Welcome back to another installment of “Is This Real Life?” — the series where we document the absolute state of artificial intelligence news so you don’t have to. Buckle up.
You Can Now Video Chat with AI Jesus. For $1.99 a Minute.
No, really. A tech company called Just Like Me has launched a platform where users can have personal talks with an AI Jesus. The platform hosts a roster of AI-generated personalities including Santa Claus, Charlie Kirk, and Jesus Christ. Inc
Users join video calls with an AI-generated avatar modeled after Jonathan Roumie, known for playing Jesus in The Chosen. It offers prayers and encouragement in multiple languages, remembers previous conversations, and speaks through not-quite-synced lips. Crux The CEO’s hot take on the whole thing? “You do feel a little accountable to the AI,” he said. yourNEWS
Critics online were less enthusiastic. One commenter summed it up: “This is evil. You can talk to the real Jesus for free whenever you want.” UOJ Fair point. Though to be fair, the real Jesus doesn’t have a $49.99/month subscription plan.
The Robot Monk Is Also a Thing Now
A research team from Kyoto University, in collaboration with tech ventures Teraverse and XNOVA, recently unveiled a new AI-integrated robot monk — the Buddharoid — at the Shoren-in temple in Kyoto. It’s designed to support Buddhist clergy as Japan’s religious infrastructure faces a steady decline, running on BuddhaBot-Plus, a generative AI derived from ChatGPT and trained extensively on sacred Buddhist scriptures. Beyond conversation, the Buddharoid uses hardware from China’s Unitree Robotics to mimic specific monk movements — including a slow gait, bowing, and the gassho gesture of placing palms together in prayer. Tokyo Weekender
A robot monk. That bows. We are living in the weirdest timeline.
4chan Gamers Figured Out AI Reasoning Before Google Did
Here’s a genuinely delightful piece of tech history that resurfaced this month. In the summer of 2020, a group of 4chan players obsessed with a text-based RPG called AI Dungeon accidentally discovered that forcing an NPC to “stay in character” and write out problem-solving steps one by one dramatically improved the AI’s accuracy — even at math. BigGo Finance
Two years later, a Google research team published a formal paper claiming to be the first to discover this mechanism, naming it “Chain of Thought” prompting. This sparked intense controversy in the open-source community. A large number of online records from 2020–2021 were unearthed proving community players had found it first. Faced with the evidence, Google quietly removed the “first” claim in a subsequent revision of the paper — but did not acknowledge the contribution of the 4chan players. BigGo Finance
So the next time someone tells you nothing good comes from internet rabbit holes: tell them about the 4chan gamers who accidentally advanced the science of AI reasoning. You’re welcome, Google.
AI Can Solve a PhD Physics Problem But Not Read a Clock
Stanford’s 2026 AI Index dropped this month, and it confirmed what many of us already suspected: AI can solve PhD-level physics problems but gets confused by a kindergarten clock — it’s like having a genius mathematician who can’t tie their shoes, which perfectly captures how weirdly uneven AI capabilities still are. Humai
Somewhere out there, an AI is deriving quantum field equations while also being completely stumped by “the little hand is on the 3.”
The 73kg Dead Chicken That Broke the Internet
Okay, this one’s from late 2025 but deserves a mention for the hall of fame: a bizarre ChatGPT prompt asking how to dispose of a 73kg dead chicken went viral on Reddit, spawning thousands of jokes and surreal AI responses. The absurd weight triggered everything from mock legal advice to Guinness World Records jokes. The chatbot repeatedly questioned reality and refused anything illegal, turning a nonsensical question into peak internet weirdness. TechRadar
A 73kg chicken, for reference, is roughly the size of a large adult human. The AI had questions. Honestly same.
That’s a wrap for this edition. The robots are getting smarter, holier, and increasingly confused by clocks. We’ll keep watching so you don’t have to.