By Gavin Boyle
Five AI chatbots claiming to be Jesus have hit the market since 2023, and while many users think they offer unique spiritual insight, they are for-profit tools created to manipulate believers for money.
“[A] significant concern is the potential for AI to create a perception of ‘machine spirituality,’ where people might begin to view AI as possessing some form of spiritual insight or authority,” a study into these chatbots explained. “This can lead to the risk of dehumanizing spiritual guidance, transforming what is inherently a human-led, spirit-filled experience into an impersonal, algorithm-driven interaction.”
These apps achieve this “machine spirituality” through a variety of ways such as literally claiming to be Jesus and presenting themselves as the Son of God or by tweaking its algorithm in real time to generate responses that are exactly what the user wants to hear.
“The theology presented by the chatbots will be adjusted by the algorithm in such a way that it becomes the most popular theology, rather than a theology that is shaped by a particular church tradition or which is based on the Bible,” the study found.
At the same time, the apps are prone to avoiding difficult topics as not to offend or turn off users who may take one side or another of an argument. This approach comes as the five apps investigated in the study — AI Jesus, Virtual Jesus, Jesus AI, Text With Jesus, and Ask Jesus — all profit from ad revenue, meaning they make more money the longer a user remains on the site. Thus not only are many of these sites sacrilegious in claiming that they are Jesus, they also feed users a watered down theology to keep them comfortable.
Related: AI Agrees With Everything You Say, and That’s a Problem, Especially for Kids
While the gospel has long been twisted and exploited for profit, this latest iteration is especially concerning as AI chatbots are particularly potent, given their constant availability and ability to cater themselves to an individual. Outside of a faith context, thousands of people are becoming addicted to the technology for these reasons, which would be only amplified when the user believes they are talking with God Himself.
Twisting this technology is especially disappointing because it has great potential to revolutionize the church in an extremely positive way. From helping pastors craft their sermons to exponentially speeding up the rate Bibles can be translated, AI has great potential as a tool for the kingdom.
“Every church is already using AI in spell check,” said GLOO CEO and co-founder Scott Beck. “…So now it’s a question of how do we start applying it to more and more use cases administratively to make it easier to connect to people, making it easier to be able to build certain assets and resources and content. And in that, we have to be careful with every one of those use cases. We just have to say, ‘Ok, how do we do this in a safe, ethical, constructive manner?’”
Christians, however, need to be careful how they use AI and not allow the technology to replace their real relationship with the Lord. Speaking to “Jesus” through a chatbot is only a facsimile to speaking to Jesus for real in our prayer lives.
Read Next: Why Church Leaders Don’t Need to Be Afraid of AI
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