We also understood this, although we never expected it in our wildest dreams: an artificial intelligence chatbot "held" a church service in a city in Germany.
In Nuremberg, hundreds of Protestants gathered to attend a service led by ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot. The chatbot asked the believers to get up from the pews and praise the Lord, reports Business Insider.
The AI, personified by the avatar of a bearded black man on a giant screen above the altar, then began preaching to the more than 300 people who had attended an experimental evangelical service that was almost entirely generated by AI. “Dear friends, I am honored to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year's Protestant Congress in Germany,” said the avatar.
The 40-minute service, including a sermon, prayers and music, was created by ChatGPT and Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher at the University of Vienna.
The chatbot emphasized to the participants not to be afraid of death.
While some found the experiment interesting, others felt it lacked the emotion and spirituality they were used to, as the AI-generated avatars appeared expressionless and spoke in a monotone. The event was seen as an intersection between technology and religious practice.
