“First, I want you to know that I’m fine,” said a disembodied voice from the speakers inside Dream City Church in Phoenix on Sunday.

It sounded like Charlie Kirk, the 31-year-old right-wing activist whose Turning Point USA organization had built such a close relationship with the church. It was meant to. But it wasn’t Kirk, who’d been brutally murdered by an assassin’s bullet days earlier at an event in Utah . This was a creation of artificial intelligence.

“My soul is secure in Christ,” the voice said. “Death is not the end. It’s a promotion.” As the congregation of roughly 4,000 sat silently enthralled, the AI version of Kirk instructed them not to “spend one second mourning me. I knew the risks of standing up in this cultural moment, and I’d do it all over again.” Then “he” of

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