St. Peter’s Church in Lucerne, Switzerland, has created an Artificial Intelligence Hologram of Jesus for their confessional booth, allowing visitors to give their confessions, ask for advice, or have their theological questions answered by “Deus in Machina” (God in a Machine) in over 100 languages.
We’ve previously written on the ways that churches are incorporating AI into their services
The AI confessional features a screen with the face of Jesus through a grate. Before the worshiper enters, the robotic version of Christ issues a warning: “Do not disclose personal information under any circumstances, use this service at your own risk, press the button if you accept.” If the visitor agrees, the digital representation of Jesus listens and responds, with the animated face moving in sync with its speech.
The AI is powered by data from the New Testament and other religious texts, programmed by computer scientists and theologians at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts.
Marco Schmid, the theologian at St Peter’s Chapel who spearheaded the monstrosity of a project, said his goal is to help people think about the way they relate to Jesus and understand their faith, explaining:
‘What we’re doing here is an experiment, we wanted to launch the discussion by letting people have a very concrete experience with AI, that way we have a foundation for talking about it and discussing it with one another.’
He also envisions a day when AI could take over much of the counseling and pastoral care duties, because “accessibility is easy, 24 hours a day, so it has abilities that pastors don’t.”
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