Did you hear about the AI-powered church service that was held in Germany a couple months ago? The sermon, the worship songs, and even the prayers were all written and delivered by Artificial Intelligence. There were AI voices and realistic avatars delivering the service from a large projector screen at the front of the sanctuary.
Interesting? Terrifying? Thrilling? Awesome? Maybe you feel a mixture of all of these emotions. I don’t know about you, but I often have an unsettled feeling as I wrestle with what makes my intellectual process unique or significant in comparison. I’m sure many people in the industrial revolution had a similar feeling. There is a sort of unnerving and reverent feeling you get when a machine replaces a human ability.
Much like the industrial revolution, I’m sure many will vie for regulation that preserves the “necessary humanness” in the skill they hold dear. And much like the industrial revolution, I’m sure that eventually millions of jobs will be displaced, jobs that some never expected were on the line. My question for the Church is this:
How will you respond when that technology threatens to displace your pastor, your worship leader, your deacons and elders?
That AI can generate worship music, sermons, prayers, and voices and faces that are all believable is not an evil in and of itself. It is a beautiful thing that God has created us with such ability to create in His image. We are image bearers of God and create in that image. God intended for us to work, add value, and care for His creation, first and foremost for one another. And we do that when we invent tools such as AI for the purpose of adding value and serving others.
However, isn’t there more to the picture here than simply a displacement of our priestly duties? Can AI teach us about scripture in an expository, creative, and meaningful way? Certainly it can! Can it develop beautiful worship music that leads us to worship God? Yes. Can it pray a prayer that is scripturally sound and that guides us in our own prayers? Absolutely. And as a business consultant, I feel compelled to tell you that it would most certainly be cheaper, and it might even be more effective at all of those things than most churches are today.
