A parish church in Switzerland has introduced an “experimental art installation” into the confessional in which people can interact with an artificial intelligence program meant to imitate Christ.
The installation, titled Deus in Machina, was introduced in St. Peter’s Chapel, the oldest Catholic church in the city of Lucerne, in August ahead of the parish’s centenary this month. The installation will culminate in a presentation and discussion of the project’s results to be held on November 27.
According to the parish website, the program was conceived by Philipp Haslbauer and Aljosa Smolic of the Immersive Realities Center at Hochschule Luzern and Marco Schmid, a resident theologian at the parish.
Installed in one of the parish confessionals, people can interact with a hologram representation of Jesus which, according to one user account, addresses users with “Peace be with you, brother” regardless of the sex of the person and encourages them to discuss “whatever is troubling your heart today.”
The program encourages people to “think critically about the boundaries of technology in the context of religion,” according to the team, who have also insisted that putting the installation in a confessional was a practical decision meant to encourage “moments of intimacy” with the hologram, but not meant to suggest Catholics attempt to use the program as a substitute for the sacrament of penance.
According to Schmid, the AI program has been trained in sacred scripture and on theological texts taken from the internet, leaving open the possibility it could offer biblical interpretations or spiritual advice at odds with Church teaching.
But “in all previous tests, his answers have matched the theological view of St Peter’s church,” Schmid said in an interview with the website Swissinfo.
The parish also has human staff on hand and close to the installation, with whom visitors are encouraged to speak, if they want a more human interaction or to give feedback on the installation.
Schmidt said that he was not bothered by reports that the program gave “trite,” “clichéd” answers in response to spiritual questions, reportedly reminiscent of a “motivational calendar.”
“I’m glad that the avatar still comes across to a certain extent as a technical object,” he said, stressing it was not meant to replace real human dialogue. “At the same time, the answers it gives are also fascinating. So there’s plenty to talk about when it comes to AI in a religious context.”
While the installation appears to have garnered some interest at the parish, the decision to use the program to simulate Christ, albeit without pretensions to making it authentically human, let alone divine, is still likely to attract some controversy.
The “experimental art installation” in Lucerne is one of a spate of local Catholic initiatives using artificial intelligence in recent months.
Last month, a church in Poland debuted what it called the first “nanochapel” in the city of Poznań, in which parishioners can use a special app to access a 24-hour space for prayer and human interaction, but which also comes equipped with an AI "assistant" powered by the ChatGPT program which users can ask questions about the Catholic faith.
In 2023, the developers of Magisterium AI trained an AI robot on a database of 456 Church documents, including Scripture the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the Code of Canon Law, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 90 encyclicals, seven apostolic constitutions, and 26 apostolic exhortations.
That project was backed by the rector of the Pontifical Oriental Institute, who serves as chair of the AI’s “scholarly advisory committee.”
While the organizers of the “AI Jesus” project have been clear they would not want people mistaking the “installation” for a person, other Catholic AI projects which seek to ape person-to-person interaction have hit significant problems.
Featuring avatar-priest character “Fr. Justin,” which was designed to answer questions about the Catholic faith using material from the Catholic Answers library of articles, talks, and apologetics tracts, the program quickly became controversial, with hundreds of Catholics criticizing it online.
Some said the priest avatar was inappropriate, misleading, or just plain creepy. Some said the priest simulated virtual sacraments — indeed, “Fr. Justin” gladly heard a “confession” submitted by The Pillar before attempting to give spiritual guidance and reciting the words of absolution.
Other critics said that the AI apologetics project leant too heavily into unreliable, controversial, and still-confusing technology.
In October, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences held a conference in Rome to discuss AI and its potential impact and implications for the Church and society.
That conference followed previous Vatican-sponsored meetings on the subject.
In 2019, the Center for Digital Culture at the Pontifical Council for Culture sponsored discussion groups on AI. The discussions culminated in a book-length study titled “Encountering AI: Ethical and Anthropological Investigations.”
