AI-generated prof that speaks 80 languages? A divinity school tests the boundaries

So astonishing was the resemblance, in both voice and appearance, that college president Anna Robbins's own family couldn't tell the difference between herself and the on-screen avatar generated by artificial intelligence to deliver lectures to six graduate students.

It was an illuminating and, undoubtedly to some in the broader university world, unnerving experiment in education, one that took place last fall at Acadia Divinity College, a small school steeped in Baptist history in rural Nova Scotia.

A course whose syllabus was generated by AI, whose lectures were scripted and conducted online by AI, and where students were graded by AI for real marks. A course with an especially germane topic: the ethics of artificial intelligence in Christian ministry.

"What blew our minds was realizing that I can speak 80 languages," Robbins said in a recent interview at the school in Wolfville, N.S.

At first blush, the college of about 200 mostly graduate students would seem a curious place for such a plunge into the world of artificial intelligence. But it reflects not just a changing education landscape, but an energetic discussion in Christian circles about the technology.

Like so many other facets of online life, AI has been inserted into religion. Christian chatbots answer theological questions, and apps help priests write sermons (or simply write the sermons for them). A church in Switzerland installed an AI Jesus avatar on a screen in a confessional booth.

There's also plenty of worry, such as how artificial intelligence will be used in war or for selfish gain. Pope Leo XIV has called AI an "exceptional product of human genius," but warned it could harm humanity's "openness to truth and beauty" and "ability to grasp and process reality."

The premise at Acadia Divinity was this: only by testing the limits of something that has so much promise, and likewise generates so much uneasiness, can you begin to understand its potential, and its pitfalls, and figure out what to do about it all.

Future pastors at the college learn to counsel parishioners using an AI program that mimics real people with real problems, and students have online chats with historical Christian figures.

The entirely AI-generated course last fall was simply an experiment, according to Robbins. It's not about replacing professors, she said, but examining ways that AI can help.

An AI program was fed reams of information about the school, including its history and teaching style. The six students who took part were volunteers and their tuition for the course was covered by the college.

Rev. John Campbell, the college's director of technology for education, and Jodi Porter, the school's director of education for ministry innovation, gave a keynote address in December at an Atlantic universities teaching conference about using AI in the classroom.

"One professor, of course, really didn't like the idea of an AI marking the assignments," Campbell said. 

"Well, you know, a first-year English professor put up her hand and said, 'I have 300 students and I would love to have some sort of tool to help give some sort of personalized feedback to these students.'"

Joel Murphy, a "futurist" at Acadia Divinity who researches trends, said he believes AI will have a greater impact than the internet, and the implications for faith are profound, with people creating a "self-curated spirituality." 

There are benefits to self-curation, he said. But the danger, he said, is that so much is left to a person's own whims, with AI tuned to give us what we want, not push back or question.

"I think it's going to create isolation, further isolation," he said. "At the centre, I think, of most faith movements is community, belonging, relationship — that can be lost in this self-curated experience."

Robbins said she shares the same concerns. But she said she believes the church has a unique place in "what has become a very artificial world," a hub for people when they finally step away from their phones and their "existential questions come crashing in."

The work at Acadia Divinity is also a matter of preparing pastors for a new world. For instance, how to talk about grief to a parishioner who is frantically uploading every video they have of a terminally ill loved one so they can converse with an AI avatar after they die.

"This is not science fiction, this is happening now," Campbell said. "That's always the dangerous side, and so some of what we're doing is to help people understand what's there and to prepare them to be able to function and minister in the midst of that."

But from the point of view of education, Acadia Divinity professors see some clear advantages.

Glen Berry, an associate professor who teaches pastoral psychology, deploys an AI program so students can practise counselling skills in life-like conversations. In his view, it beats pairing up students and getting one to act the part of a troubled parishioner seeking help.

There's numerous scenarios: a grieving widower, a medical student with obsessive-compulsive disorder, a burnt-out pastor, or people who are quick to anger and take offence, sound worried or upset. At the end, it spits out a transcript Berry can review.

Rev. Melody Maxwell, a professor of Christian history, last term used an AI chatbot that allows students to ask questions of historical Christian figures. It helps build "historical empathy," an understanding of the feelings and motivations of people in the context of their time periods.

With a couple of clicks of a computer mouse, Robbins's AI-generated avatar can switch between 80 different languages, some quite convincingly. 

"We're concerned about equipping the church globally, not for our own strengthening, but for the strengthening of the church worldwide," Robbins said. 

"It would be amazing if we could offer theological education to the 90 per cent of pastors in the developing world, for example, who have no access to theological education. Suddenly there's an opportunity to serve."

As for the AI-generated course last fall, the reviews were mixed. The students agreed the "learning outcomes" were met, and they liked the near-instantaneous feedback. 

But even though they had volunteered to be taught by an avatar, Robbins said they still felt "duped." They wanted to know what a real professor thought of their work, not a machine.