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AI

Religious Leaders Experiment With AI In Sermons 104

Posted by BeauHD from the faith-based-tech dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: To members of his synagogue, the voice that played over the speakers of Congregation Emanu El in Houston sounded just like Rabbi Josh Fixler's. In the same steady rhythm his congregation had grown used to, the voice delivered a sermon about what it meant to be a neighbor in the age of artificial intelligence. Then, Rabbi Fixler took to the bimah himself. "The audio you heard a moment ago may have sounded like my words," he said. "But they weren't." The recording was created by what Rabbi Fixler called "Rabbi Bot," an A.I. chatbot trained on his old sermons. The chatbot, created with the help of a data scientist, wrote the sermon, even delivering it in an A.I. version of his voice. During the rest of the service, Rabbi Fixler intermittently asked Rabbi Bot questions aloud, which it would promptly answer.

Rabbi Fixler is among a growing number of religious leaders experimenting with A.I. in their work, spurring an industry of faith-based tech companies that offer A.I. tools, from assistants that can do theological research to chatbots that can help write sermons. [...] Religious leaders have used A.I. to translate their livestreamed sermons into different languages in real time, blasting them out to international audiences. Others have compared chatbots trained on tens of thousands of pages of Scripture to a fleet of newly trained seminary students, able to pull excerpts about certain topics nearly instantaneously. The report's author draws a parallel to previous generations' initial apprehension -- and eventual embrace -- of transformative technologies like radio, television, and the internet. "For centuries, new technologies have changed the ways people worship, from the radio in the 1920s to television sets in the 1950s and the internet in the 1990s," the report says. "Some proponents of A.I. in religious spaces have gone back even further, comparing A.I.'s potential -- and fears of it -- to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century."

Religious Leaders Experiment With AI In Sermons More | Reply

Religious Leaders Experiment With AI In Sermons

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  • So you don't need a soul to preach? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Mr. Dollar Ton ( 5495648 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @10:31PM (#65071711)

    Nice to know, you Mammon servants.

  • Bomb (Score:4, Funny)

    by zawarski ( 1381571 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @10:36PM (#65071719)
    And in addition to the darkness there was also me. And I moved upon the face of the darkness. And I saw that I was alone. Let there be light.

    • Re: (Score:2, Offtopic)

      by rossdee ( 243626 )

      "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward
        "Darkstar" by John Carpenter. (Yes, *that* John Carpenter).

        Please hand in your Geek Card on the way out...

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by Megane ( 129182 )
          Anyone who hasn't watched Dark Star at least once is missing a truly wonderful and meme-worthy piece of kino. It is some brilliantly stupid science fiction.
  • And they have an entire division devoted to selling gear to churches. There are entire product lines conceived of an engineered for that one market.

    And it's an extremely lucrative market. Did the guy who started Scientology once say that if you wanted to get rich start a religion? Well you can also sell crap to a religion and make plenty of money.

    • It should not be very surprising, the entertainment element of religion has always been dominant. Nearly all human art has religion in its origin.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by xevioso ( 598654 )

        This was the case when there were not a lot of people. The amount of art produced today related to anime/manga/comic books alone regularly probably dwarfs the amount of religious art produced throughout history.

        • You may think so, but if you dig just a little, you'll find religious motifs, themes and symbols everywhere. The author (or the viewers) being ignorant of them doesn't mean they aren't present.

          Also, "religion" doesn't mean only the various Christian sects.

          • You may think so, but if you dig just a little, you'll find religious motifs, themes and symbols everywhere. The author (or the viewers) being ignorant of them doesn't mean they aren't present.

            That's kind of silly. For example, the cross is the symbol most tied to Christianity, but it predates Christianity. Romans weren't being religious when they crucified people neither before nor after the invention of Christianity. Surely a symbol can post-date a religion just as well as it can pre-date it.

  • Invented people spouting invented nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

    by xevioso ( 598654 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @10:55PM (#65071737)

    You have a non-real entity spouting made-up nonsense about a non-real entity. What could go wrong?
    Stupidity begets stupidity.

    • What could go wrong?

      The birth of one more fanatic fantasy book club ^W^W^W^W religion.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Anonymous Coward

      You have a non-real entity spouting made-up nonsense about a non-real entity. What could go wrong?

      If anything, there will be “religious” AI engines. You know, ones that are pre-programmed with medical research like the birth of a child from a “virgin”.

      Religion sure as hell doesn’t want to fly too close to the fact flame. They’ll be torched.

  • Generative AI isn't "just like radio, TV, and the internet". None of those flat out replaced human connection and interaction. We need a total Butlerian Jihad, and now.

    • I'll give you my Jetson Nano only when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

    • AI gives me this eerie feeling of death. Not Terminators going machine guns blazing, but a quiet death, where human intellect gets pushed out and replaced with artificial nonsense. Imagine people in the future as an adult barely able to speak at the level of a 4 year old, highly dependent on AI that's can't actually evolve and can just barely hold it's own, as the world stagnates and goes into irreversible decay. I don't know how realistic this vision is, but that's how I see it and it's so damn depressing

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by vbdasc ( 146051 )

        Terminator vs Idiocracy, what a great choice awaits us!

      • AI gives me this eerie feeling of death. Not Terminators going machine guns blazing, but a quiet death, where human intellect gets pushed out and replaced with artificial nonsense.

        Imagine people in the future as an adult barely able to speak at the level of a 4 year old, highly dependent on AI that's can't actually evolve and can just barely hold it's own, as the world stagnates and goes into irreversible decay. I don't know how realistic this vision is, but that's how I see it and it's so damn depressing.

        I think I am preferring the Terminators, and people going out in a blaze of glory with their minds and humanity intact over a very slow death as perpetual toddlers.

        "AI will never be able to give us the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything. But it will probably give us the answer to the Fermi Paradox."

    • You want interaction? Just wait until this thing starts taking confessions and giving council.
      Recently there's been some good and bad experiences with AI avatars of deceased loved ones helping family members cope with their loss. In some instances it provided some comfort. In one case, a woman asked the avatar of her late husband how he was doing. The answer: "Not so good. I am dead, and I'm in hell"

    • Oh God, if it means I have to read or watch Dune again, I'd rather have the AI buttrape me to death.

  • For thousands of years people have blathered the same tired prayers and held sermons on the same old stories.

    By now, any interesting prayer or interpretation of a story has been done, probably over and over. I just read 10 random chapters of Torah, some were "historical", others were just nonsense like "don't bang mommy's sister, she's you aunt". Each week, a different "parsha" of the Torah is read throughout the Jewish calendar year. Assuming a rabbi is a rabbi for 40 years and he or she are expected to no

    • Given that the "new" part of the book is 2000 years old and cannot be changed the saturation point of repetition is inevitable. The Koran is a little.better off at what, 1300 years? The Book of Mormon is only 200, which is still enough time to run out of interpretations.

      It took only 100 years for Hollywood to run out of ideas starting from a much larger base.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Yep. Longest-running cargo cults on the planet.

  • Both of these also involves hallucinations and making shit up that doesnâ(TM)t exist in the training data as well! So of course it would go together naturally. Maybe we can delete god when A.I. comes up with a convincing argument to make the deity todder off and disappear. Until then, itâ(TM)s all magic tricks.

  • Oh, great. It's started. (Score:3)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday January 07, 2025 @11:50PM (#65071807)

    Mark my words... we've started down the path, and it's only a matter of time until we get Robot Santa [fandom.com] and the Kwanzaa Bot [fandom.com].

  • Not a problem (Score:5, Informative)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @12:43AM (#65071849)

    Going from lies to machine-generated lies does not really make much of a difference.

    • Going from lies to machine-generated lies does not really make much of a difference.

      The scientist fact junkie who lost their job to THAT shit, just might have a different opinion.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        What are you talking about?

        • What are you talking about?

          Religion isn’t the only business being threatened by AI.

          The scientist/engineer/physicist employed in a fact-sensitive industry who loses their job to the machine that becomes known for being as factually accurate as bible stories, isn’t going to accept their newfound poverty well.

          The preacher, simply sees that as competition. Hell of a lot easier to swallow.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by gweihir ( 88907 )

            What scientist/engineer/physicists are you talking about here? None that I can think of are going to be replaced by LLMs. Who might get replaced are "programmers" that barely qualify as technicians and certainly not as engineers. And even that is looking more and more doubtful every day.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Tom ( 822 )

      It does. A huge difference.

      A lot fewer children will be exposed to pedophile priests.

  • On the plus side you get the purge ever year.
    On the negative side your cardio is probably not good enough to survive the purge.
  • Artificial Indoctrination ?
  • ... I can see why this is a match.

  • Sounds good until you scratch the surface, then you uncover inconsistencies, fabrications, and... dare I say it? Hallucinations.

    Seems like AI could churn that out pretty quickly. Real time saver. I applaud their willingness to embrace technological change.

  • Automated telling that we are sinners and should repent. Great.

  • There is a verse about this (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cowtamer ( 311087 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @02:03AM (#65071915) Journal

    Woe to him who says to wood, Come to life!
            Or to lifeless stone, Wake up!
    Can it give guidance?
            It is covered with gold and silver;
            there is no breath in it.

    Habakkuk 2:19

    (Might one consider a computer a form of rock covered in gold?)

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by chthon ( 580889 )

      According to the Gospel of Pratchett, it is a silicate lifeform...

    • Yeah, 'cause imaginary gods give better advice than gods of stone and wood.

    • Habakkuk is writing about idols, as per 2.18:

      What use is an idol once its maker has shaped it--a cast image, a teacher of lies?

      For its maker trusts in what has been made, though the product is only an idol that cannot speak!

      In this case, the AI can speak, or maybe not, depending on how you define speech. But it is presented as a tool, not as an item of worship.

      I think it can be a great tool used like this: Digest a body of knowledge from specific sources so that it can emulate this knowledge and answer questions.

      How come we read about it used for religion first, and not for other disciplines, such as law, or tutoring students? Perhaps religion is safer, because people don't e

    • Obligatory Onion article from 28 years ago:
      Christ Announces Hiring Of Associate Christ [theonion.com]

  • It used to be called a "tape recorder".

  • There's no such thing as a data scientist.

    Science is a process.
    Data is raw facts.

    You can't specialize in "analyzing raw facts to determine the viability of a hypothesis in a reproducable manner."

    Stupid story all around, but whenever I see the media talk about "scientist" they are putting on a WHITE LAB COAT ON CRAP
    and pretending it doesn't stink.

  • You know when they confess in a booth to a picture and a recorded voice?

  • G-d is contemplating the Christian Nation again and how they can be saved. He finally hits on a new idea. H- picks up iPhone and dials St. Peter.

    St. Pete...a dinka-dink, a dinka-doo....: Hi ya, Einstein, what's up?

    G-d: I'd like you to come up here and meet my new Jesus.

    St. Pete.new Jesus?!? He comes before the throne....: Y-u have a new Jesus?

    G-d: Yup, meet AI-Jesus, say "hello" AI-Jesus.

    AI-Jesus: Yes, meet "hello" AI-Jesus.

    St. Pete: Uh, I'm not sure this is a good idea, Einstein. How come AI-Jesus has oran

  • Does "Rabbi Bot," an A.I. chatbot get paid ....I'll send in my A.I. Rabbicoin tithe.....

  • "Religion, now with 20% more gibberish!"

  • Inception of Religion (Score:3)

    by Smonster ( 2884001 ) on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @08:15AM (#65072293)
    A scam, within a scam, within a scam designed to control you and take you time and money. I’m not saying there is no God. I am saying organized religion is a scam controlled by humans. AI is just another way to try to use religion to control more people.

    • Given the incredible violence religion has unfortunately brought upon the human race since inception, there is certainly a cost to that moral subscription.

      Before we were worried about the more “traditional” AI threat becoming the infamous “Skynet” to destroy us. Now I wonder if AI will simply slip quietly in between the pages of religion, and create violence within the human race far worse than any man-made story could ever do.

      If we thought religion was deadly before, imagine how mu

      • Given the incredible violence religion has unfortunately brought upon the human race since inception, there is certainly a cost to that moral subscription.

        Before we were worried about the more “traditional” AI threat becoming the infamous “Skynet” to destroy us. Now I wonder if AI will simply slip quietly in between the pages of religion, and create violence within the human race far worse than any man-made story could ever do.

        If we thought religion was deadly before, imagine how much more creative AI could be with that facet of it.

        I think you fear the wrong things. AI, if it ever becomes intelligent enough to want to cause harm to humans, won't have to work that hard at it. Hell, for the most part humans have already ceded to the machines. AI will be able to take over just through our own stupidity and greed. The greedy have decided that AI is the future, and are pushing it in every corner. We're told in the tech industry that we either bow to the machines now, or we will lose our jobs. Of course, the unspoken part is we bow to the m

  • obvious (Score:2)

    by Tom ( 822 )

    An obvious choice, really. Creating meaningless drivel that sounds plausible is what LLMs excel at.

  • So there really will be a robot church like in Futurama?

  • Why exactly do humans want to outsource creative thought to a machine? Wasn't this what automation was supposed to free us up to do, create? We are living in an idiocracy.
  • Why should I attend a sermon if nobody could be bothered to write it? Or read it? I guess most church goers will anyway, they have to drop in to deliver their babies to state-sanctioned pedophiles so they can be diddled in a holy fashion.

  • Is the path of least resistance.

  • AI is at its best generating bullshit. So this is working as intended.

  • You don't call that thing a "rabbi bot". It's clearly a "rabbot".

  • And you don't even want to do that?

    Maybe we should start hiring H-1B visa workers to staff our nation's churches. Since Americans don't want to do the work.

  • Preachers have been recycling material since the Bible was written (at the latest). Think of it. It is darn hard to come up with 50 (or more) inspirational insightful and original speeches a year. Recycling old sermons and cribbing from others is routine.

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