Insight Bible: we tested the biblical chatbot “Pastor IA”

Artificial intelligence has entered the religious sphere thanks to Insight Bible, an application for Android And iOS whose main attraction is a chatbot called “Pastor AI” that promises to help users better understand the Bible.

Its creator is an entrepreneur named Tiatun Tiatun, who says he decided to launch a mobile gospel app that includes an artificial intelligence and machine learning assistant so that young people who are increasingly distanced from the church can get closer to the church. .

What is AI Shepherd and how does it work?

Insight Bible’s revolutionary feature is the “Pastor IA” chatbot, which app founder Tiatuna Tiatuna says helps users better understand the meaning of a verse or its historical context. “This is a particularly valuable feature for those seeking a deeper understanding of biblical teachings,” he told the religious portal. Christendom.

Interested in the capabilities of the chatbot, we downloaded the Insight Bible version for iOS. When you launch the app, it will ask you to provide information about your interests, as well as the version of the Bible you want to read.

After finishing the setup, we asked a question about Original Sin. Pastor I.A. responded with a broad response, noting that “original sin refers to the concept in Christian theology that all people are sinners by nature as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden.” He later says that the idea of ​​original sin is mentioned by the Apostle Paul in Romans 5:12.

We performed a similar Google search and obtained links leading to Wikipedia, an Encyclopaedia Britannica article, or a BBC text. The summary of each result differed moderately from Pastor IA’s response, so there appears to be a genuine desire behind Insight Bible to make biblical teaching more accessible.

There is a detail. While asking questions to Pastor I.A., we noticed a counter with 40 free questions. We think that when you use up the balance, you will have to pay a subscription that is not listed in the app. However, the Insight Bible page on the App Store talks about a subscription, the price of which is not specified.

Controversial launch

The launch of the Insight Bible was not without controversy. At least one religious scholar consulted Christendom He noted his concern about the displacement of the human factor due to the development of artificial intelligence. “We as a society are moving toward replacing humanity in every way possible: replacing human work, human thought, human writing, trying to eliminate humanity from the narrative,” he says.

However, another specialist consulted by the same publication took a rather neutral position. “Technology is immoral, it’s not necessarily good or bad, but what is done with it raises moral questions,” says Alex McFarland, a Christian apologist quoted by Christendom.

For his part, Tiatun tries to avoid controversy by presenting the Insight Bible as a simple but modern counseling tool. “Why not put the Bible on your phone? “We bring the Bible to man, not man to the Bible,” he says.