AI Deepfakes Impersonate Pastors to Scam Congregations Across the United States

AI Deepfakes Are Impersonating Pastors to Try to Scam Their Congregations

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 said, because sometimes they weren't really his words -- or his mouth. Schmitz had become the target of AI-generated impersonation scams. "You're being watched by a demonic human," said the fake Schmitz in one video that the real Schmitz, wearing an L.L. Bean jacket over his clerical suit, included in his public service announcement as an example. "You must act quickly, because the spots for sending prayers are already running out," said another fake Schmitz with a looming hourglass behind him. "And the next trip will only take place in four months." The fake Schmitz sounded ever-so-slightly robotic as he urged viewers to click a link and secure their blessing before it was too late. "I can look at them and say 'That's ridiculous, I would never say that,'" the real Schmitz, who is based in Duluth, Minnesota, said in his callout video. "But people can't necessarily tell. That's a problem. That's, like, a really big problem." On the real video of Schmitz, some of the top comments from his followers said they had seen other prominent Catholic figures impersonated through AI videos, including the pope. According to cybersecurity expert Rachel Tobac, who is the CEO of SocialProof Security, that's because pastors have become extremely popular subjects of AI scams and other deceptive media. "If you're on TikTok or Reels, they've probably come across your For You page," Tobac says. "This is somebody who looks to be a priest, who's wearing all of the garments, who's standing up on a pulpit or a stage or whatever you'd call it, and they seem to be speaking to their congregation in a very enthusiastic way." Pastors and ministers in Birmingham, Alabama, Freeport, New York, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, have warned their followers about AI scams impersonating them in the form of DMs, calls, and deepfakes. Alan Beauchamp, a pastor in the Ozarks, said his Facebook account was hacked, with the hacker posting a fake, possibly AI-generated certificate for cryptocurrency trading with Beauchamp's name on it and a caption urging his congregants to join him. A megachurch in the Philippines received reports of deepfakes featuring its pastors. An evangelical church in Nebraska issued an AI "scammer alert" on Facebook, and one churchgoer in the comments posted a screenshot of texts purported to be from one of their pastors. It doesn't help that a lot of the pastors and ministers who have grown large online followings often actually are soliciting donations and selling things, just not the same things that their AI impersonators are. With the help of social media, religious authority figures have been able to reach believers far beyond their neighborhoods, but the proliferation of content featuring their likenesses and voices has also provided the perfect opportunity for scammers wielding generative AI tools.

Deepfake AI Pastors Are Stealing From Churchgoers: Report

What god you choose to believe (or not believe) in is a matter of faith. Unfortunately, reality is increasingly becoming a matter of faith for some, too. According to a new report from Wired, churchgoers across the country are becoming the target of deepfake schemes, with scammers using AI-generated versions of pastors to steal money from their congregation. The pastors who appear ripest for replication are, fittingly, ones who have large online followings. Wired highlighted a video recently uploaded by Father Mike Schmitz, a Catholic priest and podcaster who has amassed more than 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube and more than half a million followers on Instagram. In the video, Schmitz shows several deepfake videos of himself that have been uploaded by scammers. Many of the videos seem relatively innocuous, a simple sermon that doesn't seem totally out of place (though there are some tells that things aren't quite right, like one in which the fake Father Mike tells listeners, “You’re being watched by a demonic human"). But the real demonic behavior on display comes from scams. Some of the videos ask for parishioners to pay for blessings, others are calls to secure a spot on a church trip. Unfortunately, those types of things are believable because they are actually real things that religious leaders have done, using the prosperity gospel to line their own pockets. Schmitz warned his followers about the scams, and he's not alone in having to issue this type of alert. Per Wired, pastors and ministers from Birmingham, Alabama, to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, have had to post similar statements so that their followers don't get tricked by an AI deepfake asking for money that will never make it to the collection plate. Pastors like Schmitzâ€"who offered a clear-eyed view of AI in his video, saying that something human is lost in AIâ€"are not helped by other churches that have wholeheartedly embraced the technology. Many churches ran AI-generated audio of Charlie Kirk at sermons after his death, suggesting that it was a message from him in heaven. Such uses of the technology push people further from reality and make them more susceptible to the exact types of scams that are now being employed to take advantage of unsuspecting members of their flock. The recently elected Pope Leo XIV, head of the Catholic Church, has turned a critical eye on AI. Last year, in his first formal meeting with cardinals of the church, he said that the technology would "pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor." Skepticism isn't always welcomed by faith-based organizations, but churchgoers would probably be well served by expressing some when listening to the words of pastors online.