Science has co-opted a new, unlikely frontier - religion. Yes, artificial Intelligence is making steady waves in the religious world. Such developments make one wonder about traditional practices overlapping with long-held perceptions about faith and worship.
Religious institutions are increasingly experimenting with the spiritual experience using AI tools. Recently in Lucerne, Switzerland, St. Peter's Church introduced an "AI Jesus". This 'Deus in Machina project' is a collaboration between the church and researchers from a local university. The project allows visitors to interact with a digital 'hologram' of Jesus, as it's capable of hearing confessions in more than 100 languages.
Coming before the "Second Coming"
Reportedly, over 1,000 people have interacted with the AI Jesus, and most of them claimed to have a 'spiritually positive' experience. "We wanted to see and understand how people react to an AI Jesus. What would they talk with him about? Would there be interest in talking to him? We're probably pioneers in this," The Guardian quoted Marco Schmid, a theologian with the Peterskapelle church who is part of the project, as saying.
This is not the only instance, but only the latest, of artificial intelligence being intermixed with spirituality.
In 2015, Anthony Levandowski, a former Google engineer, made headlines by founding the 'Way of the Future' church. This unconventional institution aimed to 'discover' and worship an AI-based god. "It's not a god in the sense that it makes lightning or causes hurricanes. But if there is something a billion times smarter than the smartest human, what else are you going to call it?," said Levandowski, as quoted by Wired.
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Spoiler alert: the 'Way of the Future' church shut down in 2021 while Levandowski was battling several lawsuits from his former employers, alleging Levandowski of "downloading 14,000 confidential files". The AI prophet probably didn't see it coming.
Despite these concerns, the experiments show that AI can make religious teachings more accessible and personalised.
As AI continues to be widely adopted and such experiments grow, religious communities will continue to grapple with some fundamental questions. There are bound to be questions about the nature of consciousness, free will, and what it means to be human-or a religious human-in an age of intelligent machines. What happens next in this space is crucial in shaping the future relationship between AI and religion. God willing, it'll be for the better.