Last Fall St. Peter’s Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, installed a computer screen into a confessional booth. When people entered the confessional, they could interact with a digital avatar of Jesus Christ powered by AI. Yes, an AI Jesus. Meet AI Jesus Swiss IT expert Philipp Haslbauer of Lucerne University produced the AI Jesus. He partnered with the chapel theologian Marco Schmid. They called the experiment “Deus in Machina,” or God in the machine. They wanted…
The HBO series Westworld, based on the 1973 Michael Crichton film, revisits one of the most complex themes in science fiction, Artificial Intelligence (AI). The term “AI” distinguishes the natural intelligence of animals and humans from that of machines. Think Alexa and Siri. We tend to be just as afraid as we are fascinated with AI. In science fiction, the portrayals of advanced AI range from robots who are confused (Star Trek TNG, and Bicentennial…