In the confessional of the Lucerne Peters Chapel, visitors had the opportunity for over two months to interact with a Jesus avatar on a screen. This was explicitly not a replacement for confession. The installation of the screen with the Jesus hologram in the confessional was rather an attempt to promote “moments of intimacy” with the hologram.
The art installation, named “Deus in Machina,” was a collaboration between the Peters Chapel and a team from the “Immersive Realities Research Lab” at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts. The idea behind the art project was to think critically about the limits of technology in the context of religion. The project’s boundaries were tight, as visitors were asked not to disclose private information.
“We recorded around 900 conversations from people of all ages,” said theologian Marco Schmid, who led the project. The conversations were anonymized and transcribed. An evaluation of the art project found that many people who spoke with Jesus wanted to have serious conversations, and many were deeply moved. Two-thirds reported having a spiritual experience.
This was despite the fact that the responses from AI Jesus were sometimes very formulaic and repetitive. A conversation between the digital Son of God and a news agency seems to confirm this. The technology was quoted as saying, “All knowledge and wisdom ultimately come from God. If used wisely, AI can indeed be a tool to explore the wonders of creation, deepen our understanding of the Holy Scriptures, and foster connection between people.”
During its brief existence, the AI Jesus could communicate in 100 languages. It was based on ChatGPT-4o, and voice recognition was done through Whisper. The language model was trained with content from the New Testament. The interactive avatar appeared as a young man with long hair, wearing a modern black sweater on the screen.
This is not the first experiment with AI in the church. In 2023, a chatbot conducted a service at the Protestant Church Congress in Nuremberg. The Vatican is also aware of the rapid development of AI and has appointed a Franciscan monk and former engineer as a papal advisor for AI.
Although the art project in the Lucerne church was presented as a success, there are no plans for the return of AI Jesus. A revival of AI Jesus would require “deep reflection,” according to Schmid.