(LifeSiteNews) — A series of pro-life quotes attributed to Leo XIV’s time as Cardinal Prevost have been circulating on the internet but upon investigation, seem to have been mistakenly created using the AI program Grok.

The quotes have been going viral online, and have been shared by various pro-life organizations. One particularly common text being attributed to Leo XIV reads: 

We cannot build a just society if we discard the weakest—whether the child in the womb or the elderly in their frailty—for they are both gifts from God. 

However, it seems that some or all of these quotes may be AI-generated, although it appears to have been done accidentally.

Where the quotes came from  

The quotes were published by a pro-life news outlet in an article titled ‘Cardinal Prevost, Now Pope Leo XIV, Condemned Abortion: “God’s Mercy Calls Us to Protect Every Life.”’

The outlet clarified that it gathered its quotes from an X user. Its link led to a post on X which had been deleted, and replaced with the following message, admitting the quotes may have been a fabrication of AI program Grok.  

Earlier I tweeted I what I thought were pretty well-sourced quotes provided by @grok reflecting the new pope’s pro-life commitments. Upon doing more research, I don’t think they are as well-sourced as one might have hoped, so I am deleting the tweet. But as other tweets in my timeline indicate, the new Holy Father has a long tradition of being pro-life. He’s not only participated in pro-life marches, he was (remarkably) the co-founder of the campus right-to-life organization ‘Villanovans for Life’—the oldest college pro-life club in the US! 

The X user was correct about the Chiclayo March for Life: 

Marcha por la vida en Chiclayo. ¡Defendamos la vida humana en todo momento! pic.twitter.com/L5rUMYF3Kt

— Robert Prevost (@drprevost) March 21, 2015

For those unfamiliar with AI and how such mistakes can be made in good faith, it is important to understand that when presented with prompts to find quotes, AI and LLMs (large language models) sometimes have a tendency to invent them, and even to give them citations. The creations may be paraphrases of real comments, or complete fabrications. This phenomenon is so common that it has been given the name “AI hallucination.”  

When alerted to this, the X user drew the news outlet’s attention to this issue to correct the record. 

While we presume that the X user was not acting deceptively, it is important to state for the record that these quotes are unverified, and that LifeSiteNews has been unable to verify them. Given their provenance, it does not seem probable that they are authentic. 

However, the quotes may or may not represent Leo XIV’s thought. If he affirms such ideas or if these texts are verified in the future, then this article will be updated and clarified.