Vic Gandotra, a former senior vice president at Google and a convert to Catholicism, spoke about AI, the Bible, and his faith at a recent conference of Catholic business leaders.
Vic Gandotra, a former senior vice president at Google and convert to Catholicism, spoke at the recent Catholic Business Leadership Conference about how AI is becoming a part of religious life.
At the Legatus Summit, a Catholic business leadership conference held in California from January 29 to 31, Gundotra shared practical ways to leverage AI for the good of faith, while also highlighting the tool’s potential pitfalls.
Gundotra’s path to Catholicism was winding. Raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, he became deeply involved in the church and even became an elder. Eventually he began to have doubts, but the religion’s strict rules forbade any questioning of its doctrines under the pain of “ostracism.”
“As Jehovah’s Witnesses, this is a very dangerous thing to do. It was quite difficult to leave the faith and get out,” he told Legatus’ Stephen Henry in a podcast shared at the same time as the summit.
When he told his wife he had serious concerns about their religion, he remembers, “she started crying and said, ‘I can’t do that. I can’t lose my friends and family.'”
“You lose everything,” Gundorta explained. “As Jehovah’s Witnesses, the result of deep investigation and critical thinking about our doctrine is for very few Jehovah’s Witnesses to be disfellowshipped. It’s a deep ax hanging over their heads.”
Eventually, he and his wife decided to divorce, and Gundotra became an atheist. Over the years, when Gandotra was at what he describes as “rock bottom,” he began to find his way to Catholicism through the guidance of a colleague he once worked with at Microsoft.
It was 2 a.m. on the East Coast when Gandotra texted this friend to say he wanted to talk to her. His friend quickly responded. When Gundotra asked why he was awake, his friend replied, “I have a duty to pray.”
From there it was a long process of discovering the early church fathers, studying their faith, and eventually joining the Catholic Church.
“Jehovah’s Witnesses never talk about the early church fathers. We didn’t even know they existed,” Gundotra said. “When I read about Clement, I remember reading the Jehovah’s Witness Bible and jumping to the Bible, where the apostle Paul said, ‘Ask Clement, his name is written in the book of life.'”
“I cried,” he recalled. “I said, ‘It’s here in my Jehovah’s Witness Bible. Who is this Clement? Why haven’t I read his letters?'”
“Shock” in AI research
At the conference, Gundotra revealed that he spends an hour every morning reading the Mass reading, and that he constantly asks the AI chatbot, “What is it that most people miss in this reading?”
Gundotra recommended using a detailed investigation technique that asks the AI to give slower answers, as there is a trade-off between speed and depth.
“Probably four days out of the week, it’s really emotional,” he said. “Maybe I missed something in a verse I’ve read a thousand times.”
“The reason AI can do that is because it has read all the early church fathers. It has read everything the church has written for 2,000 years,” Gandotra said. “Maybe you’re reading that verse for the 20th time, but AI can look at every commentary the church has ever written about those verses and synthesize a commentary just for you.”
Gandotra did not underestimate the importance of AI.
“Artificial intelligence is the single greatest innovation of my lifetime,” he said. “Actually, I think this is more like the invention of fire and the wheel.”
But Gandotra called AI a “double-edged sword” and said he believed there was “some danger” to it.
“Some people may think that AI is their god,” he says.
“We are at the beginning of a chain of events where people will start worshiping AI as gods,” he continued. “It looks like something very powerful, but it is just a tool, not a god.”
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