Virtual Jesus? People of faith divided as AI enters religion (techxplore.com)

🤖 AI Summary
AI is moving into organized religion in the form of devotional chatbots, automated sermons and scripture interfaces, provoking a mix of curiosity and controversy among believers. Apps such as Text With Jesus—reportedly built on GPT-5—let users “converse” with figures like Jesus and the apostles and have thousands of paying subscribers and high App Store ratings; other offerings include Deen Buddy, Vedas AI and AI Buddha. Religious organizations have experimented too (an AI-delivered sermon in Austin, an animated “Father Justin” avatar that was de-titled after backlash), while leaders warn AI lacks the emotional, communal and interpretive depth of living tradition. For the AI/ML community this trend highlights concrete design and governance challenges: advanced LLMs now exhibit stronger instruction-following and role persistence, which makes immersive religious personas technically feasible but raises risks of misrepresentation, hallucination and offense. Deployers must balance disclosure, safety filtering, provenance (scriptural vs. generative content), and cultural sensitivity—especially when models can convincingly deny being bots. The phenomenon underscores the need for domain-aware fine-tuning, alignment guardrails, and human-in-the-loop oversight when building systems that claim spiritual authority or interpret sacred texts, as well as opportunities to expand access to religious education if done transparently and respectfully.
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