Hotline to Heaven: ChatBOT lets you text with impersonations of Jesus, Abraham, others

John Prine wrote in song of his encounter with the savior: “I said Jesus, you look tired, and he said ‘Jesus, so do you; won’t you sit right down, we’ve got some fat to chew.'”

And the great news is now you can chew the fat with the Almighty any time you want — by text message.

According to The Washington Post, “Text With Jesus, launched in July, was created by Catloaf 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.”

But wait, there’s more. Along with Jesus, you can message “the apostles, the prophets, Ruth, Job and Abraham’s nephew, Lot,” and a whole lot more.

I don’t know what I’d have to say to Ruth, really. “So … everything going OK in Moab? That redemption working out for you? And how about that heat index, am I right?”

But Noah, on the other hand, him I’d have a lot of questions for. Mosquitos, what were you thinking? And where I live it’s rained 40 days and 40 nights and it hasn’t raised Lake Champlain more than a foot, so what gives?

Stéphane Peter, the app’s developer and the company’s CEO, told the Post, “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.”

I guess if Peter hadn’t developed Text With Jesus someone else would have. By modern standards, prayer seems so 20th century. And it’s always such a one-way conversation. Come on, it’s been thousands of years, and we haven’t heard a peep in return, so it’s about time we got some answers.

I wonder how Jesus would sound in a text message: “Love ur neighbor as urself. LOL.”

Of course with something this good there has to be a catch, and there is: “Many people in the Bible, Mary Magdalene among them, are only accessible in the app’s premium version, which costs $2.99 a month.”

But of course. And come to think of it, maybe that’s why our prayers were never answered — we didn’t sign up for the Lord’s monthly premium version. We never should have expected Him to find our car keys or help the Eagles win the Super Bowl for free, should we? He needed a little something for the effort.

It’s understandable why Mary Magdalene would rate premium service, particularly if that stuff about being Jesus’ wife is for real. All kinds of juicy stuff you’d want to know from her, like did he snore?

And you would definitely pay to hear from Revelation author John the Elder, the first question being, “Hey, where can I get some of that, man?”

Text With Jesus has gotten some blowback as blasphemous, but not as much as you’d think. Certainly not as much as it would have in the morality-obsessed 1980s, when all the talk was of “family values” and church groups organized protests of adult bookstores.

Peter said his app is about “exploring the scriptures,” but even Jesus can’t tiptoe his way through these turbulent times without hitting a political tripwire.

The Post says that on same-sex marriage, the app says it is “up to each individual to seek guidance from their own faith tradition and personal convictions” and encourages users to “prioritize love and respect for all people regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity,” signing the text with a rainbow and red heart emoji.

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Wait, what? Jesus is woke? I knew it. You could kind of tell from the way he was soft on prostitution and only really lost it when the capitalists set up shop in the temple. Today that translates into transgender good, E-trade bad.

But it probably won’t bother his followers; they don’t seem to listen to him much anyway.

Tim Rowland is a Herald-Mail columnist.

This article originally appeared on The Herald-Mail: 'Text With Jesus' AI offers possibilities, pitfalls for faithful