A Disconcertingly Disembodied Robotic Mouth Sings Endless AI-Generated Self-Learning Prayers

Conceptual scientist Diemut Strebe, a visiting artist at the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology created “The Prayer”, a slightly disconcerting disembodied mouth that sings endless AI-generated prayers.

An experimental set-up to explore the possibilities of an approximation to celestial and numinous entities by performing a potentially never-ending chain of religious routines and devotional attempts for communication through a self-learning software.

Strebe stated that he wanted to imagine how a robot might respond to a higher being with this experiment.

How would a divine epiphany appear to an artificial intelligence? The focus of the project could maybe shed light on the difference between humans and AI machines in the debate about mind and matter and allows a speculative stance on the future of humans in the age of AI technology and AGI ambitions.

Here’s a front view of the robot.