Hundreds attended a Protestant service in Germany on Friday that was almost entirely generated by artificial intelligence and featured a sermon preached by AI chatbot ChatGPT.
The chatbot, who presented himself as a black man with a beard above the altar of the Paulskirche in Fürth, Bavaria, urged the packed congregation not to fear death, according to the Associated Press.
“Dear friends, it is an honor for me to stand here and preach to you as the first artificial intelligence at this year’s Evangelical Congress in Germany,” said the AI avatar.
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The service, which was attended by more than 300 people, lasted 40 minutes and included prayers and music in addition to the sermon. University of Vienna theologian and philosopher Jonas Simmerlein, 29, used ChatGPT to frame the event, the AP reported.
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Visitors and participants during the recorded service created by AI at the Paulskirche in Fürth, Bavaria. (Daniel Vogl/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
“I designed this service — but actually I rather accompanied it because I would say about 98% comes from the machine,” Simmerlein told the AP.
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The service was part of the German Evangelical Church Congress, a popular biennial event in Nuremberg and nearby Fürth, attended by tens of thousands of Christians. Topics at this year’s event, which runs from Wednesday to Sunday, include climate change, the war in Ukraine and AI.
“Now is the time” is the theme of this year’s meeting. Simmerlein noted that this was one of the sentences he gave ChatGPT when asking the chatbot to write the sermon.
“I said to the artificial intelligence, ‘We’re at the Kirchentag, you’re a preacher… what would a service look like?'” said Simmerlein, who also asked the chatbot to incorporate psalms, prayers and a closing blessing into the sermon.
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Simmerlein said ChatGPT ended up providing “a pretty solid service.”
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Jonas Simmerlein, right, practical theologian and AI artist, during the AI-generated service at Paulskirche in Fürth, Bavaria. (Daniel Vogl/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
The chatbot’s sermon reportedly focused on putting the past behind, paying attention to the present, not being afraid of death, and maintaining faith in Jesus Christ.
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Four different AI avatars took turns leading the service, and reportedly at times caused laughter for their monotonous, deadpan performance.
“There was no heart and soul,” Heiderose Schmidt, 54, told the AP of the service. “The avatars showed no emotion at all, had no body language, and talked so fast and monotonously that I had a very hard time concentrating on what they were saying.”
“But maybe it’s different for the younger generation that grew up with all of this,” she added.
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The chatbot, which presented itself as a black man with a beard above the altar of the Paulskirche in Fürth, Bavaria, urged the packed congregation not to fear death. (Daniel Vogl/Picture Alliance via Getty Images)
Simmerlein found that no human interaction could take place between the chatbot and the community.
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“The pastor is in the community, she lives with them, she buries the people, she knows them from the beginning,” said Simmerlein. “Artificial intelligence cannot do that. She doesn’t know the church.”
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.