Peter, who founded Catloaf Software in 2011, had built numerous more static applications with historical figures — including Text From the Founding Fathers, Text From Oscar Wilde, and, more recently, Text From Jesus — in which users received quotes from the figures in question but couldn’t interact.
When ChatGPT was released last year, Peter, a 46-year-old developer who came to the United States from France, wondered how to use AI to upgrade the Text From Jesus app. In February, he started digging into Open AI, the artificial intelligence research laboratory that launched ChatGPT and created a proper chat from a simple devotional app.
“Instead of just getting a daily Bible verse, now you get a chance through this app to chat with Jesus or anybody else in the Bible,” he said.
There are few limits to what users can ask the app’s characters. Whether the topic is personal relationship advice or complex theological matters, they formulate elaborate responses, incorporating at least one Bible verse.
Asked how he defined a good Christian, the app’s Jesus bot replied that such a person will “profess faith in me, but also follow my teachings and embody them in your life,” and quotes a passage in the Gospel of Matthew in which Jesus teaches that the greatest commandments are “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” and “Love your neighbor as yourself.”