An AI Jesus has been installed at a church in Switzerland, so parishioners can confess their sins at any time.
The multilingual bot is housed in the confessional box at St. Peter's Chapel in the city of Lucerne, with a 'heavenly hologram' projected behind the latticed opening.
Its creators describe it as an experimental art installation aimed at exploring spirituality in the context of Artificial Intelligence.
St Peters' Chapel worked with the Immersive Realities Research Lab at the city's HSLU university on the experimental art installation, which aims to raise questions about the opportunities and risks involved with the use of artificial intelligence in pastoral care.
People can interact with a hologram representation of Jesus which reportedly addresses users with “Peace be with you, brother," regardless of the person's gender, and encourages them to discuss “whatever is troubling your heart today.”
However, the conversations with AI Jesus, who can speak 100 different languages, do not count as confessions, and engaging with the installation is not proper penance.
Marco Schmid of St Peter's Chapel told Swissinfo that the AI programme was trained using sacred scripture and theological texts from the internet, leaving open the possibility it could offer biblical interpretations or spiritual advice at odds with Church teaching.
However, he added that "in all previous tests, his answers have matched the theological view of St Peter’s church”.
