AI goes to church

An artificial intelligence Jesus isn’t officially taking confessions at a Catholic church in Switzerland, but even so, the new display at St. Peter’s Chapel in Lucerne has caused a stir. Church officials describe the modified confessional, which has a television screen and a moving image purported to look like Jesus, as an art exhibit titled “Deus in Machina.” A Nov. 21 fact check from the Catholic News Agency said the AI Jesus wasn’t actually hearing confession, a sacrament in the Catholic Church, but is using AI to answer questions about the Bible in many languages. The church created the program in collaboration with a local university to ­ponder “the limits of technology in the context of religion.”