At the University of Dallas, Dcn. Ryan Sales and Campus Ministry are looking to continue to help those struggling with porn addiction through the use and promotion of an innovative AI chat service called Chad. The official website of Chad, chadcoach.com, states the AI’s goal is to “help men rewire their thoughts and habits around the natural human desire.”
“Chad is an innovative approach to dealing with the pursuit of chastity for men,” said Sales. “Not every man has someone in their life who is fully up to speed on the Church’s teachings and resources available to help them overcome dependencies on pornography and masturbation. Chad has been trained, and continues to be trained, on top notch Church teachings, bridging the gap and providing a resource for all men.”
Bosco Noronha, the creator of Chad, saw AI as offering the possibility of an innovative solution to the problem of lust and porn addiction among men. Noronha has been a senior software engineer for around 10 years, working at many early-stage startup companies as well as some projects with large companies such as Tesla. Noronha even has a connection to UD, in that his fiance is a UD alumna.
“I developed Chad, as I saw the problem of men losing their identity and purpose in the last decade,” said Noronha. “Masculinity in our generation is under attack, and what it means to be a man has been heavily distorted. Many young men feel lost in our generation, finding the wrong role models like Andrew Tate and developing a distorted view of reality.”
According to Noronha, men often keep their struggles and suffering to themselves instead of sharing it with others.
“Men in general tend not to talk about their struggles, whether it is financial, lust or any other vice,” said Noronha. “Being a man myself, I noticed how I communicate my problems to others, especially my friends and family. Seeing this characteristic in other men, especially my friends and my old engineering mentor who passed away by suicide, I realized there needs to be something done to solve this problem.”
Noronha saw AI as an efficient and quick way to reach millions of men. From 2018 to 2020, he began experimenting with language models, but it was not until early 2022, when OpenAI made their generative models famous, that the true power for language AI was realized. In late 2022, through combining his experience in machine learning and in mental healthcare, Noronha began to develop the skill set to build Chad.
Chad is trained on the principles presented in the book Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla. Additionally, Chad is trained in a variety of recovery research, primarily from the National Institute of Mental Health and the Library of Medicine, and is trained to replicate anonymized clinical training data in conversational settings.
“Friends from previous companies I worked at recommend resources to train Chad on,” said Noronha. “People who are therapists, coaches, psychiatrists and even priest friends who have a background in theology.”
Chad is available via Telegram or WhatsApp, allowing for ease of use.
“The experience is similar to messaging a friend on WhatsApp, one that is awake 24/7 and is dedicated to helping you out,” said Noronha.
While AI might seem like a somewhat strange approach to the issue of lust and pornography addiction, Sales argues that every resource is needed in fighting this struggle.
“In the realm of overcoming this sin, we need as many tools as we can to reach as many men (and women) as possible,” said Sales.
Critically, Chad’s purpose is not to replace the need for human beings, but to encourage people to openly discuss their struggles.
“I think the big goal of Chad is to bridge the gap between not talking and talking,” said Noronha. “Once a guy who has never spoken about his issues or his vices to anyone is suddenly talking to something like Chad about it, that slowly opens the door. It’s like a stepping stone towards getting more help.”
In order to delve into the spiritual aspects of pornography addiction and lust, Chad has partnered with a Catholic human coaching company called Freedom Coaching.
“There’s limitations to Chad, what you can and cannot do, so this coaching company takes on deeper, traumatic root causes of why people go to lust,” said Noronha.
Currently, Chad has over 50,000 users, and Noronha has a goal of Chad being able to work in different languages and across cultures.
“I’d love to see Chad adapt to those things and help as many men as possible,” he said.
Sales and Noronha encourage all those who are struggling with pornography and lust to utilize Chad, but above all to seek aid and support in some form.