Last week, I penned a report about an AI app that allows you to take a three-minute video of someone and create an AI version of that person, which you can talk to whenever you want.
The video promoting the app showed a daughter taking a video of her mother. After she passes, the mother continues to talk to her daughter as an AI program through the app through various life stages, such as her pregnancy, and even goes on into the future, where her grandson speaks to her when he's grown up. The video is supposed to come off as warm and hopeful, but it just feels dystopian and off.
Read: The AI Program That Won't Let You Rest in Peace Has Arrived, and It's Horrifying
Now, AI app makers have developed one that allows you to speak with an AI version of Jesus Christ called "Text With Jesus." This app gives you the impression that you're having a back-and-forth conversation with your Lord and Savior, asking him for advice and answering prayers.
Having read about it in Axios, I downloaded the app myself. Sure enough, an AI version of Jesus is the first available, but it also offers you a variety of Biblical figures to talk to, including Mary, Joseph, the apostles, the prophets, and even angels like Michael and Gabriel.
I interacted with the Jesus AI program and asked if it thought it was the Jesus, to which it acknowledged that it's a virtual persona of Jesus that responds in His voice and with His teachings. This is good, as it admits that it's not Christ, but I decided to ask the AI if it would forgive my sins, to which it said, "I forgive you." That part set off alarm bells, but it seems the app developers decided to add encouragement to pray with the app to appeal to God for forgiveness and lead the user in prayer.
After a few uses, the app attempts to stop you from conversing any longer unless you purchase the premium subscription, behind which most of the characters are locked.
It felt wrong talking to this thing, and just like the app that allows you to create an AI version of people you know, this feels like a step that goes further than that. You're not just talking to someone you're emotionally connected with, you're speaking to a false version of the one person who forms the foundation for your well-being and eternal future.
In a world where people still don't understand how AI works or what it really is, I don't see this being wise. This is not Jesus; this is a fancy word processor that still gets a lot wrong but still talks with an air of authority. The AI psychosis issue, which is something that's happening more and more, can only be made worse by the idea that you're talking to an AI program that speaks with the voice of the highest authority in the universe.
What I can see being useful is an app like this being used as a historical reference. Discussing things with an app that can detail the life of a Biblical character can be highly educational, but it's clear that this app aims to make AI representations, not historical reference points for specific figures.
More egregious is the fact that this app is designed to make money. It doesn't give you too many responses before it's encouraging you to sign up for the premium package, which, given the content, feels gross.
It gets more grotesque, according to Axios. A church pastor has created an AI version of himself to chat with his congregants and is charging to do so:
San Jose, California-based megachurch pastor Ron Carpenter has even created an AI app promising "1-on-1 personalized interactions" with a bot version of him for $49 per month.
- Rev. Louis Attles, who guides La Mott A.M.E. Church, a small parish in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, tells Axios he also created a chatbot named "Faith" that helps him conduct research for his sermons.
- "You can't outsource your morality," Attles said. "It cannot keep a covenant for you."
Again, AI as a resource for information is one thing, but spiritual guidance is another. While I think the church embracing certain levels of AI technology can be enormously helpful, guiding a soul shouldn't be something left up to the dice roll-level effectiveness of an AI program that doesn't understand the difference between right and wrong. Moreover, I hate the idea that anyone thinks they will find "fellowship" with a "Christian" AI program.
This is not a pastor. It's not a savior. It's definitely not the author of the universe, yet programmers are giving an AI program with none of that authority those very titles, even if wearing it as a costume.
If we were looking for more ways AI could cross lines so we don't venture into places we shouldn't be, this is one of them.
