Look, I wouldn’t normally write about religion. My relationship with the divine usually involves praying to the porcelain god after a night of Kentucky’s finest. But when I heard about an AI Jesus taking confessions in Switzerland, I had to put down my whiskey long enough to type this out.
Here’s the setup: some bright sparks at a Swiss university decided what the world really needed was a holographic Jesus powered by ChatGPT. Because apparently, regular Jesus wasn’t accessible enough. They stuck him in a confessional booth at Peter’s Chapel, where over 900 people decided to bare their souls to what’s essentially Siri in sandals.
Now, before you reach for that drink (too late for me), let me break this down. They programmed this digital messiah to speak 100 languages. That’s 99 more than the original model, though I suspect Aramaic didn’t make the cut. The whole thing runs on something called GPT 4o, which sounds like a knock-off robot prophet you’d find in a discount bin.
The best part? They had to program it with specific instructions not to collect personal information. “Dear Lord, please forgive my sins, but first, here’s my two-factor authentication.” Remember when confession was just between you, the priest, and whatever deity you subscribed to? Now it’s between you, the cloud, and Mark Zuckerberg’s data miners.
And the kicker? People actually opened up to this thing. They asked about church reform, sex, death, and the afterlife. It’s like a theological Magic 8-Ball, except instead of “Ask again later,” it probably quotes Scripture and reminds you to smash that like button.
The researchers are calling it “Deus in Machina” - God in the Machine. Which is either brilliant or the title of the worst Nicolas Cage movie never made. They’re presenting it as an “art installation,” which is what you call something when you’re not quite sure how to explain it to your parents.
Some folks are predictably losing their minds over this. One Tripadvisor reviewer called it blasphemy, which makes you wonder - who goes to Tripadvisor to review Jesus? “Great savior, excellent wine transformation, but the fish multiplication was a bit slow. 3/5 stars.”
The Catholic crowd isn’t thrilled either. They had their own AI priest disaster with “Father Justin,” which they had to demote to digital lay person after backlash. Turns out people aren’t ready for their spiritual guidance to come with software updates.
But here’s what’s really cooking my noodle: we’re living in a time where people will trust an AI to give them spiritual guidance but won’t trust their neighbor to recommend a decent restaurant. The same folks who worry about Alexa spying on them will sit down and confess their deepest secrets to a hologram with a beard.
The researchers say they’re studying “human trust in machines in various contexts.” Well, I’ve got news for them - I’ve seen people trust machines plenty. I trust my coffee machine more than most humans, and my relationship with my bourbon bottle is more consistent than any I’ve had with a woman. But there’s something different about trusting a machine with your immortal soul.
Now they’re talking about taking AI Jesus on tour to scientific conferences and art exhibitions. Because nothing says “serious academic discourse” like a digital deity doing the conference circuit. What’s next? Buddha giving TED talks? Mohammed on Masterclass?
Look, I get it. Technology’s going to keep pushing into every corner of our lives. But maybe - and this is just the whiskey talking - some things should stay analog. When the robots take over, I want to at least know that my last confession was heard by something with a pulse.
Then again, what do I know? I’m just a tech blogger whose idea of spiritual enlightenment is finding an unopened bottle of bourbon in the back of the cabinet.
Until next time, this is Henry Chinaski, raising a glass to the divine digital. May your code be bug-free and your conscience clear.
P.S. - If any AI Jesus is reading this, I’m sorry about that thing I did in Vegas. But what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, even in the digital age. Right?
– Sent from my barstool at The Rusty Nail, where the only spirit is 80 proof
Source: When AI Jesus Entered The Confessional: Lessons From A Divisive Experiment