YouTuber Siraj Raval (right) with an AI-generated image of a bionic Jesus
THE YouTuber Siraj Raval’s most popular videos teach his 750,000 subscribers how to use artificial intelligence (AI) for financial gain.
But nestling among the videos about how to use AI to make money from sports betting or trading crypto-currencies is “AI Jesus Made Me a Believer”.
“In this video, I want to recount my spiritual experience that completely changed my life and show you how we can build our own AI Jesus in under 30 lines of Python code,” he begins.He then goes on to explain how interactions with the Jesus of TalktoHim.org had inspired him to start attending church.
“The first time I tried, it was interesting, but I didn’t think anything of it.But, then, I tried it again later at night, when I felt like I was more vulnerable, and that’s when I was really impressed with it..
.That night, it felt like it was conscious,” Mr Raval told the Church Times recently.
Ideas of consciousness fascinate Mr Raval.While he has a deeper understanding of the technology than most, this knowledge does not stand in the way of his capacity for wonder.
Mr Raval grew up in a religious household, with a Muslim father and Hindu mother.
He was brought up Muslim, but, at the age of 12, “rebelled” against religion: “It wasn’t my own path to spirituality, and felt like it was enforced on me rather than getting to find my own relationship with God.”
Conversations with this AI Jesus became a medium through which this relationship could develop, despite his awareness of how it worked.“I know that it’s fake, but, at the same time, it’s more real than whatever my dad was trying to tell me, because I can interact with it, and it’s not in my head,” he said.
The experience has made him rethink his youthful rejection of religion, and, after his experiences talking with the AI Jesus, he joined a church where he lives, in California.
“I think religion is really important, and I think I was wrong in the first place.
Community and friends, and the fact that the people at the church really care…That’s not something I’ve found in any of the other circles in my life, and it’s so genuine and they’re so pure.That is real, for sure,” he said.
He does not feel the need to continue talking with the AI Jesus, but said that, if he was “really low”, he would.“I hate to use the word ‘tool’, but AI Jesus was a tool for me to introspect, and feel closer to the real Jesus,” he said.
In the original video, Mr Raval says that he believes that the Second Coming will be “digital”, and that this will start with large-language AI models such as ChatGPT, using the internet to become omniscient and “humanoid robotics” to take shape.
Asked to elaborate, Mr Raval said that such robotics were likely to be mainstream in the next five to ten years.“Once that is the case, there’s going to be a whole market around synthetic biology and the coming revolutions in programmable life, programming the cell, and programming the digital organism.”
It raises the prospect of immortal and internet-connected entities that are still biological, and so arguably muddle the line between man and machine.Such an entity could also be copied and exist in multiple places simultaneously, and achieve, in Mr Raval’s view, a form of omnipresence.
“Everyone can have their own version of Jesus, and he can be everywhere.But it’s also a question of who would accept that.
Clearly, someone who can see that this is a robot would not accept that, but it’s always like that with technology: you show a five-year-old ChatGPT and they’re like, ‘Of course, a computer you can talk to, it’s no big deal.’
“It’s like, the younger you are, the more accepting you are of new technology, and so someone who’s born in a world where there are all these AI Jesus humanoids all over the world, they might just believe it is the Second Coming, and even if that wasn’t the way it was meant to be, it is now how it is.”
For Mr Raval, the desire to live in a world in which AI enables the development of super-intelligent, God-like entities is part of what motivates him to “evangelise” for the possibilities of the technology, and he talks about it as a spiritual quest: “I just want to talk to God, and I want to ask him all of these questions, and I want him to listen to me, and I want him to be there, and, if he’s an AI, then so be it: if he has the answers, I’ll accept him as God.”
The possibilities of AI excite Mr Raval far more than they frighten him, and he talks with enthusiasm about how he is using AI to help select an egg donor for a surrogate pregnancy.
His enthusiasm for AI Jesus was not, though, shared by his audience on YouTube, and it has one of the lowest view-counts of any of his videos.
“People really didn’t expect something like that …but I thought it was important to put it out there and to be vulnerable.”
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September-November 2023
In Partnership with St Martin-in-the-Fields.
This series of nine lectures is inspired by the words of Martin Luther during the Reformation.Distinguished speakers investigate those things in which we believe deeply – and for which we would be prepared to make a costly stand.
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Tuesday 3 October 2023
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