They look like religious teachers. But they’re AI — and millions are listening

(RNS) — As Saahera Ashraf scrolled through Instagram, she stopped on an elderly East Asian monk in a saffron robe. Yang Mun sat before the camera with a shaved head and a gentle expression, offering his followers a lesson on forgiveness.

They needed to forgive four groups of people, he told them: their parents, former partners, people who had hurt them and, finally, themselves. Ashraf listened. Hundreds of videos like it were posted on Mun’s page, offering advice about relationships, anxiety, eating habits and quieting an overactive mind, often from a softly lit temple or beside statues of the Buddha.

To Ashraf, 32, who lives in Toronto, Mun looked like what he claimed to be: an elderly teacher passing along lessons learned over a lifetime. “I have a couple of his posts saved,” she said.

Mun has more than 2.5 million followers on Instagram , where his videos draw millions of views and comments from people thanking him for his advice. His website describes him as a teacher of traditional Eastern wisdom.

But the monk does not exist. Mun was generated using artificial intelligence. No lifetime spent studying Buddhism is behind the elderly face on the screen, even as his…