CREEPY: A.I. Sermon Draws Large Crowd To Church

There’s something sinister about the idea of A.I. bots giving sermons.

An A.I. bot led a church service of around 300 people at a Lutheran church in Germany.

The service was led by a ChatGPT chatbot that was visualized as an avatar.

The Chatgpt chatbot gave a 40 minutes sermon that focused on “overcoming fear of death, and never losing trust in Jesus Christ.”

Many of the audience members noted that the sermon had “no heart or soul” in it.

Here’s an excerpt of it:

A.I. Leads Church Sermon

Over 300 Protestants attended a church service in Germany that was almost entirely generated by AI.

The ChatGPT-led chatbot conducted 40 minutes of prayer, music, sermons, and blessings.

The entire service was hosted by four different avatars on the… pic.twitter.com/nUFaQAED0E

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) June 13, 2023

CBN added these details:

A unique sermon was delivered via artificial intelligence Friday in a Lutheran church in Germany.

A ChatGPT chatbot asked the people in the fully packed St. Paul’s Church in the town of Fuerth to rise from the pews and praise the Lord.

The bot was personified by an avatar of a bearded black man on a huge screen above the altar. It preached to more than 300 people who showed up for the experimental Lutheran church service, generated almost entirely by artificial intelligence.

“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,” the avatar said with an expressionless face and monotone voice.

The 40-minute service was created by ChatGPT and Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna, who said 98 percent of it came from the machine.

Those in the church listened attentively as the A.I. preached about leaving the past behind, focusing on the challenges of the present, overcoming fear of death, and never losing trust in Jesus Christ.

A church in Germany drew a 300+ person crowd to a service ran entirely by AI.

The 40-minute sermon featured text generated by OpenAI's ChatGPT and was delivered by AI avatars on a television screen above the altar. https://t.co/RJqai86wXY

— The Rundown AI (@TheRundownAI) June 12, 2023

Here’s what AP reported:

The artificial intelligence chatbot asked the believers in the fully packed St. Paul’s church in the Bavarian town of Fuerth to rise from the pews and praise the Lord.

The ChatGPT chatbot, personified by an avatar of a bearded Black man on a huge screen above the altar, then began preaching to the more than 300 people who had shown up on Friday morning for an experimental Lutheran church service almost entirely generated by AI.

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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,” the avatar said with an expressionless face and monotonous voice.

The 40-minute service — including the sermon, prayers and music — was created by ChatGPT and Jonas Simmerlein, a theologian and philosopher from the University of Vienna.

“I conceived this service — but actually I rather accompanied it, because I would say about 98% comes from the machine,” the 29-year-old scholar told The Associated Press.

ChatGPT has just scripted AND run a church sermon in Germany

An experimental 40 minutes long sermon had over 300 parishioners in attendance

Among other things, the ChatGPT-powered priest told the audience not to fear death 💀 pic.twitter.com/jYdwiIlY7f

— drowzy 💤 (@drowzy_ai) June 14, 2023