When AI generated art hit the internet a few months ago, one of things that occurred to me was that this would scale/democratise/whatever the production of art. So things which required it commercially (movies, video games etc.) would be affected significantly. However, the producer of individual pieces would still need to do it for his own sake. Things like art therapy, medium of expression etc. all produce art finally but the process is the point and using an AI to do that wouldn't have the same effect. Perhaps there's some mid point where AI could just be seen as another brush or pen for the artist but that's a digression.<p>Going further on this line of thought, if we were successfully able to automate things so much that human effort is no longer necessary for most of our daily activities and we have a lot of leisure time (the promise that almost every tech. revolution has made), the existential question of what do we do with all this time looms. The answer, I think, given current trends, is to consume and distract ourselves so that we don't think about this.<p>One thing that's a huge part of human history is religion and while a lot of people can disagree on the truth of it, its personal utility for (or atleast effect on) individuals is pretty much a given. I don't know how effective an AI bot issuing blessings will actually have the "effect on the user" but that remains to be seen.<p>As a religious person myself, I feel it's kind of defeatist if there is no human being who has the time and interest to actually preach to his congregation and guide them on their spiritual journeys. I can personally say that listening to a bot deliver a sermon or a speech wouldn't have any effect on me and I'd probably stop going to wherever it's operating. Perhaps my background in tech. makes this transparent to me so I might be the exception but nevertheless.