For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that to a new level, reports the AP. Users can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by AI. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips. "You do feel a little accountable to the AI," CEO Chris Breed said. "They're your friend. You've made an attachment." The rush to create faith-based generative AI is unsurprising, given the popularity of chatbots for everything from therapy and medical advice to companionship and romance. They range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI's ChatGPT for Catholics.
As religious AI tools become increasingly common, many people are reckoning with how these technologies shape their relationship to faith, authority, and spiritual guidance. Christian software engineer Cameron Pak developed criteria to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians—like that it must clearly identify itself as AI and "must not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture." There are other deal-breakers: "AI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive." Pak also developed a website featuring curated Christian apps that he believes meet the criteria, including a sermon translator and an AI coach designed to help users overcome lust. "AI, especially if you give it all the tools that it needs, it can be so helpful. But it also can be so dangerous," Pak said.
Some models have been shut down or overhauled because they generated misinformation or raised worries about data privacy, said Beth Singler, an anthropologist who studies religion and AI at the University of Zurich. Islam, for example, has "prohibitions against representations of humanoids," prompting discussions among some Muslims about whether AI in general should be "forbidden," Singler said. Ethical questions surrounding the creation of religious AI platforms are among the reasons beingAI's founder Jeanne Lim has not released its AI named Emi Jido—a nonhuman Buddhist priest—after years of development. "She's kind of like a little child," Lim said. "If you give birth to a child, you don't just throw them out to the world and then hope that they become good people. You have to train them and give them values."
Seiji Kumagai, a Buddhist theologian, believed AI and religion were incompatible. But he put aside his doubts when challenged by a monk in 2014 to help combat a decline in faith. His team developed BuddhaBot, which was trained solely on early Buddhist scriptures. Its most recent iteration, BuddhaBot Plus, also incorporates OpenAI's ChatGPT. Like Emi Jido, these chatbots are functioning but not yet publicly available. Graham Martin, a podcast host and atheist, tried an app called Text With Jesus. "It came up with very good answers," he said. But Martin was alarmed when AI-powered Jesus started encouraging him to upgrade to a premium version. "I grew up with ... Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and all that crowd. And all they had to do was get on TV once a week and tell you to send money," he said. "We've seen people around the world getting into emotional relationships with AIs. Now imagine that that's your lord and savior, Jesus Christ." Much more here.
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