AI Church is here! No more pastor (or God, really) is necessary!
This story comes out of Texas, which might be surprising until you realize it comes from North Austin.
The Mirror proclaims that the church is in the midst of an "AI takeover" after The Violet Crown City Church, a small Methodist Church in North Austin, used ChatGPT to prepare and present the entire service.
Here's what Pastor Jay Cooper had to say about the service:
"The idea to create an AI-generated worship service came from my belief that the church should not only be aware of the most pressing issues of our world, but also to actively engage in them," Jay said.
"AI is definitely one of those issues, so I wanted to incorporate it into our community life in such a way that it would make an impact.
"The initial reason we offered this, admittedly unorthodox, service was to inform our congregation about AI and to understand its potential and its limitations.
"The purpose is to invite us to consider the nature of truth and challenge our assumptions about what God can make sacred and inspired."
And how did Jay get the word out about this service meant to investigate the truth?
With a cheesy Facebook flier:
Is the idea here that God is reaching down to touch robots and AI in the same way he is represented as giving life and a soul to man in Michaelangelo's masterpiece?
If that's the case, that's pretty wild.
But if it's just a cheesy flier, well, I guess I can forgive it.
More:
What ultimately brought us closer to God as a community was the discussion after the service. We were able to share what was most important to us in worship and how much we treasure the human element in a community of faith, something that was clearly lacking in the AI-generated service.
It wasn't human. It wasn't divine. It was clearly a service made by something outside of what humans are meant to relate to in worship.
Some in the congregation thought that they were able to truly worship during the AI service, but really everyone knew there was something off.
...many in our church expressed that the service felt shallow and generic and that it was missing the most important component of worship, which is heart and the human spirit of joy and authenticity.
Maybe that's because you invited a computer to lead you instead of the Holy Spirit and thereby replaced God with a fancy idol of 1s and 0s... but what do I know?
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