If you could text Jesus a question, knowing He would immediately reply, what would you ask? What would you ask Jonah about his time in the belly of the giant fish? What would you ask King Solomon? Would you ask Daniel about his time in the lion’s den?
Now with the help of an AI-enhanced app, you can text Jesus and other biblical characters and receive an immediate response. Text with Jesus is a new app launched last month by Cat Loaf software, an app development company in Los Angeles.
The app replicates an instant messaging platform, with biblical figures impersonated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT, according to the Religion News Service (RNS).
You can also text questions to other biblical characters too, including the Holy Family, the apostles, the prophets, Ruth, Job, Daniel, Jonah, and Abraham’s nephew, Lot.
“We stir the AI and tell it: You are Jesus, or you are Moses, or whoever, and knowing what you already have in your database, you respond to the questions based on their characters,” Stéphane Peter, the app’s developer, and the company’s CEO told RNS.
Since founding his company in 2011, Peter has also created several other apps using historical figures, however, unlike the new app, there was no interaction with the user. The user simply receives quotes from characters, for example, the Founding Fathers and Oscar Wilde.
With the advance of AI technology, Peter wondered if it could be used to upgrade his Text from Jesus app to be more interactive. Earlier this year, he started digging into OpenAI, the artificial intelligence research laboratory that launched ChatGPT and created a proper chat from a simple devotional app, according to the RNS.
“Instead of just getting a daily Bible verse, now you get a chance through this app to chat with Jesus or anybody else in the Bible,” he told the outlet. The RNS reported there are few limits to what users can ask the ChatGPT characters.
Several members of the CBN News team asked the app a series of questions to test it out. All of the responses included a Bible verse and some broader discussion that appeared to be biblically accurate.
