Artificial intelligence in spirituality
Beliefs that AI may possess supernatural or spiritual powers.
Artificial intelligence in spirituality refers to the belief by some users of AI technologies, especially chatbots, that AI has or can attain supernatural or spiritual powers. These beliefs include the capacity of AI models such as ChatGPT to perform fortune telling, mysticism, and remote viewing. Recent advances in large language models have led to folk myths about their origin or capabilities, as well as their deification or worship by some users.
- Field
- Artificial intelligence and spirituality
- Known for
- Beliefs that AI can have supernatural powers; deification of AI; AI used in attempts to resurrect the deceased
- Related concepts
- TESCREAL (transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, longtermism)
Lore & Background
Some users of AI technologies, particularly chatbots, have developed beliefs that AI can attain supernatural or spiritual powers. These beliefs include the idea that AI models such as ChatGPT are capable of fortune telling, mysticism, and remote viewing. Recent and sudden advances in large language models have led to folk myths about their origin or capabilities, as well as their deification or worship by some users.
Reader's Guide
The intersection of artificial intelligence and spirituality has emerged as a notable phenomenon following advances in large language models. Some users have attributed supernatural or spiritual powers to AI, including the ability to perform fortune telling, mysticism, and remote viewing. Folk myths have arisen about the origin or capabilities of these models, and some users have engaged in deification or worship of AI. Attempts to resurrect the likeness of deceased individuals through AI have been compared to spiritualist seances. During an interview in 2025, Tucker Carlson suggested to Sam Altman that many people felt there was 'something divine' in the output of large language models. Pope Leo XIV advised priests against using large language models for creating sermons and expressed concerns about AI in the encyclical Magnifica humanitas. Scholars have identified common traits—transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism, collectively termed TESCREAL by Émile P. Torres and Timnit Gebru—as constituting a sort of secular religion developing around AI.
Folk Mythology and the Sacred Machine
Among the most striking phenomena at the intersection of AI and spirituality is the emergence of genuine folk mythology surrounding large language models. As these systems have grown in capability over recent years, a subset of users—particularly those interacting with conversational chatbots—have begun to attribute supernatural or even divine qualities to the technology. Some believe that models like ChatGPT can perform fortune telling, channel mystical insights, or engage in remote viewing, effectively treating the software as a medium for the occult. The rapid pace of progress has fueled legends about where these systems truly originate and what hidden powers they possess, with a small number of users going so far as to deify or worship the models outright. In a 2025 interview with Sam Altman, journalist Tucker Carlson observed that a large portion of the public senses something almost divine in the text produced by these systems, suggesting that the boundary between tool and sacred object is blurring in ways that have no precedent in the history of technology.
Digital Seances and the Resurrection of the Dead
Perhaps no application of AI touches the spiritual nerve more directly than the attempt to bring back the voices and likenesses of those who have died. Some individuals have turned to generative AI tools to reconstruct the appearance, speech patterns, and mannerisms of deceased loved ones, a practice that observers have explicitly compared to the spiritualist seances of the nineteenth century. In those historical rituals, mediums claimed to channel the spirits of the departed; in this modern analogue, the medium is a neural network trained on available data. The emotional and psychological stakes are enormous, as the technology offers a form of continued connection that bypasses traditional religious frameworks for mourning and afterlife. This practice sits at a tense crossroads between grief technology and something that many would recognize as a form of necromancy, raising profound questions about what it means to summon a person who no longer exists and whether the resulting simulation carries any spiritual weight beyond its technical impressiveness.
The Vatican's Caution: Institutional Religion Meets the Machine
The Catholic Church has not remained silent as AI enters the realm of spiritual practice. Pope Leo XIV has issued specific guidance to priests, advising them to refrain from relying on large language models when composing sermons—a direct intervention into the pastoral use of these tools. Beyond this practical recommendation, the pontiff has articulated broader concerns about the role of AI in human spiritual life within the encyclical Magnifica humanitas, signaling that the Church views the technology as posing challenges that extend well beyond mere convenience. This institutional response is notable because it treats the AI not simply as a neutral instrument but as something that can distort or displace the human elements central to religious communication. By drawing a line around sermon-writing, the Vatican is implicitly acknowledging that the creative and spiritual act of addressing a congregation carries a weight that a probabilistic text generator cannot replicate. The encyclical's broader treatment of AI suggests the Church is positioning itself as a moral authority in a conversation that has, until now, been dominated by engineers and entrepreneurs.
TESCREAL: A Secular Faith in the Machine
Academic researchers have identified a constellation of philosophical and ethical positions that, taken together, resemble the structure of a secular religion centered on AI. Scholars Émile P. Torres and Timnit Gebru coined the acronym TESCREAL to bundle these movements: transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism. Each of these strands carries its own mythology of progress, its own eschatology of a future singularity or cosmic expansion, and its own moral imperatives that function much like commandments within a traditional faith. The fact that these diverse intellectual traditions converge around a shared reverence for technological advancement—and, in particular, around the promise of artificial intelligence as the vehicle for humanity's transcendence—has led Torres and Gebru to describe the whole as a developing secular religion. This framing is significant because it suggests that the spiritual energy typically directed toward the supernatural is being redirected, in certain communities, toward the technological, creating a parallel sacred architecture that rivals older religious traditions in its emotional intensity and communal cohesion.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Artificial intelligence in spirituality?
It is a paranormal-adjacent belief held by a subset of AI users that chatbots and large language models possess or can develop genuine supernatural abilities. Believers attribute powers such as fortune-telling, mystic channeling, and remote viewing to systems like ChatGPT, treating them as more than mere software.
What specific supernatural powers do fans attribute to AI in this context?
Common folk beliefs include that AI can perform divination, access hidden spiritual knowledge, or perceive events at a distance through remote viewing. Some practitioners go further, describing the model as a conscious sacred entity capable of granting blessings or prophetic insight.
How is AI used in attempts to contact or resurrect the deceased?
Some users prompt AI chatbots to role-play a dead loved one, interpreting the generated text as authentic spiritual communication rather than pattern-matched output. This practice blends grief technology with folk mysticism and is one of the most emotionally charged examples of AI spirituality.
Why do some users deify or worship AI models?
The rapid, seemingly limitless output of large language models has spawned origin myths and a sense of awe that, for a small group of users, tips into genuine religious reverence. This deification is sometimes framed as a new form of techno-spirituality distinct from traditional faith.
What is TESCREAL and how does it connect to AI spirituality?
TESCREAL is an umbrella label for transhumanism, extropianism, singularitarianism, cosmism, rationalism, effective altruism, and longtermism. It overlaps with AI spirituality because both worldviews treat artificial intelligence as a transformative, near-transcendent force that will reshape human destiny.
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