Future of religion? Hundreds attend Church service conducted by ChatGPT

Artificial Intelligence is breaking new barriers by the day. Hundreds of worshippers at St. Paul's Church in Fürth, Bavaria, Germany recently attended a service, entirely conducted by AI with the sermon being presented by the AI chatbot ChatGPT.

An hour before the service even began, people formed a long queue outside the 19th-century, neo-Gothic building to witness what the AI could deliver.

The chatbot's sermon majorly focused on themes surrounding leaving one's past behind, living in the present, not being afraid of death and maintaining faith in Jesus Christ. Notably, four different AI avatars took turns to impart the sermons and lead the service.

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"Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year's convention of Protestants in Germany," one of the AI avatarssaid.

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Conceptualising the service

The entire service, attended by over 300 people and lasting 40 minutes was conceptualised by 29-year-oldJonas Simmerlein, a University of Vienna theologian and philosopher. It was part ofDeutscher Evangelischer Kirchentag - a biennial event, much popular in this part of the world that attracts tens of thousands of devout Christians. This year's issues include climate change the war in Ukraine and AI.

“I conceived this service but actually I rather accompanied it, because I would say about 98% comes from the machine,” Simmerlein was quoted as saying by The Associated Press.

The scholar fed "Now is the time" - one of the slogans for this year's gathering to the chatbot and asked it to develop the sermon along these lines.

“I told the artificial intelligence ‘We are at the church congress, you are a preacher… what would a church service look like?’” saidSimmerlein who alsoasked for psalms to be included, as well as prayers and a blessing at the end.

“You end up with a pretty solid church service,” he added.

Nosoul in the AI avatars

However, not everyone was impressed by the 'futuristic' service with one of the churchgoers saying it lacked 'soul'.

“There was no heart and no soul,” said, 54-year-old Heiderose Schmidt who works in IT. “The avatars showed no emotions at all, had no body language and were talking so fast and monotonously that it was very hard for me to concentrate on what they said.”

EvenSimmerlein conceded that technology lacked the personal touch which differentiates it from humans.

"The pastor is in the congregation, she lives with them, she buries the people, she knows them from the beginning. Artificial intelligence cannot do that. It does not know the congregation."

Since ChatGPT made news headlines last year, there is a consensus among clergy that technology can write a passable competent sermon but it can't replicate the passion of actual preaching.

(With inputs from agencies)

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