Will Artificial Intelligence Send God to the Unemployment Line?

Believe me we are on the wrong end of the religion business, I have been told. Some people would tell us that we should be creating artificial intelligence chatbots that can replace God and the clergy. At least that’s where the big bucks are being made these days.

The New York Times reports that millions of people are turning to AI chatbots for religious guidance and psychological counseling. Apps like Bible Chat, Hallow, and Prayer.com collectively reach millions of downloads, and offer round-the-clock, and interactive, spiritual support.

This trend is mirrored in mental health, where a recent survey found that many American teenagers have talked to chatbots for companionship or emotional help. About 5.2 million teens have been seeking mental health support from AI pseudo therapists.

“Tens of millions of people are turning to AI-powered religious apps that mimic conversations with clergy — or even with God,” Lauren Jackson, an excellent reporter for The New York Times, notes.

In fact, Lauren has become the editor of a new New York Times newsletter on spirituality and religion entitled "Believing". It is free, and you can get it by going to the New York Times website. For years, I have railed at The Times and other five star news sources for not giving adequate coverage to spirituality and religion. I think this trend may be finally moving in the right direction, and this important aspect of life will be reported on the way it deserves!

Lauren reports that these spiritual chatbots “are rocketing to the top of Apple’s App Store.” Recently there have been more downloads for these spiritual AI apps than the combined downloads for Netflix, Instagram, and TikTok.

There are many different reasons why these AI “God” apps are so popular. People do seek “cosmic” help during their “rubber meets the road” moments, and we live in a society which values instant gratification. You don’t have to wait to get a response from an AI guru. Also, it is just as easy to connect with your AI enlightened master at three in the morning as it is at three in the afternoon (and that’s assuming that your flesh and blood priest does have office hours at three in the afternoon).

Many people feel more comfortable presenting difficult and personal questions to a chatbot rabbi than they would be to go see a human rabbi. We are also starting to be able to differentiate what kind of AI rabbi we can go to— Is the AI rabbi Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, or from a branch of the Hasidic movement?

Also, I hate to bring this up, but the economist in me insists that I do: The chatbot pastor only costs at most $70 a year. The flesh and blood religious institutions almost always are fleecing you for far more than $70 a year.

Lauren talked with many spiritual leaders from a wide range of faith traditions. No, she didn’t talk with me (boo-hoo). She doesn’t claim that this is an accurate scientific sample, but the responses she received are fascinating. Some clerics were highly supportive of this trend. They felt that many people in our society have no real strong religious connections, and these AI chatbot pastors were a way to introduce and bring many people into spiritual communities and traditions.

Other spiritual leaders commented that these AI programs might be able to serve in ways and places where flesh and blood clergy cannot. Some of the religious commentators felt that these AI programs could help even long-term church, synagogue, mosque, sangha, etc. members.

However, many other spiritual leaders that Lauren interviewed, were not so sanguine about these trends. They pointed out that good spiritual counseling requires a lot more than just digesting material on the Internet. It requires real world experiences, a great deal of prayer and meditation, and even mystical experiences (i.e., moments when we feel that we have experienced some direct contact with the Divine).

Real or full consciousness requires something beyond the ego. Some call it the witness or the observer. That great Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung called it the “Self,” and he called it the “archetype of archetypes.”

I believe that real consciousness requires this witness or observer, and that without this component, you do not have real and full consciousness. It is still a machine regurgitating information on the Internet.

I know that the builders of these programs have tried to expose the AI chatbots to a wide array of fine, spiritual literature. Also, flesh and blood theologians and philosophers have often been turned to in the construction of these AI programs.

But I do not believe that we are as yet building AI machines that really do have full and complete consciousness. We may be able to do this someday in the future – and that day may be closer than I have sometimes thought it would be. But we have not done it yet.

Therefore, while I don’t suggest that the Surgeon General be required to place warning labels on all of these AI programs, I do believe that more than a note of caution is in order.

In my morning prayer and meditation I often use computer programs to pull up various scriptures, commentaries, prayers, and suggested meditations. I also use an AI program to help me in various ways. For example, I recently asked one AI program to explore the reaction – down through the ages – within Muslim communities to a specific quote that is attributed to Mohammed.

But when it comes to deep and central questions that we all face, I strongly believe that we do not need an AI chatbot because we can go directly to God. We do not need a wifi connection to connect to the heart of God, because the Divine Spark is already inside of us.

Since the time of the German philosopher, Friedrick Nietzsche, it has so often been said that “God is dead.” Well, as things turned out Nietzsche is dead, and God is not! Karl Marx said that religion was the opium of the masses. Well, it turned out that Marxism was the opium that a few intellectuals sucked on for about 150 years on.

My advice is that if you go to the unemployment office and you see God there, God is not there to collect an unemployment insurance check. He/She/It is there to comfort people and to love them unconditionally.

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick