Worshippers likely considered communicating with Jesus as an expression of faith rather than an actual dialogue when they first prayed at St. Peter’s Chapel 300 years ago.
Three centuries later, worshippers can now communicate with a computer-generated avatar of the Son of God in Lucerne, Switzerland’s oldest church.
A group from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts’ Immersive Realities Research Lab, along with chapel theologian Marco Schmid, created Deus in Machina.
“A lot of people came to talk to me,” Schmid said, adding that the machine had recorded some 900 interactions with people of all ages.
According to Schmid, the people’s genuine and serious conversations with him were what was most fascinating to observe.
The machine, which was created using artificial intelligence software, was the result of two months of joint testing.
A realistic avatar on a computer screen provides guidance based on biblical text in over 100 languages when participants enter a confessional booth.
Visitors must, however, understand that their interaction with the avatar was at their own risk and are cautioned against disclosing personal information.
“This is not a confession; our aim is not to replicate a traditional confession,” Schmid stated. Visitors discussed a variety of subjects, including the existence of God, war and suffering in the world, loneliness, the afterlife, and genuine love.
Also discussed were the Catholic Church’s stance on homosexuality and matters such as the incidents of sexual abuse it has encountered.
According to a summary of the experiment published by the Catholic parish of Lucerne, the majority of visitors identified as Christians, but there were also agnostics, atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, and Taoists.
Although most of them spoke German, the AI Jesus was able to converse in around 100 languages, including Chinese, English, French, Hungarian, Italian, Russian, and Spanish.
Professor Philipp Haslbauer, who worked on the technological aspect of the project, stated that no special precautions were taken because the technology can react quite effectively to contentious subjects.
“If you read comments on the internet about it, some are very negative which is scary,” he remarked, referring to the fact that some people on social media have branded the project heretical or the devil’s work.
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