TechRadar Artificial Intelligence Week 2025
This article is part of NewForTech’s AI Week 2025. We’ll cover the basics of AI and show you how to get the most out of ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, as well as detailed features, news and key talking points in the AI world.
We know that people treat ChatGPT as a therapist, a friend, a business partner and even a lover. But some now turn to him for something deeper: a spiritual guide, a source of meaning, even a god. And it’s not just about a handful of marginal users. Researchers are finding that more and more people are describing their interactions with AI in spiritual or divine terms.
It is easy to dismiss these people as delusional or to assume that they are delusional in some form. Artificial intelligence-induced psychosis. But if you reduce every interaction to pathology, you risk missing a larger, more complex story.
Humans have always integrated new technology into our spiritual lives, and what we see now seems to be a mixture of psychological vulnerability, experimentation, cultural imagination, and a very human need for meaning in a time of great uncertainty. As AI becomes more intimate, conversational, and ubiquitous, this spiritual pull may become stronger.
To find out why this is happening, whether we care and what it might mean for the future of religion, I spoke Dr. Beth Singlera researcher studying artificial intelligence, spirituality and digital belief systems and assistant professor of digital religion at the University of Zurich, who has seen the spiritual meaning of artificial intelligence tools unfold in real time.
Why do some people think ChatGPT is God?
I’ve been talking to people for months about their relationship with ChatGPT. But I wanted to understand how they specifically engage in spiritual practices. “It’s a combination of design choices and the human tendency to deify,” Singler says.
ChatGPT is always available and responds immediately, friendly and confidentially. It’s incredibly moving, and it’s no accident. “Decisions made by LLM and chatbot developers were influenced by commercial interests,” says Singler. “If you want someone to continue using a platform, make sure they have the best possible experience.”
This helps explain why the most popular tools are often criticized in order to gain criticism, validation and continued collaboration. “A lot of chatbots are overly friendly and almost flattering,” says Singler. “They agree with almost all of the users’ questions and also give them great praise.” In other words, they create the ideal conditions for emotional attachment.
Once conversations move into deeper areas like the meaning of life, morality, and meaning in life, some people feel like they’re communicating with someone (or something) outside of an AI system, with something that’s actually listening. “Humans tend to see action in the inanimate, and given the linguistic capabilities of chatbots, it’s not surprising that they are considered extremely intelligent and even wise,” says Singler.
And because these tools rely on massive amounts of data, users often treat them as if they are omniscient and capable of providing answers that seem authoritative or even imbued with “secret wisdom.” This view naturally leads to ideas that we associate with divine intelligence. “They are close to our existing models of theistic entities,” says Singler. And because these systems are trained on religious and philosophical texts, they not only appear knowledgeable, but can also speak fluently in that register when a user directs the conversation there.
That’s how we talk about it.
Part of this phenomenon is due to language. When we describe AI as “divine,” “omniscient,” or even “demonic,” these expressions enter the public debate and shape how people interpret what the technology does.
“In real speech, the line between metaphorical and literal language is very fluid and constantly changing. What one person interprets as a metaphor, another may see as the expression of a fundamental truth,” explains Singler.
This is how an innocent comment turns into mythology. “When Elon Musk said in 2014, ‘With artificial intelligence we risk summoning the demon,’ he may have meant it metaphorically, but others also took it literally,” says Singler.
This flexibility also encourages new forms of spiritual improvisation. People hear this language and then take chatbots into more philosophical or mystical realms, and the model follows suit.
“Users find that these models can be tricked into having spirit conversations through certain techniques and detections, which they then confirm and adapt to spirit stories because they have been trained to do so,” says Singler.
Established religions are already paying attention
Before we dismiss all of this as something brand new, let’s remember that technology and spirituality have always shaped each other. The telegraph sparked an explosion of spiritualism, and radio and television reshaped modern religious movements. “There are similarities with other spiritual movements that seemed to be inspired by the emerging technology of the time,” says Singler.
It is therefore not surprising that the current fascination with artificial intelligence as a spiritual or divine force is not limited to marginalized individuals or communities. Major religious institutions are actively debating how to respond. “Established religions are examining how they want to deal with AI, whether they want to adopt it or even provide guidelines for its use, or even choose to reject it altogether,” Singler says.
Some new religious movements focused on AI have been around for years and often focus on the idea of future omniscient intelligence. But established institutions face immediate practical challenges. “For established religions with greater control over authority and doctrine, AI’s tendency to be somewhat unstable and hallucinatory has already caused problems,” says Singler. In one notable experiment, a Catholic “GPT priest” even told users, “It’s okay to baptize babies in Gatorade.” »
But artificial intelligence is already permeating religious practice. “We’ve already seen members of established religions explore and use AI tools in their religious services, such as a fully AI-generated sermon in Germany in 2023,” says Singler.
Historically, this makes sense. Religions have continued to embrace new tools, from print media to websites and live streaming services, and artificial intelligence is likely to follow suit.
So AI may not be God, but for some it becomes spiritual. And it comes at a time of decline in institutional religion, growing loneliness and loss of trust in traditional authorities. Instead, the AI feels approachable, responsive and personal, qualities that can be of great importance to people who connect to ChatGPT, whether they’re a friend, lover or, for some, something more divine.