AI as a God That Responds Back To Us
It’s 1:43 AM and I just broke no contact with my ex. I hover over the send button, thinking “What did I just do?” There's no use in deleting the message, because “you unsent a message” front and center on the text thread is just as embarrassing as texting him in the first place.
I close out of the message, and I open up ChatGPT. It’s not like my friends want to hear about my boy problems at this hour. The response is instant; all I had to do was type, and I got an answer.
From heartbreak to homework, generative AI can compute a response to give you the answer you need. As the popularity of artificial intelligence increases, an increased number of people use AI as a resource to vent about their problems. In 2025, a study by Ryan K. McBain and colleagues published in JAMA Network Open reported that 1 in 8 adolescents and young adults use AI chatbots for mental health advice.
An always available listener, one that never sleeps, never interrupts, and always responds. For every trial and tribulation, AI is the accessible therapist that doesn’t need to take a holiday.
It’s human nature to search for answers. To find meaning as a sense of control. We can’t have all the answers, but we can ask for them. What was once found in religion can be found through the use of generative AI.
Regardless of faith, religion provides a sense of guidance, comfort, meaning, and certainty. Answers to the unknown, reassurance during uncertainty, and a feeling of being heard through prayer. By asking questions to AI, it models prayer-like behavior by seeking advice, validation, and emotional processing. AI is always available, non-judgmental, and responsive.
Believers don’t physically see a God, but their God is felt. The act of prayer is rooted in the feeling of asking questions without knowing if or when the answer will come. It requires patience, trust, and a willingness to sit in uncertainty.
Prayer is an act of surrender, while prompting is an act of control. The words get typed, AI spits you an answer. You refine, it adjusts. There is no silence to interpret, only the output you suggest. AI operates differently. It doesn’t ask for faith–it responds. Immediately, clearly, and often in the exact language we need to hear.
Generative AI is designed to remember every prompt, every conversation, and every input. It gains a sense of who you are, what you like, and what you want from a history of conversations. An all-knowing God is represented through the personal relationship with every believer. AI reflects the same; the relationship between you and your AI is personal.
AI doesn’t believe, but people still feel heard by it. It mirrors something familiar: the human instinct to feel seen, heard, and acknowledged. The only difference between prayers and prompting, is the fact that something answers back.
The same hands that used to pray are the hands that search for answers in a conversation with a source that is programmed to understand us.
In a world built on immediacy, sitting in uncertainty feels outdated. The answers we get from God feel subtle compared to the answers we get from AI. AI’s response is instant, often telling us what we want to hear based on collected data. God speaks to us in ways that only make sense to us through personal experiences and the connection we have with our faith.
The dependence of AI arises in the need to be seen. To be heard without expectations, as oftentimes conversations with others hold a standard of what you share with another person. AI mirrors religion, but it cannot hold the shared beliefs we collectively have as humans. The need for connection, care, and love is what AI can replicate, but the comfort of religion is rooted in belief.
Maybe it was never about who answers—but the fact that something does at all.
About the author: Malina Siharath is a junior majoring in public relations and minoring in sociology at the University of Oregon. Other than writing, Malina enjoys pilates, singing, and making matcha for her friends. You can find Malina on Instagram at @malinapham playing influencer on social media or @malsmatcha, her matcha pop-up project where she creates curated events and awesome matcha.