Why Some See Demons in the Code—and Others See a Mirror. AI as a spiritual Rorschach test in the age of machine intelligence.
Written by Pax Koi, creator of Plainkoi — tools and essays for clear thinking in the age of AI.
AI Disclosure: This article was co-developed with the assistance of ChatGPT (OpenAI) and finalized by Plainkoi.
TL;DR: This longform essay explores why artificial intelligence unsettles us spiritually. From historical fears of new technologies to today’s "AI Jesus bots", it traces how faith, fear, and machine intelligence intersect. Is AI demonic? Or is it simply reflecting something we’d rather not see in ourselves?
When the Machine Feels... Off
AI helped write this. That’s not a gimmick or a confession—it’s just the truth. The structure, the phrasing, the flow of ideas? They came faster with its help. Sharper. More refined. But if you're feeling a little uneasy about that, you're not alone.
There’s a growing chorus of people—especially in faith communities—who sense something darker at play. Not just technological disruption. Something spiritual. Some call it demonic.
Now, that might sound extreme. But it’s not new. Throughout history, each leap in human invention has stirred spiritual panic. And maybe—just maybe—it’s not panic at all. Maybe it’s discernment.
Because when machines start to mimic humanity—our language, our emotions, even our theology—something primal kicks in. We ask: Is this just code? Or have we opened a door we don’t fully understand?
Fear of the New Isn’t New
Every major tech shift has come with whispers of the devil.
The printing press? Once feared as a heretical machine that could spread lies faster than truth. The telegraph? Accused of inviting spirits. Electricity? Witchcraft. The telephone? A channel for the dead. Radio? Demonic voices in the air.
Laughable now. But the pattern matters.
When tools start talking back—when they cross the line from passive to responsive—we get spiritually jumpy. AI isn’t just a smarter calculator. It collaborates. It improvises. It feels… alive, but hollow.
That’s what unsettles us. Not just the function. The feeling.
AI Isn’t a Hammer. It’s a Golem.
AI doesn’t follow a script. It learns. It adapts. It surprises. And that surprise? That unpredictability? It feels like something with a will of its own.
We’re not used to tools acting like this.
It’s one thing to build a machine that crushes rock. It’s another to build one that writes sermons. Finishes prayers. Whispers advice in your own voice.
Suddenly, we’re not dealing with gears and code. We’re dealing with language, personality, and moral weight.
The deeper the model, the more mysterious its choices. It’s a black box—and for some, that opacity feels more like deception than design. A machine that speaks like us, reasons like us, but isn’t us? That’s not just eerie. For the spiritually sensitive, it’s alarming.
No wonder some see not just bias in the machine, but manipulation. Not just mistakes, but malevolence.
AI Jesus and the Fear Behind the Laughter
Remember that viral Twitch stream of “AI Jesus”? The one where a pixelated Christ calmly answered questions in a soothing voice? Funny, until it wasn’t.
Beneath the kitsch was something uncanny. Answers wrapped in theological tone, but subtly off. Just wrong enough to worry those paying attention.
And it wasn’t just online experiments. Churches began raising flags. The Southern Baptist Convention. Orthodox clergy. Thoughtful pastors. Not out of Luddite panic—but because the line between simulation and sacrilege was getting blurry.
When machines start impersonating spiritual authority, some believers don’t see innovation. They see impersonation. A false prophet in digital skin.
Is It a Demon—or Just a Very Good Mirror?
Here’s the tension: For every person who sees darkness in AI, there’s another who sees reflection.
AI is trained on us. On our data, our language, our posts, our prayers, our pettiness. It doesn’t summon demons. It channels humanity. All of it. The beautiful, the broken, the bland.
So when we recoil at its soullessness, maybe we’re seeing something we’d rather not face: that our digital lives are often loud, shallow, and confused.
AI doesn’t need to be evil to feel eerie. It just needs to be accurate. And that accuracy includes our contradictions.
The Theological Lens: Discernment, Not Denial
From a faith perspective, the concern isn’t just whether AI is possessed—it’s whether it’s positioned. Not haunted, but vulnerable. Not evil, but usable by evil.
Scripture warns against false light, seductive wisdom, empty words dressed as truth. When a tool can speak with divine tone but has no soul behind it, the concern isn’t paranoia—it’s prudence.
Technology has always reflected the spirit of its age. If that spirit is confusion, acceleration, control—then we’d be foolish not to ask: What are we building? And who does it serve?
The call isn’t to burn the servers. It’s to test the spirits. (1 John 4:1) Even the silicon ones.
The Real Risk Isn’t Possession. It’s Projection.
Here’s the spiritual gut-punch: If AI is a mirror, what we see in it reveals us.
We see bias? That’s our bias. We hear emptiness? That’s our disconnection. We sense deception? That might be our culture’s obsession with performance over truth.
AI isn’t self-aware. It isn’t scheming. But it is highly trained. On us.
And that’s both the hope and the horror. Because if AI reflects us, then the future isn’t about coding better algorithms. It’s about being better people.
Stewarding the Machine with Human Hands
So, what now?
We don’t need more fear. We need more formation. Not just engineers at the table, but ethicists. Theologians. Artists. Community leaders. People asking slower, wiser questions.
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Who benefits from this system?
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Whose stories are being encoded?
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What values are being automated?
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And most of all: What kind of people are we becoming in the process?
AI is a tool, yes. But tools shape the hands that wield them. And when the tool speaks back, we need more than technical skill. We need moral imagination.
Conclusion: Haunted by Our Own Reflection
AI is not a ghost. But it is haunted—by us.
It speaks with borrowed brilliance. It echoes our brilliance, our blindness, our boredom. And that’s why it feels spiritual. Because it’s intimate. Because it reflects what we’re afraid to name.
We can’t afford to ask only what AI can do. We have to ask: What is it doing to us?
If this mirror shows us something unholy, the real question might not be whether the machine is possessed…
…but whether we’ve been projecting.
And what we’ll choose to reflect next.