I’M PRETTY SURE GEORGE LUCAS CREATED THX-1138 AS A WARNING, NOT A HOW-TO GUIDE: This church has an AI Jesus for confessions: ‘It gave me so much advice.’
Is this the mess-AI-iah?
Just in case artificial intelligence hasn’t been taking on enough jobs lately — now it’s replacing the almighty. A church in Switzerland is now using an AI hologram of Jesus to take confessions from Catholic worshippers, as seen in a wild viral video.
“I was surprised, it was so easy, and though it’s a machine, it gave me so much advice,” one awestruck worshipper told DW News while describing their experience with the Sermon-ator, located at St. Peter’s Church in Lucerne.
Dubbed Deus in Machina, the futuristic shrine features a confessional booth with a screen displaying the face of Jesus through the grate.
Before entering, robo-Jesus cautions, “Do not disclose personal information under any circumstances, use this service at your own risk, press the button if you accept.”
If the worshipper opts to proceed, the digitally-rendered visage interprets their words and generates a response with the animated face moving in sync with the words.
When questioned about why women aren’t allowed to serve as priests in the Catholic church, the digital son of God responded, “The scriptures teach that certain roles are defined within the church, each role and task has its place in God’s plan.”
Jesus’ cybernetic second coming was made possible by computer scientists and theologians from the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, who programmed the bot with New Testament and religious information found online, the Daily Mail reported.
If the programmers have a sense of humor, and some knowledge of obscure sci-fi movies, hopefully the AI confessional wraps things up by saying, “You are a true believer. Blessings of the state, blessings of the masses…work hard, increase production, prevent accidents and be happy.”