Millions of people are "praying to God and worshiping Buddha" in ChatGPT

"Dear friends, I am honored to stand here and preach to you as an artificial intelligence," says an AI-generated black bearded figure preaching to more than 300 people in front of him on a huge screen in the center of the church.

The 40-minute worship service, all performed by ChatGPT, including officiating, preaching, praying, and singing hymns.

ChatGPT preaches to believers

It was an experiment in "technology" and "religion," initiated by the theologian and philosopher Jonas Simelein of the University of Vienna, and before the service began, admiring people lined up at the entrance of the church.

People often think that technology and religion are two completely different things, but the fact is that in the past, it was thought that the sermon words that condensed the experience and knowledge of pastors and represented "divine calling" could also be generated by AI.

Many religious figures and technical ethics researchers participated in this experiment, and saw that a computer completed the work that originally belonged to a missionary in just a few seconds, and some people found it difficult to accept that "this has no heart and no soul"; But others see the possibility of using artificial intelligence in religion, "AI technology may be able to help believers who cannot come to church to experience worship in person."

Optimistically, in the digital age where "clothing, food, housing and transportation" have been "occupied" by various Internet products, the spiritual and cultural needs of religion, as a land to be reclaimed and deeply cultivated, may contain more possibilities...

01

AI "invades" religion

Go to the temple to burn incense, open the bracelets and Buddha statues, stand in a long line, bend down and kneel with your hands folded, and then meditate on the voice. You may be able to "become enlightened" in the present or future moment, but usually the Buddha does not seem to give you a "response" until the wish is fulfilled and the confusion is lifted.

FOR MANY "NOT SO RELIGIOUS" BELIEVERS, GOING TO THE TEMPLE TO SPEND MONEY ON BURNING INCENSE MAY BE TOO EXPENSIVE, SO WHEN HOTOKE AI APPEARED, PEOPLE CROWDED THE SITE.

HOTOKE AI'S WEBSITE PAGE

HOTOKE means "Buddha" in Japanese, the website is a Buddha simulator equipped with ChatGPT, no need to register an account, just search for HOTOKE AI in Google, open the website, ask your confusion in the inquiry bar, no matter what the problem, this artificial intelligence-based AI Buddha will give you the answer very quickly. The website has answered more than 13,000 questions in less than 5 days since its launch, and so far, 390,000 people have confided their sincerity to AI Buddha.

AI makes the traditional process of "asking the Buddha ask" simple and efficient, all you have to do is a few keystrokes, and what you will get is a 24-hour online AI Buddha avatar that can always give you a clear response or advice in seconds.

Regardless of whether it can really perfectly replicate the spiritual soothing effect of the "true Buddha", in a sense, at least it does "respond to requests".

Kazuma Ieiri, the founder of HOTOKE AI, is the founder and CEO of the Japanese crowdfunding platform CAMPFIRE and the representative director of the venture capital company partyfactory. In his personal blog, Kazuma Ieiri wrote that he originally wanted to make an AI consultant, but after the release of ChatGPT, he still wanted to provide some more interesting services, so he added Buddhist elements that had a great influence on him, and developed the program into the AI avatar of "Buddha".

Kazuma Ieiri's own positioning of HOTOKE AI is "a disturbing counseling service based on Buddhist teachings", "Buddhism is one thing, and advice from a psychological point of view is another".

WHEN WE ASKED AI BUDDHA HIMSELF "WHAT DO YOU THINK OF AI BUDDHA", HOTOKE AI'S ANSWER WAS EQUALLY MODEST AND CAUTIOUS, "AI BUDDHA IS ESSENTIALLY A TECHNOLOGICAL TOOL, IT CANNOT COMPLETELY REPLACE REAL DHARMA AND HUMAN EMOTIONAL COMMUNICATION", IT EVEN CAUTIONED: "DO NOT RELY TOO MUCH ON IT, BUT USE IT AS AN AUXILIARY TOOL".

How does "AI Buddha" view "AI Buddha"

IN FACT, AI HAS LONG "INVADED" RELIGION IN THE FORM OF AUXILIARY TOOLS, BUT IN THE PAST, DEVELOPERS WERE NOT AS "BOLD" AS HOTOKE AI, AND THE FUNCTIONS WERE SIMPLER.

Born in 2018, Bible KJV is a digital Bible app for Christians that not only helps believers browse the Bible more easily, but also provides features such as regular Bible pushes, morning and evening prayers, and customized Bible study plans.

In Bible KJV, AI only undertakes the function of simple knowledge quiz and generating "day signature", the so-called "day signature" refers to a beautiful picture with Bible content, users can share it to other social platforms with one click from within the app, so although the proportion of AI is not large, it can be regarded as indirectly helping believers to preach.

Bible KJV has had good results since its launch, and its downloads peaked during the pandemic, according to Sensor Tower, its Android app was downloaded more than 5 million times worldwide in January 2022, and entered the top 100 downloads list in the United States, Brazil, and the Philippines, which have a high proportion of Christian users.

02

The emergence of a market for "religious applications"

The explosion of users of HOTOKE AI and Bible KJV is not accidental, in fact, in recent years, various technologies and Internet products are accelerating into the huge application market of religion.

A domestic company that does applications overseas, in 2018 has launched a number of different types of apps overseas, and after a few years, the company was surprised to find that the best overseas app turned out to be a religious app.

A friend who does social applications to go overseas also told Geek Park that he found that in many social apps in the Middle East, many religious people will spontaneously set up voice rooms for online prayer, "The track of religion is currently in great demand, but there are few products, and it is still a blue ocean."

Some of the pioneers in the religious application track have already achieved good results.

Products for Christians, in addition to the "electronic Bible" such as the Bible KJV mentioned above, there are also religious applications for "prayer mindfulness" such as Hallow.

Hallow topped the App Store as the third largest total downloads

With 10 million downloads and 225 million prayers worldwide, Hallow was the third most downloaded app on the App Store and the first religious faith app to break into the top 10. This product once received $40 million in Series B financing in 2019, followed by a $50 million Series C financing in the first half of this year, raising a total of $105 million.

Islam, also one of the world's three major religions, is tracked by OpenMediation, and apps such as Quran Indonesia and Muslim Pro that provide prayer time reminders, mosque maps, religious texts, and find a partner are also popular in Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

Religious beliefs are not developed in China, and such scientific and technological products have little attention in China for the rapid development of overseas, but the meaning behind them is worth thinking about.

In the past two decades, in the process of digitalization of everything, mobile applications have changed the lifestyle of billions of people around the world, and people's "clothing, food, housing and transportation" have undergone tremendous changes, but in the spiritual territory of human beings, there have been no phenomenal products and applications.

A large part of the reason is that in the past, people's evaluation of religious products has always been: "People should not pray into the iPhone, no technology should replace the role of the pastor, the prayer process must be present with the believer and the pastor at the same time, not replaced by any IT application"...

Such questioning voices have deep-rooted religious roots. In The City of God, there is a saying that "apart from a life of supernatural virtue and the attainment of immortal happiness", human beings cannot provide any form of solace for a life destined to misery. This means that in the early days of human technology, for religious people, technology, no matter how advanced, could only lead mankind into the abyss of depravity, not salvation.

But apparently, times have changed.

In 2015, according to a Pew Research Center survey, almost all Americans (96%) considered it unacceptable to use mobile phones in churches, and in 2023, Hallow received 10 million downloads as a representative of such apps; Religious apps attracted only $6.1 million in investment in 2016, while research firm PitchBook Data shows that capital investment in such companies has grown significantly over the past few years, reaching $80.2 million in 2020 and a record $175.3 million in 2021, a nearly 30-fold increase in five years.

From completely resisting technology to trying to accept, from the beginning of religious people using technological tools to complete daily affairs, to religious leaders using the Internet to expand the influence of missionaries, and now religious apps play an important role in believers' religious activities, people's acceptance of technology "invading" spiritual territory is increasing, and the degree of optimization and improvement of religious activities by technology has gradually deepened.

As the mainstream technology wave of the new era, AI's impact on the religious application market and itself will be a step in the update.

03

It is a breakthrough, but also a hidden worry

In recent years, some simple forms of artificial intelligence have been used in religious affairs and religious research, and the emergence of "generative artificial intelligence" represented by ChatGPT at the end of last year has brought technology deeper into religion.

Generative AI has changed the way people approach religion and proselytize, and a Christian missionary abroad listed in his article how generative AI can bring to religious affairs:

Intelligent chatbots can provide more immediate, clear, and comprehensive feedback by learning a large number of scriptures, books, and articles on their own, which is superior to traditional methods of collecting information, both in terms of convenience and interactivity.

Google products like Docs and Gmail can now help users with a variety of basic writing tasks, and religious people can also use these tools to write sermons.

Image generation apps like Dall-E can help many churches who can't afford to pay for custom graphic design generate relevant promotional images; AI that automatically generates audio and video will also make it easier for missionaries to produce high-quality Bible study videos and audio.

……

This is another change in the relationship between technology and religion. For technology people, according to Pew Research Center statistics, 84% of the world's population identifies with religious beliefs, which means that starting from the spiritual needs, combined with the user's religious habits, and integrating practical product functions, there will be more space for product innovation in the future.

Generative AI has changed the way people approach religion and proselytize

But for religious people, their attitudes are more contradictory and complex.

"I am grateful that ChatGPT has greatly accelerated the efficiency of my sermon manuscript." One pastor wrote about his thoughts on ChatGPT: "But AI chatbots are just tools, not a substitute for human explanations. The complexity of the Bible requires expertise, insight, and a theological understanding. So while AI chatbots provide valuable insights, engaging with trained theologians and scholars remains essential for a fuller understanding of the Bible."

In a Christian evangelical statement on AI, it reads: "We recognize that AI will enable us to realize unprecedented possibilities, but we also acknowledge the potential risks that AI poses if it is not used intelligently and carefully."

On the one hand, the so-called "risk" is to worry about whether artificial intelligence can truly understand the core of human religion and give correct answers, and whether too much reliance on the use of artificial intelligence for religious activities will dissolve the sanctity of religion; On the other hand, religious people fear that "this technology may be used to spread some of the nefarious activities, and if left unchecked, it may lead to a larger negative impact."

However, the "double impact" brought by AI is not only a problem faced by the religious field, and the technology that has been hailed as a "double-edged sword" throughout the ages is not only AI. The 15th-century printing press was also seen as a great enemy by religious people, who feared that the free and widespread dissemination of written content would reduce the church's sole interpretive power of the Bible, but eventually people accepted and used its advantages to expand the propaganda of religion.

The future of AI and religion may also be the same.

This article is from Geek Park