The so-called Deus-in-machina project was described this way in an AP report:
"... people really talked with him in a serious way. They didn't come to make jokes," said chapel theologian Marco Schmid, who spearheaded the project. Most visitors were aged 40 to 70, and more Catholic respondents found the experience stimulating than did Protestant.
Schmid was quick to point out that the AI Jesus ... was an artistic experiment to get people thinking about the intersection between the digital and the divine, not substitute for human interaction or sacramental confessions with a priest, nor was it intended to save pastoral resources.
"For the people it was clear that it was a computer ... It was clear it was not a confession," Schmid said. "He wasn't programmed to give absolution or prayers. At the end, it was more summary of the conversation."
I am unclear about why Schmid thinks we need to think about "the intersection between the digital and the divine." Does he mean that we are to think about how we bring our sense of the divine to the digital world? That's fair. People have done that with art and technology since they drew the cave drawings in Spain.
Does the St. Peter's Chapel experiment show how AI is just another medium through which humans can express their understanding of the divine? Is the Jesus in the confessional experiment akin to Michaelangelo's marble or paint? Or John Donne's pen and paper? Or Bach's organ? Or the stones used by the cathedral builders in the Middle Ages? How is AI Jesus in the confessional different, if at all, from the rest of the art in the church?
Every time I think I have this figured out, I think of a new counterpoint. What stands in my way of embracing the idea of digital Jesus is thinking about the various Protestant Jesuses that are bound to come after this--the Hellfire Jesus, the Happy Clappy Jesus, and the Prosperity Jesu$$--Jesuses who simply regurgitate the theology of their respective denominations and give listeners a sense that they've heard the authentic last word.
Thoughts?
Soon or later there will be an AI app, "What would Jesus Do?"
ReplyDeleteJim likes to experiment with ChatGPT, make he can get it to answer some "What would Jesus do? questions.
I guess. We already have AI psychotherapists.
DeleteThe catechism of various Christian denominations effectively put Jesus in a box by distilling his teachings to searchable rules and regulations, something I am thinly about, since Jesus taught in parables that seemed designed to ward off that kind of black-and-white thinking.
Further reducing Christ's teachings to a WWJD decision tree strikes me as putting Jesus in an even smaller box.
That may be what the AI Jesus turns into--a kind of robo religious tract--though I don't think that's exactly what Schmid was hoping for with his Jesus.
For some reason this reminds me of a novel by Taylor Caldwell, "The Listener". The premise was that a philanthropist had built a small chapel in a park. There was no decoration, just a curtain across the front. People would come in and pour out their hearts. Each chapter was someone's story. Sometimes people would pull the curtain to see what was underneath after they had finished their prayer or "confession". What was underneath was a statue of Jesus. It seemed to me that the statue was superfluous, that the prayers had happened without the person knowing it was there.
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DeleteSounds interesting and familiar. I wonder if I read that a long time ago.
DeleteWhat kind of spiritual benefit might that kind of "confession" or outpouring have other than the relief associated with catharsis? And can true catharsis occur if there's not really anyone there?
I think they were just wanting someone to hear them. The statue maybe helped bring home that there actually was someone there.
DeleteDonne and Bach produced art that was rooted in their faith. AI Jesus is the creation of bazillions of processers and oceans of data that are all swizzled together in ways that humans can't fully explain. The engine that created it was trained to think and create in a particular way, including by prompts (instructions) provided by a human.
ReplyDeleteThere is a line of thought that Catholics like to approach God indirectly. Hence praying to saints rather than directly to God. And hence the sacraments, which are rooted in symbol and the material (matter). Maybe AI Jesus is being embraced as some other, new indirect pathway. I admit it feels a bit ersatz to me.
As a separate line of thought: It's becoming clear that some people aren't fully rooted in reality. Thus, young people establishing 'relationships' with AI bots.
It's hard to figure what will awaken someone's spiritual dimension. There are many people who will tell us that "The Chosen" is life-changing. I think we have to remain humble before this evidence of technologically-mediated spirituality.
Yah sure, humble is one approach.
DeleteI feel a bit like people are being manipulated as they are thru Pentecostal healer revivals (shown something fake to gin up faith). Also despite protests from creators that people know it's not really Jesus, how many walk away feeling a false sense of security (I confessed to AI Jesus so why go to the priest).
Maybe your and my responses show more about our own faiths than about AI Jesus. More evidence that Hell's a-waitin' for me!
My fear with AI has always been that some of us will be similar to the landed gentry in a Jane Austen novel, who have servants to do everything for them and don't really know how to do anything for themselves. The computer assisted age has already changed education, where learning spelling, grammar and the multiplication tables is not considered as important any more. Oh they learn them, but it isn't really impressed into their memories as much, to where they can recall them years later.. I don't think my kids ever learned to extract square root without a calculator; for sure they never used a slide rule or a log table. Which I guess isn't important. I think it is important for someone learning a foreign language to actually do the work of it.
DeleteJim mentioned Bach. He would be rolling over in his grave if people use AI to chew up his music and that of others, and spit it out as their own composition.
And worse off than the people who have AI do everything for them are the people who will still have to do the actual work of making the world work. AI is never going to fix our plumbing, or fix our roads, or take care of our kids at day care or our elderly parents in assisted care.
DeleteI have used computers intensely since the development of the IBM PC. But I still do arithmetic in my head or on paper at times. I like the tricks one develops to aid in the process. Even plain old arithmetic is different in my mind than in a machine. I am a living, conscious being and arithmetic and math are part of my inner space, not just functional. Analogous to cars which have produced a world not built around human beings who could walk or bike to where they need to go instead of getting in tons of metal. And now the billionaires want to restart nuclear power plants like Three Mile Island to feed the energy needs of AI. We don’t need that.
DeleteNew story in Washington Post this morning "AI friendships claim to cure loneliness. Some end in suicide." Linking with my "share" button in case it works: https://wapo.st/4gpIKit
ReplyDeleteOne encounter w AI Jesus isn't going to cause major harm, but in my own life, I find that online interactions underscore the fact that my in-person interactions have dwindled.
Very interesting movie that's quite hard to find, "Robot and Frank," in which an elderly man is set up with an AI attendant. Interesting twist at the end.
Oops, hit reply too quick. "Klara and the Sun," a novel by Lazio Ishiguro, is another interesting take on AI friends for adolescents in a future world. It humanizes the robots, dehumanizes the humans.
DeleteI found the AI robots in “Interstellar” to be likeable. They were the complete opposite of anthropomorphic in shape but were friendly, helpful and had a sense of humor. These qualities were adjustable during initial setup.
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