Photo by Peter Diem, Lukagesellschaft
A traditional Roman Catholic confessional looks as heavy as sin itself, the dark wood carved deep. You enter and kneel, but the kneeler never has quite enough room for your knees, which throws you off balance from the start. Velvet curtains rustle, then the metal grate slides open: God is listening.
God, through the ears and lips of a shadowy, silhouetted priest who may or may not respond with a loving, open heart and ready forgiveness. Either way, you will have opened your heart, and its darkest secrets will have been heard.
Can an AI Jesus sub in, draining the sacrament of angst?
For all its flaws and oft-surreal dogma, Catholicism has been loudly praised by psychologists because the sacrament of confession allows catharsis and promises redemption. No one need hate themselves forever. Guilt can be atoned; stains on one’s character can be wiped clean.
The practice of confession, later rechristened “reconciliation,” is ancient. But this fall, Peter’s Chapel, the oldest church in Lucerne, Switzerland, installed an AI Jesus in a confessional. The avatar, a hologram, was not there to “hear confessions” and grant absolution, but to engage in discussion. Often it asked visitors, “What is troubling your heart today?”
They answered.
The experiment is now over; the installation was temporary, but perhaps prophetic. Its title was Deus in Machina, a play on deus ex machina, God from the machine, which refers to an unexpected plot device that saves a hopeless situation. This God is in the machine—and could also be invoked, someday soon, to save us from a hopeless situation.
AI Jesus was designed to encourage people to “think critically about the boundaries of technology in the context of religion.” Few projects could be more important. Yet I suspect the avatar, because it was skillfully created, is more likely to fan demand for confessing to a bot. Think about it: AI Jesus does not guzzle the Communion wine, leer at young widows, or fiddle altar boys; he will never give an excessive penance (“One hundred Hail Marys!”) simply because he is cranky that day. There will be no sharp intake of breath to signal shock; no knowing looks later because he recognized your voice; no lectures about the geological era since your last confession.
As stressed, these experimental conversations were not meant to be real confessions; no one was shriven. The Immersive Realities Research Lab placed AI Jesus in a confessional only because the team hoped that the setting would encourage “moments of intimacy.”
Indeed it did. In just two months, more than 1,000 people interacted with AI Jesus, who speaks at least one hundred languages (probably more by now) and is well versed in scripture. His image replicates that of creator Philipp Haslbauer, so Jesus has the usual White skin and European features. Nonetheless, people from China, Viet Nam, and the Middle East flocked to meet him. Some visitors found his responses profound and the experience deeply engaging; others winced at his use of shallow, tired clichés. I suspect that when a question was too ambiguous, subtle, or unusual, he just spat out the easiest answer. Which sounds rather…human.
Priests are, I gather, in short supply. Will something that started as an art installation become a practical substitute? I can imagine the arguments in favor: this promises total anonymity, no need to furtively visit a different parish to confess without risking recognition. Psychologically, an AI Jesus could sail you past denial, extract the whole truth, lift the paralyzing shame. And AI Jesus already knows scripture and doctrine far better than any human.
But what happens to spiritual forgiveness, I wonder, when it has no human conduit? Can we trust it? Will it feel any different than shrugging and forgiving ourselves? It can be cathartic to pour out your regrets or worries to a dog, or a pine tree deep in the forest, but you do not expect forgiveness. That balm can only come from, or through, another human being.
AI Jesus, generated by AI
Years ago, I covered something called The Forum, one of those large-group encounter things that grew out of est and other esoteric teachings. Much of the weekend felt hyperemotional and manipulative, but it climaxed by sending people out to call anyone they had hurt, anyone they needed to reconcile with. Those who received these abrupt, intense phone calls were no doubt thrown, but the attendees who felt forgiven came back glowing. They had said their piece and been heard; they had heard a response—personal, specific, rich with emotion—that finally brought them peace.
Quiet your mind all you like; in the end, peace is something we have to give each other. Social animals, we crave other people’s acceptance, forgiveness, understanding. Yet more and more, we run from crowds and hide from strangers. Quite a lot of Catholics are still “going to Mass” virtually, a leftover from COVID they find delightful because they need not dress, get in the car, and risk brushing up against difference, sin, or germs.
AI Jesus is not alone. In Japan, a robot called Pepper conducts cost-effective Buddhist funeral rites. In India, a godbot speaks in the voice of Krishna, giving Hindus spiritual advice. And last year, hundreds of people attended an experimental Lutheran church service in Fuerth, Germany, that was created and conducted by Chat GPT. Theologian Jonas Simmerlein had conceived the idea, but what happened after that, he said, was 98 percent from the chatbot.
Projected above the altar, the avatar of a bearded Black man asked people to rise and praise the Lord. “Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year’s convention of Protestants in Germany,” the avatar said. It preached about “leaving the past behind, focusing on the challenges of the present, overcoming fear of death.”
A young pastor who had brought a group of teenagers from his congregation said, “I was positively surprised how well it worked.” All he missed, he added, was emotion and spirituality.
Emotion and spirituality. The heart of any religious experience. Without them, a church service is a lecture with some readings and a singalong. Spirituality comes when the divine is filtered through human consciousness. Emotion joins humans together. Religious services are meant to gather people. And confession is meant to reconcile them, restoring all to full participation in the community.
We are dazzled by our technology’s ability to mimic our forms and marshal our facts at instantaneous speed. So dazzled, in fact, that we keep asking the tech to do the very things it cannot do, was never meant to do: love us, arouse us, forgive us. What it gives back instead is pro forma, superficially competent, incredibly fast and facile. We grin, delighted, as though a precocious chimp has figured out and aped our mannerisms. Freed from risk, we happily forget how ludicrous it is to place a bot in a pulpit or a confessional—or any other place where being human is the point.
Read more by Jeannette Cooperman here.
