Description: Religious communities in the U.S. and abroad reported the circulation of purportedly AI-generated videos and cloned audio impersonating pastors and church leaders, including Father Mike Schmitz, to solicit donations and spread incendiary sermons. The impersonations reportedly leveraged synthetic voice and likeness tools and were distributed via platforms such as TikTok, Facebook, and messaging apps. Some content remained unlabeled as AI-generated and was treated as authentic by viewers.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Unknown deepfake technology developers and Unknown voice cloning technology developers developed an AI system deployed by Unknown scammers and Unknown scammers impersonating religious figures, which harmed Mike Schmitz , Religious leaders , Religious institutions , Religious communities , Churches , Congregants , General public and Epistemic integrity.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Unknown deepfake technology , Unknown voice cloning technology , TikTok , Facebook , Instagram , Social media platforms and Messaging apps
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1355
Report Count
1
Incident Date
2026-01-05
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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Father Mike Schmitz, a Catholic priest and podcaster, addressed his congregation of more than 1.2 million YouTube subscribers in November with an unusual kind of homily. You couldn't always trust the words coming out of his mouth, Schmitz s…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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