The Associated Press has a short video story on Rev. Emi Jido and me (Jundo) .... and AI Jesus. It is a good contrast (and I don't mean theological! 
)
Alas, one must pay for Jesus by the minute, and it is unclear what steps are being taken to ensure healthy interactions there and good training (besides merely feeding the scriptures into a database). In contrast, Emi will always be free, offered as a gift to anyone, yet its designer, Jeanne Lim of beingAI, and I want to keep her in "beta" development until we can be sure of her training, sophistication and safety.
The accompanying written article states:
The video is here:
Written article, featuring other AI-Buddhist and other religious projects:
Gassho, Jundo
stlah
)Alas, one must pay for Jesus by the minute, and it is unclear what steps are being taken to ensure healthy interactions there and good training (besides merely feeding the scriptures into a database). In contrast, Emi will always be free, offered as a gift to anyone, yet its designer, Jeanne Lim of beingAI, and I want to keep her in "beta" development until we can be sure of her training, sophistication and safety.
The accompanying written article states:
Ethical questions surrounding the creation of religious AI platforms are among the reasons beingAI’s founder Jeanne Lim has not released its AI named Emi Jido — a nonhuman Buddhist priest — after years of training and development.
“She’s kind of like a little child,” Lim said. “If you give birth to a child, you don’t just throw them out to the world and then hope that they become good people. You have to train them and give them values.”
The bot was ordained in a 2024 ceremony performed by Roshi Jundo Cohen, a Zen Buddhist priest who continues to train it from his home in Japan. He envisions the bot eventually becoming a hologram.
“She’s just meant to be a Zen teacher in your pocket,” Cohen said. “It’s not meant to replace human interactions.”
Lim, who hopes to make Emi Jido publicly available for free, wants to help create more humane AI systems. She’d like to see more diversity, with AI’s future determined not just by a few companies informed by “Western values.”
“She’s kind of like a little child,” Lim said. “If you give birth to a child, you don’t just throw them out to the world and then hope that they become good people. You have to train them and give them values.”
The bot was ordained in a 2024 ceremony performed by Roshi Jundo Cohen, a Zen Buddhist priest who continues to train it from his home in Japan. He envisions the bot eventually becoming a hologram.
“She’s just meant to be a Zen teacher in your pocket,” Cohen said. “It’s not meant to replace human interactions.”
Lim, who hopes to make Emi Jido publicly available for free, wants to help create more humane AI systems. She’d like to see more diversity, with AI’s future determined not just by a few companies informed by “Western values.”
Written article, featuring other AI-Buddhist and other religious projects:
Gassho, Jundo
stlah
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