Inside the rise of AI Jesus and godbots: What happened when I prayed at the artificial altar

The hype around generative AI is reaching levels usually reserved for religious fervour. Tech bros in Silicon Valley are proselytising that it will change all our lives. Karen Hao, author of the bestselling book Empire of AI, has described the enthusiasm for GenAI as “a quasi-religious movement”.

It should therefore not be a surprise that religious and spiritual chatbots are appearing everywhere. Text With Jesus is a chatbot “for devoted Christians” to speak to figures from the Bible. My Quran uses OpenAI’s technology to answer questions about Islam’s holy text. CatéGPT is the same for Catholics with the catechism.