{"id":62130,"date":"2025-09-18T17:44:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:44:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/?p=62130"},"modified":"2025-09-18T17:51:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-18T15:51:16","slug":"charlie-kirk-and-ai-when-tribute-becomes-cringe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/2025\/09\/18\/charlie-kirk-and-ai-when-tribute-becomes-cringe\/","title":{"rendered":"Charlie Kirk and AI: When Tribute Becomes Cringe"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-129123\" src=\"https:\/\/www.uccronline.it\/eng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/charlie_kirk_intelligenza_artificiale.webp\" alt=\"charlie kirk artificial intelligence\" width=\"606\" height=\"318\" \/><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><i>The social drift of the memory of <strong>Charlie Kirk<\/strong>, resurrected by <strong>artificial intelligence<\/strong>. Tasteless videos that add nothing and ridicule faith.<\/i><\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">What is the <strong>limit<\/strong> between tribute, memory, and bad taste?<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We ask ourselves this as we observe the proliferation of grotesque, or at least forced, content generated by <mark><strong>artificial intelligence<\/strong><\/mark> portraying <strong>Charlie Kirk<\/strong> after his death <strong>being held by Jesus<\/strong> or taking a selfie with <strong>Pope Francis<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Artificial Intelligence &#8220;Resurrects&#8221; Charlie Kirk<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Not only videos and images, but AI has also <strong>&#8220;resurrected&#8221; Kirk\u2019s voice<\/strong>, and numerous Protestant churches in the United States are playing artificial clips of the well-known conservative during sermons, killed on September 10.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In these reconstructions, Kirk <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/ProjectConstitu\/status\/1967061152992567388\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">states<\/a><\/em><\/strong>: <i>\u201cI am Charlie. My faith cost me my life, but now I am forever in glory\u201d<\/i>, triggering applause from the faithful. The activist then introduces four Christian martyrs: Paul, Stephen, Andrew, and Peter.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Another <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/shorts\/NGe9P1iNpSo\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">clip<\/a><\/em><\/strong> shows Charlie Kirk generated by artificial intelligence while filming himself in heaven next to Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. with the background music of <em>&#8220;Knocking on Heaven&#8217;s Door&#8221;<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">In <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RichardHanania\/status\/1967033646000599483\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">another video<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Kirk is seen sitting under the gazebo where he was killed, then stops talking and runs up a staircase <strong>toward a smiling Jesus<\/strong>. In <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/RichardHanania\/status\/1967034813912932437\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">yet another one<\/a><\/em><\/strong>, Kirk is accompanied by Jesus while holding a hat with the Trump slogan <strong><em>&#8220;Make America Great Again&#8221;<\/em><\/strong>, as they walk toward the camera among the clouds.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Social media is full of <strong>influencers<\/strong> who first artificially create videos in which Kirk speaks about faith and his martyrdom (phrases he never actually said), and then watch him speak and <strong>visibly cry<\/strong>, wiping their tears while nodding between sobs.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>The Church and Artificial Intelligence<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Is this really necessary? Isn\u2019t it rather an excess that crosses the line <strong>between homage and kitsch<\/strong>? The risk of bad taste, of \u201ccringe,\u201d is just around the corner.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Some also reflect on the <strong>ethical issue<\/strong>. Reference is often made to the notion of <strong>respect due to the deceased<\/strong>, and some apply this in opposing the digital \u201cresurrection\u201d of a person, simulating their speeches and gestures.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">Fortunately, <strong>the Catholic Church<\/strong> keeps well away from these initiatives and, indeed, is perhaps the first to have long since set <strong>guidelines<\/strong> for addressing artificial intelligence: in the document <strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.vatican.va\/roman_curia\/congregations\/cfaith\/documents\/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_it.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Antiqua et nova<\/a><\/em><\/strong> of January 2025, the wisdom of the Church recalls the risk of <i>\u201creplacing authentic relationality with a lifeless <strong>simulacrum<\/strong>\u201d<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>When Faith Is Ridiculed<\/h2>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We continue to believe that memory and commemoration are <strong>deep needs<\/strong>; it is right to want to remember and honor someone even after their death. But in the digital age, <strong>not everything AI can do<\/strong> should be done\u2014in fact, it often proves undignified.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The digital \u201cresurrection\u201d of Charlie Kirk, in our view, falls among those practices that not only add nothing but risk <strong>ridiculing faith<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">For those who wish to do so, <strong>silence and prayer<\/strong> always remain valid. That is where memory truly preserves its strength, without the need for artificial effects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The social drift of Charlie Kirk\u2019s memory, resurrected by artificial intelligence. It adds nothing and ridicules faith<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":62132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":96,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1926,1897],"class_list":["post-62130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-charlie-kirk"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Charlie Kirk and AI: When Tribute Becomes Cringe - UCCR<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The social drift of Charlie Kirk\u2019s memory, resurrected by artificial intelligence. 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