Religion of the algorithm rises as chatbots pretend to be Jesus

Thousands are flocking to apps and websites to talk to 'Jesus' - and companies profit. By Anné H Verhoef

- Anné H Verhoef

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is getting better at imitating human beings.

It can create things that previously only humans could produce, like music, texts and images. AI is now also being used to imitate God, through chatbots that simulate conversation with human users and can be accessed on websites and apps.

In Christianity, for example, there's AI Jesus, Virtual Jesus, Jesus AI, Text with Jesus, Ask Jesus and many others.

In other religions, the same development has taken place, with AI chatbots like the Buddhist Norbu AI and, in the Islam faith, Brother Junaid at Salaam World.

As a professor of philosophy and director of the AI Hub at North-West University, I recently conducted a study to explore these Jesus chatbots and discuss them critically.

To find out how AI is functioning in the religious space and identify some more general risks it may pose in future, I analysed five of the best-known and most used Jesus chatbots by asking them questions.

I found that they bring a new kind of challenge to religions.

First, the depictions of God are not only unabashed in their imitation and portrayal of themselves as God, they are also incredibly powerful. AI can come across as extremely convincing in intellect, word, sound and image.

Second, it's striking that no church has developed or endorses the Jesus chatbots in my study.

Third, for-profit companies being behind the chatbots means that they are driven by financial forces.

From a philosophical point of view, this is bad for Christianity because the line between the digitally visible Jesus and the omniscient but “invisible” God of Christianity is now blurred.

AI Jesus chatbots have the potential to become a powerful tool of ruthless manipulation by the companies behind them.

It will be difficult to hold them accountable and they may become superrich in the process.

Six questions about AI Jesus