AI and the Reduction of Truth: A Eucharistic Alternative

Proliferation of AI technologies, especially generative AI, throughout our culture may be altering our experience of truth. This article discusses three prominent and reductive features of that experience: virtual, factual, and useful. The experience of truth with AI is also contrasted with the experience of truth found by Christian believers in the Eucharist, an experience that is authentic, personal, and beautiful. The contrast highlights the relatively reductive aspects of truth with AI, but it also will be of interest to readers investigating the effects of the Eucharist and similar religious experiences on epistemology and virtue in an anxious age.