<
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251016-people-are-using-ai-to-talk-to-god>
“Faced with the questions and challenges of modern life, Vijay Meel, a
25-year-old student who lives in Rajasthan, India, turns to God. In the past
he's consulted spiritual leaders. More recently, he asked GitaGPT.
GitaGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot trained on the
Bhagavad
Gita, the holy book of 700 verses of dialogue with the Hindu god Krishna.
GitaGPT looks like any text conversation you'd have with a friend – except the
AI tells you you're texting with a god.
"When I couldn't clear my banking exams, I was dejected," Meel says. But after
stumbling on GitaGPT, he typed in details about his inner crisis and asked for
the AI's advice. "Focus on your actions and let go of the worry for its fruit,"
GitaGPT said. This, along with other guidance, left Meel feeling inspired.
"It wasn't a saying I was unaware of, but at that point, I needed someone to
reiterate it to me," Meel says. "This reflection helped me revamp my thoughts
and start preparing all over again." Since then, GitaGPT has become something
like a friend, that he chats with once or twice a week.
AI is shaping how we work, learn and love. Increasingly, it's also changing how
we pray. Worshippers from all the world's major religions are experimenting
with chatbots. But Hinduism, with its long tradition of welcoming physical
representations of gods and deities, offers a particularly vivid laboratory for
this fusion of faith and technology. As AI touches every aspect of the human
experience, India may offer of a glimpse of what it will mean to interact with
the divine through our newly talkative machines.
"People feel disconnected from community, from elders, from temples. For many,
talking to an AI about God is a way of reaching for belonging, not just
spirituality," says Holly Walters, an anthropologist and lecturer at Wellesley
College in the US, who studies sacred objects, pilgrimage and ritual practices
in South Asia. The seep of AI into religion is inevitable, Walters says. "And I
say it is inevitable because it is already happening."”
Via Rhysy and Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
