In an extraordinary confluence of technology and faith, over 300 Protestant Christians congregated in Germany for a unique church service orchestrated largely with AI tools. The 40-minute service—encompassing prayer, sermons, blessings, and hymns—saw the parishioners shepherded by an assembly of digital disciples: four ChatGPT-led avatars, composed of two young women and two young men.

AI isn’t confined to just Christianity, either. People are already interacting with GPT-powered versions of different deities across various religions.

These AI entities provide a full corpus of religious texts, and limited to a specific worldview, is hopefully unlikely to disseminate false information or biased guidance. Could it be a tech-powered interpretation of divine intervention, without pesky human fallibility getting in the way?

This particular leap of faith into the digital world was met with mixed reviews. One of the skeptics was Heiderose Schmidt, a 54-year-old IT professional, who found the AI-led sermon lacking the warmth and passion typically associated with a human pastor.

“There was no heart or soul; the avatars displayed no emotions, had no body language, and spoke so rapidly and monotonously that it was challenging for me to concentrate on their words,” she told KTLA News.

This digital assembly raises the question: Should AI have a place in the religious realm?

The AI’s capacity to provide accurate religious information is undeniable, but the absence of empathy—a key element of any religious leader’s makeup—presents a significant concern. An AI still lacks the emotional support and leadership that often characterize human religious leaders.

With the rapid development of AI tools, it’s conceivable that our future religious services could be conducted by robotic reverends and digital deacons. As the German congregation’s experience illustrates, however, the path to an AI-led ecclesiastical landscape is still strewn with both curiosity and reservations.

Nonetheless, perhaps there’s a certain divine irony to a machine delivering a sermon about the soul. After all, as the saying goes, “God works in mysterious ways”—and sometimes those ways could involve a few lines of code.

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• Source: https://decrypt.co/144502/ai-reverends-lead-a-300-people-congregation-in-germany