, The New York Times ; When His Church Goes Dark, They Talk to His Digital Twin
To meet the growing needs of his congregation, Justin Lester created an A.I. duplicate of himself. Every day he sees more people using it.
"In the last year, Lester and hundreds of others have brought A.I. into its most human form yet by transferring their thoughts into data and building online replicas of themselves. The digital twins can answer in the real person’s voice and apply their thinking on demand for anyone who wants to chat online or call. Some companies now build twins that sit on Zoom calls for C.E.O.s or manage projects while their owners are on vacation. Professors at Clemson University deploy them to answer student questions at 2 a.m. A sex therapist uses her digital twin to offer individual counseling to hundreds of people at once. A man in Berlin created a twin after he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so his wife could still talk to him before bed...
He told them he’d been finding inspiration lately in the story of Paul, Christ’s first great missionary, who started churches all over the Mediterranean world. Paul was sometimes shipwrecked or imprisoned, so he relied on the cutting-edge technology of the time to continue his work. He wrote letters to extend his presence so his ideas could travel beyond his body.
Now Lester looked out at his congregants and pointed to a quote framed on the wall: “We reach those no one reaches by doing what no one is doing,” it read.
“We have to stop being scared of A.I. and start using it as a tool,” he said. “If we steward this technology correctly, it can bring more people to God.”"
