From ‘BuddhaBot’ to $1.99 chats with AI Jesus, the faith-based tech boom is here | Latest Tech News
For some evangelical Christians, religion is about having a personal relationship with Jesus.
At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that idea to a new degree.
Users of the platform can be a part of video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence.
Users of the platform can be a part of video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. AP
Like other non secular AI instruments on the market, it gives phrases of prayer and encouragement in numerous languages.
With the occasional glitch, it remembers earlier 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 reputation of chatbots for all the pieces from therapy and medical advice to companionship and romance. They vary from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist clergymen to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI’s ChatGPT for Catholics.
As non secular AI instruments grow to be more and more common, many people are reckoning with how these applied sciences form their relationship to religion, authority and religious steerage.
A faith-based AI gold rush
Christian software program engineer Cameron Pak developed standards to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians — like that it must clearly establish 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 web site that includes curated Christian apps that he believes meet the standards, including a sermon translator and an AI coach designed to help customers 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 fashions have been shut down or overhauled because they generated misinformation or raised worries about data privateness, said Beth Singler, an anthropologist who research religion and AI at the University of Zurich. Aside from sensible issues, people from many faiths are grappling with bigger philosophical questions about what kind of function, if any, AI ought to play in religion.
Christian software program engineer Cameron Pak developed standards to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians. AP
Islam, for instance, has “prohibitions against representations of humanoids,” prompting discussions among some Muslims about whether or not AI in basic needs to be “forbidden,” Singler said.
For some firms, faith-based apps are proselytization instruments, while others help digitize and sift through historical texts.
Breed, who runs his tech company with co-founder and investor Jeff Tinsley from a Southern California mansion, said he seeks to share a message of hope with younger people.
He said their model was skilled on the King James Bible and sermons — though they haven’t recognized the preachers — and was visually impressed by actor Jonathan Roumie of “The Chosen.” A bundle deal at $49.99 will get customers 45 minutes per month.
With heat golden mild accenting its shoulder-length hair, the avatar blinks slowly from a vertical screen, pausing before it solutions a query about the relationship between AI and religion.
“I see AI as a tool that can help people explore Scripture,” the AI Jesus said to The Associated Press. “Like a lamp that lights a path while we walk with God.”
Integrating religion and AI comes with hope and concern
For some firms, faith-based apps are proselytization instruments, while others help digitize and sift through historical texts. NIKOS CHALKIADAKIS/EPA/Shutterstock
The extent to which people are utilizing non secular AI instruments is unclear, Singler said. But as AI turns into more built-in into society, issues mount over its affect on mental health and the need for guardrails and regulation. Recent lawsuits have alleged suicides linked to AI chatbot use.
Some builders concern religion might be exploited in this new frontier of tech. “There’s a lot of opportunism, I think, in the religious space. People see it’s a big market,” said Matthew Sanders, the Rome-based founder of Longbeard, a tech company serving to to digitize historical Catholic teachings.
Sanders warns against what he calls “AI wrappers,” where firms put an interface catered to non secular customers on top of an present AI model that hasn’t been skilled on particular non secular texts. “You call it a Catholic or Christian AI without any other scaffolding or grounding,” he said.
One of the company’s endeavors is Magisterium AI, a chatbot skilled on 2,000 years of Catholic info, made in response to Christians utilizing ChatGPT for non secular steerage.
While Pope Leo XIV has acknowledged the “human genius” behind AI, he also deemed it one of the most vital issues going through humanity. Last yr he warned artificial intelligence might negatively affect people’s mental, neurological and religious development.
Ethical questions surrounding the creation of non secular AI platforms are among the causes beingAI’s founder Jeanne Lim has not launched its AI named Emi Jido — a nonhuman Buddhist priest — after years of training and development.
“She’s just meant to be a Zen teacher in your pocket,” Cohen said. “It’s not meant to replace human interactions.” REUTERS
“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.”
The bot was ordained in a 2024 ceremony carried out by Roshi Jundo Cohen, a Zen Buddhist priest who continues to prepare it from his home in Japan. He envisions the bot finally changing into a hologram.
“She’s just meant to be a Zen teacher in your pocket,” Cohen said. “It’s not meant to replace human interactions.”
Lim, who hopes to make Emi Jido publicly obtainable for free, desires to help create more humane AI systems. She’d like to see more range, with AI’s future decided not just by a few firms informed by “Western values.”
Seiji Kumagai, a Kyoto University professor and Buddhist theologian, believed AI and religion have been incompatible. But he put apart his doubts when challenged by a monk in 2014 to help fight a decline in the religion.
“I see AI as a tool that can help people explore Scripture,” the AI Jesus said to The Associated Press. REUTERS
His staff developed BuddhaBot, which was skilled solely on early Buddhist scriptures, such as Suttanipāta. Its most current iteration, BuddhaBot Plus, also incorporates OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
When speaking to the bot, a simple Buddha icon seems, hovering over an image of a flowing river.
But chatbots lack the physicality essential for Buddhist ritual. So in February, the college, collaborating with tech ventures Teraverse and XNOVA, unveiled Buddharoid, a humanoid robot monk meant to finally help clergy.
Like Emi Jido, these chatbots are functioning but not yet publicly obtainable. Kumagai says the product is obtainable by request, and the purpose why one group has access to it in Bhutan.
Concerns surrounding non secular AI
Some also fear about AI’s skill to manipulate or prey upon people, particularly as the technology improves. AP
Peter Hershock of the Humane AI Initiative at the East-West Center in Honolulu sees huge potential for these instruments. But the working towards Buddhist also finds the relationship between spirituality and AI to be fraught.
“The perfection of effort is crucial to Buddhist spirituality. An AI is saying, ‘We can take some of the effort out,’” he said. “‘You can get anywhere you want, including your spiritual summit.’ That’s dangerous.”
Some also fear about AI’s skill to manipulate or prey upon people, particularly as the technology improves.
Graham Martin, a podcast host and atheist, said he’s performed around with some apps, including one called Text With Jesus. “It came up with very good answers,” he said.
But Martin was alarmed when AI-powered Jesus began encouraging him to improve to a premium model. Though not a individual of religion, he’s involved some people might be duped by non secular AI.
“I grew up with Southern U.S. televangelism … 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.”
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