AI Jesus is ready to dispense advice from a booth in historic Swiss church

If you find yourself in the Swiss tourist destination of Lucerne with a guilty conscience, there's someone waiting at the historic Peterskapelle Catholic Church to hear your prayers - someone who cares, you might say: Your own personal AI Jesus. 

An "experimental art installation" dubbed "Deus in Machina" by the St. Peter's Church in Lucerne has seen a confessional booth outfitted with a vertically aligned monitor, a bunch of computer equipment and a big blue button for adventurous penitents willing to ask questions to AI Jesus (or is that JAIsus?) in one of 100 languages he's programmed to speak and respond in. 

Don't take AI Jesus' advice as a replacement for the sacrament of confession, however: the church notes on its website that the "heavenly hologram" is ready to hear thoughts, questions and dispense advice, but it "is explicitly not a confession." 

Jesus himself - his AI avatar, that is - even warns visitors to keep the PII to a minimum, according to a report by German international news outlet Deutsche Welle (DW). 

"Do not disclose personal information under any circumstances," AI Jesus warned reporters in the DW video. "Use this service at your own risk. Press the [big blue] button if you accept." 

According to DW's experience with the machine, it tended to ask more questions than give direct answers, like when AI Jesus was asked why women couldn't be priests in the Catholic church. AI Jesus noted that scripture allots different roles to men and women before flipping the script and asking how the visitor could "promote peace and harmony" in their life instead. 

Users still seemed rather taken with the AI confessional, with visitors DW spoke to noting they were surprised at its capabilities. 

"Though it was a machine, it gave me so much advice," one individual told the outlet in a video interview. "From a Christian perspective, I felt taken care of and felt really consoled." 

Personal Jesus, indeed.

Who developed our AI lord and savior?

Jesus' earthly digital avatar was created in a partnership between the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts' Immersive Realities Research Lab and Peterskapelle theological assistant Marco Schmid. 

According to Schmid, the project is all about starting a dialogue about the role of AI in religion. 

"What we're doing here is an experiment," Schmid told DW. "We wanted people to have a very concrete experience with AI, that way we have a foundation for talking about it and discussing it with one another."

In a German-language press release (which The Register has machine-translated for you with painstaking effort on Google's part) from August, when the installation was unveiled, Schmid further explained that the project was designed to get lapsed Catholics and other church skeptics in the door as well. 

"Curious people who are more distant from the Church are particularly likely to show great interest in exchanging ideas with the AI Jesus," Schmid said, while noting the title of the exhibit was deliberately provocative. 

Whether that rings true for the devout is unclear: Two-thirds of visitors who interacted with AI Jesus claimed to have had a "spiritual experience," according to DW, but others the outlet spoke to dismissed it as a gimmick. Some visitors have reportedly left condemnations of the project in Peterskapelle's guest book, as found by DW, warning that the project would have consequences for the church.

"We had all kind[s] of reactions," Schmid told The Register in response to emailed questions. "Critical ones, but also many interested and curious people."

"The reactions after the talks were mainly positive," Schmid said regarding a series of discussions and lectures about religion, AI, and the digital Jesus held throughout the exhibit's all-too-brief time on Earth.

"Most of the time somebody from our pastoral team was next to the installation so we could give a good and responsible context to the experiment," Schmid explained. "Without this context myself I wouldn't launch the AI-Jesus!"

It's not clear where AI Jesus got his theological education, though the church noted it was trained on "biblical, spiritual [and] theological content" that combines "historical, theological and modern ethical viewpoints." 

• AI Catholic 'priest' defrocked after recommending Gatorade baptism
• Tech bros are playing God, Catholic Church's AI priest complains
• Pope goes fire and brimstone on the dangers of AI
• Damn, even the Pope thinks AI and autonomous weapons need reining in

Even with its divine source of inspiration, AI Jesus isn't spiritually empowered to resist the usual problems with AI: The church noted that, while AI Jesus can provide unusual perspectives, and claimed to be "free from personal or cultural biases" that could influence its understanding of the Catholic faith" (inasmuch as it's programmed the right way, of course), and fast to respond and linguistically diverse, it can still make mistakes. 

"This list of advantages should not obscure the fact that an AI can also give incomprehensible, and in some cases even stupid and idiotic answers," the church warned. 

So maybe don't take it too personally, or seriously, if AI Jesus offers some questionable advice.

Deus in Machina wrapped up in late October, Schmid told us, and Peterskapelle plans to hold a dialogue on the results next week. Schmid also said he sees a role for AI in the future of pastoral care. ®