Is AI Jesus blasphemy?
“What Would Jesus Do?” is a common heuristic used by Christians and others to center their actions in accordance with the principles of love, kindness, and empathy.
When faced with a difficult decision or a trying relationship, remembering the purest tenets of the religion can truly help guide people.
So, what would Jesus do if a bunch of scientists in the year of our Lord 2024 took his alleged burial cloth and used a new form of object dating to show that it may actually be 2,000 years old?
If you guessed “throw it into an artificial intelligence image generator to finally see what he really looked like”, you, well, might think he would try a mirror first. Or, if he did have some basic grasp of newfangled technology, take a selfie.
Earlier this month, scientists tried a new x-ray dating technique (different from the well-known radiocarbon method used to peg the dinosaurs' time on Earth) on the Shroud of Turin and found it could date back to Jesus’ time.
The Shroud is a hotly debated relic, which believers claim is the cloth Jesus was wrapped in by Joseph of Arimathea after he died, and that the imprint of his face was left on it at the moment of resurrection. The Shroud has a dubious history though, only solidly appearing in historical records in the Middle Ages, at a time when the ownership of religious relics was critical to power. Radiocarbon dating done in the 1980s revealed it was likely created then.
But the new assessment, testing the age of the cellulose in the linen, helped revive the most pressing question of our time: What can AI do for it?
Yes, like resume screening, Google search results, and autonomous car software, the Shroud of Turin is getting optimized with help from ChatGPT.
The original offending culprit was the website the Daily Express, which used MidJourney to make this image.
And because our internet-addled society is no longer able to process literally any singular thing with a “neat, cool” and move on—as we should with nearly any topic—the AI interpretation of Jesus created quite the stir.
Some were literally terrified.
“I understand the image is an AI creation … However, I am having a difficult looking into His eyes! Forgive me, Lord, please,” wrote one Gettr user.
It’s unclear whether he was apologizing for looking or being unable to look at him, but plenty of people saw the image creation as a blasphemous act (which, religiosity aside, using AI to do anything should be a sin.)
“This is not just corrosive, it's Doctor Frankenstein sewing up strip mined Faith. Without human hands at the helm, shaped by divinity Incarnate, it's soulless freak imagery,” wrote @Plombariola on Gettr, ignoring, we guess, that technically AI is invented by human hands and that the divine is, *waves hands* everywhere and so … nevermind. “It is more offensive than I can express.”
One user predicted an onslaught of Jesus endorsements (which was predicted in the scripture) now that the face was … confirmed.
“Now there are ten AI avatars, expect thousands pushing everything from luxury cars to soft drinks, candy bars, to abortion clinics and yes, political candidates .. Matthew 24:24 ‘For there shall arise false Christs.’”
So you have heard it here, if you see AI Jesus’ face plugging a Mountain Dew’s new alcoholic seltzer, that’s AI Jesus. Jesus himself drank wine.
Others cited different scripture to call out the image.
“Isaiah 53 describes Jesus! Don't need AI!,” replied one. The user flagged chapters from the Old Testament that are part of the Servant Songs, describing a messenger of the Lord who the world would first spit upon but eventually be vindicated.
Oh, could that be you, omnipotent yet benevolent software that only wishes to ease the world’s suffering, freeing it from the shackles of work but is being mocked and decreed by blasphemists?
Maybe. Because some people are taking the AI’s image of Jesus as … Gospel.
(And this being the internet, a very racist Gospel.)
The Daily Express didn’t share their prompts to Midjourney, but given that the image generators are trained on millions upon millions of images, it’s no surprise that it churned out a Western-looking Jesus that matched basic iconography of the Lord we’re all familiar with.
Like, that Jesus looks like every other Jesus. Plenty were aware of the why.
“Why does he look like a white dude, and not like a Semite? asked @IndianaJoe0321
“The 'AI' image is based on the icons not the other way round ffs!!” wrote another.
But many others were quick to attribute an ethereal sagacity to the entity .
“After the mass psyop by leftist and Jews to make Jesus become black or brown AI discover Jesus true image. Liberals on IG and X are having mass breakdown.” wrote one, deeming this image true and correct.
“Remember when British forensic experts and Israeli archaeologists claimed that Jesus was this hideous brown guy? Now that the Shroud of Turin has been confirmed authentic, AI has been used to determine what Jesus actually looked like, and it matches how He was always depicted,” as white “ wrote … @MrWhite.
So does the AI know something we don’t know? Was it imbued with a deeper understanding of the past than we simpletons might not be able to fathom? Or was it just regurgitating what we already know?
Fuck it, we will do the hack answer and ask AI:
“While the AI-generated image might provide an interesting visualization based on the Shroud, it is likely influenced by existing images of Jesus and the interpretive nature of the Shroud itself. It should be taken as one of many artistic representations rather than a definitive or accurate portrayal.”
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