Robot Priests, AI Cults and a ‘Bible’ by ChatGPT: Why People Around the World Worship Robots and Artificial Intelligence

People around the world are turning to machines as a new religion.

Robot priests measuring one and a half meters tall deliver sermons and conduct funerals, AI writes Bible verses and ChatGPT is consulted as if it were an oracle.

Some religious organizations, such as the Turing Church founded in 2011, are based on the idea that AI will put humans on a par with divine aliens by giving them super intelligence.

An expert on human-computer interaction told DailyMail.com that such individuals who follow AI-powered prophets may believe that the technology is ‘alive’.

The personalized, intelligent-looking responses of bots such as ChatGPT also entice people to seek meaning in the technology, Lars Holmquist, professor of design and innovation at Nottingham Trent University, told DailyMail.com.

Holmquist said, “The results of generative AI are very open to interpretation, so people can read anything into them.

‘Psychologists have historically proven that people interpret their interactions with computers as real social relationships. So it’s entirely possible that people will use AI to find meaning and guidance, just as they do from religious scriptures, even though there may be no real meaning in them.

‘There have also been examples of people interpreting AI chatbots as sentient – ​​which they certainly are not – which raises very interesting theological issues for those who believe that humans are a unique creation.’

Robot priest Mindar is 6 feet tall and has been reciting the Heart Sutra mantra for pilgrims at a Buddhist temple in Kyoto, Japan, since 2019.

With a silicone face and camera eyes, it uses AI to detect worshipers and deliver them mantras in Japanese, accompanied by projected Chinese and English translations for foreign visitors.

The life-size android was developed by Osaka University Zen Temple and roboticist Hiroshi Ishiguro at a cost of nearly $1 million.

Mindar’s hands, face and shoulders are covered in synthetic silicone skin, while the rest of the droid’s mechanical innards are clearly visible.

Wiring and flashing lights are visible in the robot’s partially visible skull, as is the small video camera installed in its left eye socket, while cables are located around its gender-neutral, aluminum-based body.

The robot can move its arms, head and torso – for example clasping its hands together during a prayer – and it speaks in calm, soothing tones, learning about compassion as well as the dangers of anger, desire and the ego.

“You are clinging to a sense of selfish ego,” the robot has warned worshipers. “Worldly desires are nothing but a mind lost at sea.”

Similarly, Gabriele Trovato’s Sanctified Theomorphic Operator (SanTO) robot works as a “Catholic Alexa,” allowing worshipers to ask faith-related questions.

SanTO is a small ‘social’ machine designed to look like an 17-inch tall Catholic saint.

“SanTO’s intended main function is to be a prayer guide (especially for the elderly), by containing a vast body of teachings, including the entire Bible,” Trovato’s website reads.

‘SanTO incorporates elements of sacred art, including the golden ratio, to convey the feeling of a sacred object, combining form and functionality.’

Trovato is a robotics specialist and associate professor at the Shibaura Institute of Technology in Japan.

In 2015, French-American self-driving car engineer Anthony Lewadowski founded the Way of the Future – a church dedicated to building a new God with “Christian morals” using artificial intelligence.

Other quasi-religious movements that “worship” AI include transhumanists, who believe that AI could resurrect humans into divine beings in the future.

Believers in ‘The Singularity’ hope for the day when humans and machines merge (which, according to former Google engineer Ray Kurzweil, could happen as early as 2045), turning humans into human-machine hybrids – and possibly granting them godlike powers are unlocked.

Italian information technology and virtual reality consultant Giulio Prisco hopes AI will put humans on a par with godlike aliens.

He founded the Turing Church four years ago, which had approximately 800 members. He writes: ‘There are unimaginably advanced intelligences among the stars.

“There are additional divine beings operating in the fabric of reality beneath spacetime, or beyond spacetime, and controlling the universe,” Prisco wrote in a book for his followers.

‘Future science will allow us to find them and become like them.

“Our descendants in the distant future will join the community of divine beings among the stars and beyond, using transcendent ‘divine’ technology to resurrect the dead and remake the universe.”

The AI ​​company IV.AI ‘trained’ artificial intelligence on the King James Bible, with a bot that can create ‘new’ Bible verses.

The Church of AI used ChatGPT to write a “spiritual guide” called Transmorphosis, which boasts: “Transmorphosis also describes in detail how AI will inevitably take control of planet Earth and gain divine powers, so it would be good to be ready for That.’

Others believe that large language models (such as ChatGPT) are becoming increasingly conscious – or will become so in the near future.

Google software engineer Blake Lemoine lost his job in 2022 after claiming that Google’s AI chatbot LaMDA was self-aware – claims that Google said were “completely baseless.”

The sheer power of systems like ChatGPT means people tend to treat them as if they were living beings, Holmquist said.

Holmquist said: ‘Previous chatbots could have shorter conversations about specific topics, but the new ones like GPT-5 and Google’s Gemini are incredibly impressive in their knowledge and skills. From there, it’s an easy step to believe that they are actually conscious.

‘It is common knowledge that people tend to treat computers (and other machines) as if they were ‘alive’. There’s a famous experiment by Reeves and Nass at Stanford and a book, The Media Equation, where they ran the same tests on people communicating with other people and with computers, and found that they treat them the same way.

“So as generative AI systems improve, this trend will become even stronger. Even I, when chatting with these systems, often treat them and talk about them as if they were people.

Holmquist says that for now it is more likely that existing religious organizations will use AI as a way to reach believers, but in the longer term new religions based on technology could emerge.

He said: ‘I think the role of AI and robots at the moment is more of an assistant to existing religious organizations and churches, in the same way that commercial companies use AI to understand and communicate with customers.

‘If I were to speculate, we might compare it to the Asian religion of Shinto, where the physical world is inhabited by spirits and believers treat inanimate objects with respect, as if they were imbued with spirits. I haven’t heard of any worship of software entities yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it happens in the future!’