When His Church Goes Dark, They Talk to His Digital Twin; The New York Times, July 30, 2026

 

Eli Saslow

Visuals by Erin Schaff

, The New York Times ; When His Church Goes Dark, They Talk to His Digital Twin

To meet the growing needs of his congregation, Justin Lester created an A.I. duplicate of himself. Every day he sees more people using it.

"In the last year, Lester and hundreds of others have brought A.I. into its most human form yet by transferring their thoughts into data and building online replicas of themselves. The digital twins can answer in the real person’s voice and apply their thinking on demand for anyone who wants to chat online or call. Some companies now build twins that sit on Zoom calls for C.E.O.s or manage projects while their owners are on vacation. Professors at Clemson University deploy them to answer student questions at 2 a.m. A sex therapist uses her digital twin to offer individual counseling to hundreds of people at once. A man in Berlin created a twin after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so his wife could still talk to him before bed...

He told them he’d been finding inspiration lately in the story of Paul, Christ’s first great missionary, who started churches all over the Mediterranean world. Paul was sometimes shipwrecked or imprisoned, so he relied on the cutting-edge technology of the time to continue his work. He wrote letters to extend his presence so his ideas could travel beyond his body.

Now Lester looked out at his congregants and pointed to a quote framed on the wall: “We reach those no one reaches by doing what no one is doing,” it read.

“We have to stop being scared of A.I. and start using it as a tool,” he said. “If we steward this technology correctly, it can bring more people to God.”"

Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media; The New York Times, April 17, 2026

  Tiffany Hsu, The New York Times ; Hundreds of Fake Pro-Trump Avatars Emerge on Social Media

"In the months leading up to the midterm elections, hundreds of accounts have emerged on social media featuring A.I.-generated pro-Trump influencers posting at a rapid pace about the “radical left” and “America First.” They tend to appear as ordinary — if very good-looking — men and women, gazing flirtatiously at the camera while pontificating about the war in Iran, abortion or Bad Bunny.

President Trump has reposted content from at least one of the accounts — a platinum blond avatar making unfounded claims about California’s governor.

The New York Times began tracking MAGA-boosting, A.I.-generated TikTok posts in January and discovered at least 304 accounts sharing the content, some of which have since disappeared. Researchers with the Governance and Responsible A.I. Lab at Purdue University, known as GRAIL, found another dozen accounts across TikTok, Instagram and Facebook. Eric Nelson, a special investigations analyst from Alethea, a digital threat mitigation company, identified another nine accounts on YouTube."