stake, as is national security, and there is competitive pressure from another major company, OpenAI.

Hollywood writers’ unions are trying to hold back the tide that threatens their members’ livelihoods.

And in my own field, journalism, AI is a hot topic.

A few weeks ago, Cleveland Plain Dealer editor Chris Quinn took US journalism schools to task for, as he sees it, not sufficiently preparing students to enter an industry where AI is becoming part........

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