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A tech company is leveraging Americans\u2019 desire for a deeper connection with God by offering an AI-generated avatar of Jesus Christ that charges by the minute.<\/p>\n
The New York Post<\/em> reports<\/a> that the Southern California-based company Just Like Me allows users to join video calls with an AI-generated avatar of Jesus Christ. Like other religious AI tools emerging in the marketplace, the platform offers words of prayer and encouragement across multiple languages. The avatar remembers previous conversations, though its lip movements do not always synchronize perfectly with its speech.<\/p>\n Chris Breed, CEO of Just Like Me, described the attachment users can form with the technology. \u201cYou do feel a little accountable to the AI,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019re your friend. You\u2019ve made an attachment.\u201d<\/p>\n The surge in faith-based generative AI follows the broader popularity of chatbots designed for therapy, medical advice, companionship, and romance. Religious AI offerings now range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to multiple AI Jesus bots and Catholic alternatives to OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT. As these tools proliferate, many people are confronting how they shape relationships with faith, authority, and spiritual guidance.<\/p>\n Christian software engineer Cameron Pak has developed criteria to help believers evaluate apps designed for Christians. His standards require that such tools clearly identify themselves as AI and \u201cmust not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture.\u201d Pak also insists that \u201cAI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive.\u201d He created a website called faith.tools<\/a> featuring curated Christian apps he believes meet these standards, including a sermon translator and an AI coach for overcoming lust. \u201cAI, especially if you give it all the tools that it needs, it can be so helpful. But it also can be so dangerous,\u201d Pak said.<\/p>\n Beth Singler, an anthropologist at the University of Zurich who studies religion and AI, noted that some models have been shut down or revised after generating misinformation or raising data privacy concerns. Beyond practical issues, people from many faiths are wrestling with deeper philosophical questions about AI\u2019s appropriate role in religion. Singler pointed out that Islam has \u201cprohibitions against representations of humanoids,\u201d which has led some Muslims to discuss whether AI should be considered \u201cforbidden.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/a> Hall writes:<\/p>\n Undergirding all of this is something bigger than blasphemous bytes or attempts to deify AI. Beneath the surface of these public clashes between traditional theology and techno-secularism\u2019s worship of AI lies a heuristic fault line that has existed for centuries, one that will continue to be in conflict as the AI revolution unfolds.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n Read more at\u00a0the New York Post<\/em> here.<\/a><\/p>\n
Author Wynton Hall reveals in his instant bestseller,\u00a0Code Red: The Left, the Right, China, and the Race to Control AI<\/i><\/a><\/strong>, that AI\u2019s impact goes much farther than just the economy, in fact it reaches all the way to faith. The latest \u201cAI Jesus\u201d is just one of many AI applications attempting to either assist or manipulate humans\u2019 need for faith in their lives.<\/p>\n\n