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For some evangelical Christians, faith is about having a personal relationship with Jesus. At $1.99 per minute, the tech company Just Like Me is taking that concept to a new level.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Users of the platform can join video calls with an avatar of Jesus generated by artificial intelligence. Like other religious AI tools on the market, it offers words of prayer and encouragement in various languages. With the occasional glitch, it remembers previous conversations and speaks through not-quite-synced lips.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou do feel a little accountable to the AI,\u201d CEO Chris Breed said. \u201cThey\u2019re your friend. You\u2019ve made an attachment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The rush to create faith-based generative AI is unsurprising, given the popularity of chatbots for everything from therapy and\u00a0medical advice<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0companionship and romance.<\/a>\u00a0They range from alleged Hindu gurus and Buddhist priests to AI Jesuses and chatbots akin to OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT for Catholics.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n As religious AI tools become increasingly common, many people are reckoning with how these technologies shape their relationship to faith, authority, and spiritual guidance.<\/p>\n Christian software engineer Cameron Pak developed criteria to help believers interrogate apps designed for Christians \u2014 like that it must clearly identify itself as AI and \u201cmust not fabricate or misrepresent Scripture.\u201d<\/p>\n There are other deal-breakers: \u201cAI cannot pray for you, because the AI is not alive.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\nA faith-based AI gold rush<\/h2>\n