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Would you trust “AI Jesus” with your innermost thoughts and troubles?
Researchers and religious leaders have released the results of a two-month experiment through art in a Catholic chapel in Switzerland, where a computer-screen avatar of “Jesus” – tucked away in a confessional – answered visitors’ questions about faith, morality and the modern day’s troubles, and offered answers based on the Holy letter.
The idea, said the chapel’s theological assistant, was to recognize the growing importance of artificial intelligence in human lives, even when it comes to religion, and to explore the limits of human trust in a machine.
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After the two-month exhibition “Deus in Machina” in Peter’s Chapel, which began at the end of August, about 900 conversations of visitors – some who came more than once – were anonymously transcribed.
Those behind the project said it was largely successful: visitors often left moved or deep in thought and found it easy to use.
A small sign invited visitors to enter the confessional — chosen for its intimacy — and beneath the latticed screen through which the penitent faithful would usually speak to the priest, a green light marked the visitor’s turn to speak, and a red light turned on when “AI Jesus” on the computer screen on the other hand was responding.
It often took time to wait for a response – a testament to the technical complexity. After the exit, nearly 300 visitors filled out the questionnaires on the basis of which the report was published on Wednesday.
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About love, war, suffering and loneliness
Philipp Haslbauer, an IT expert at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts who put together the technical side of the project, said the AI is responsible for taking on the role of “AI Jesus” and generating GPT-4o responses from OpenAI and the open-source version of Whisper it was used to understand speech.
An AI video generator from Heygen was used to produce the voice and video of a real person, he said. Haslbauer said no special safeguards were used “because we noticed that GPT-4o responds quite well to controversial topics.”
Visitors discussed many topics, including true love, the afterlife, feelings of loneliness, war and suffering in the world, the existence of God, plus topics such as cases of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church or its position on homosexuality.
Most visitors described themselves as Christians, although agnostics, atheists, Muslims, Buddhists and Taoists also participated, according to a summary of the project released by the Lucerne Catholic Parish.
About one-third were German speakers, but “AI Jesus” – who speaks about 100 languages - also spoke in languages such as Chinese, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Russian and Spanish.
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Devil’s work?
“What was really interesting (was) to see that people were really talking to him in a serious way. They didn’t come to joke,” said chapel theologian Marco Schmid, who led the project. Most visitors were between the ages of 40 and 70, and more Catholic respondents found the experience uplifting than Protestants, the report found.
Schmid was quick to point out that “AI Jesus” — billed as a “Jesus-like” person — was an artistic experiment to get people thinking about the intersection between the digital and the divine, not a substitute for human interaction or sacramental confessions from a priest, nor intended to save pastoral resources.
“It was clear to people that it was a computer … It was clear that it was not a confession,” Schmid said.
“He wasn’t programmed to give absolution or prayers. In the end, it was more of a summary of the conversation.”
The Catholic Church, from the Vatican on down, has been grappling with the challenges—and possible opportunities—presented by the explosion of public interest in AI since generative artificial intelligence captured the world’s attention two years ago when OpenAI’s ChatGPT made its debut.
The Vatican appointed a friar from the medieval Franciscan order as its top expert on artificial intelligence, and a Lutheran church in Bavaria served sermons delivered by a chatbot last year. Pope Francis, in his annual peace message for this year, called for an international treaty to ensure the ethical use of AI technology.
Chatbots like ChatGPT are powered by algorithmic models trained on vast sets of text and other data to mimic speech and generate seemingly unique and human-like responses.
Haslbauer is sensitive to public backlash and has noted chatter on social media that the project is “blasphemous” or “the work of the devil.”
“If you read the comments online about it, some are very negative, which is scary,” Haslbauer, whose long-haired look was the basis for the image of the virtual Jesus.
In a demonstration of the technology in the chapel, Haslbauer asked “AI Jesus” about the message for a troubled world and whether artificial intelligence could be helpful as a way for people to find God.
“All knowledge and wisdom ultimately comes from God,” the chatbot said in a soothing voice, after a pause for a response, and the image crackled briefly. “Used wisely, artificial intelligence can indeed be a tool for exploring the wonders of creation, deepening our understanding of Scripture, and fostering human connections.”
“Nevertheless, it remains essential to seek God with all your heart and soul beyond all technology,” it added.
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Good side, but also disadvantages
Kenneth Cukier, a journalist, writer and expert at the US-based non-profit group AI and Faith, said that if “AI Jesus” helps people connect more deeply with themselves and the world, it “must be a good thing”.
“It will lead to better individuals and a better world,” he said. “However – and there is a big however – this seems a bit infantile, and pardon my pun, like a machine.”
“The risk is that it ultimately draws people away from what is more meaningful, deeper and more authentic in spirituality,” said Cukier, co-author Big Data: A revolution that will change the way we work, live and think.
For Schmid, the exhibition was a pilot project – and he doesn’t foresee a second coming of “AI Jesus” anytime soon.
“It was also clear to us that there is only a limited time that we will expose this Jesus,” he said, adding that any return should be made after deeper reflection.
“We are talking … so we can revive it again,” he said, noting interest from parishes, teachers, researchers and others as the project attracted media attention in Switzerland and beyond. “Everyone is interested and would like to have this ‘AI Jesus’. So now we have to think a little bit about how we want to proceed.”
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