Four ways in which history and religion are being transformed by the metaverse and AI

Imagine getting a live art class from Leonardo da Vinci, or having a fully interactive discussion about the meaning of life with Socrates. You can now do this in your living room with a laptop and headset through startups like Ireland’s Engage XR and Sweden’s Hello History, combining the capabilities of artificial intelligence (AI) and the metaverse.

Tradition and technology have often been seen as distinct and even counterfactual, but clearly these technologies are now blurring the lines in ways that can alter how humans engage with cultural heritage.

Here are four emerging trends in this space:

1. New kinds of restoration

Many ancient texts are hard to access because they are close to crumbling or have parts missing, but AI is changing this using machine-learning algorithms to help make sense of fragments that are illegible to the human eye. For instance, this has been used to reveal the contents of papyrus that was charred by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

There’s similar potential with ancient sites that have been damaged, whether through neglect or military conflict. Some are now being “restored” by metaverse companies 3D-modelling spaces from digital images which have been created from descriptions in old texts.

Indian startup Who VR, for example, has made a virtual-reality recreation of Sharda Peeth, a ruined Hindu temple and ancient centre of learning. Similarly, Legends of Amsterdam, uses AI to create photo-realistic videos and art prints depicting the Dutch capital and its culture hundreds of years ago.

There are also AI companies teaching younger people how to use this technology to make recreations of their own. For example, Brhat, another Indian company, conducts workshops in creating AI visual content rooted in local cultural heritage.

2. Demystifying ancient langauges

Many old texts are written in languages known only to a limited number of people, such as Latin or Sanskrit. This poses barriers to accessing and understanding these historical works and their heritage.

The easiest solution is obviously just to use software that can translate the scripts, but AI offers much more interesting possibilities. For instance, an Indian startup called Mokx has built a chatbot called Arya with which you can discuss at length the Hindu Vedic scriptures. Similarly, there are AI assistants that have been trained on the Latin teachings and traditions of the Catholic church and the Hebrew equivalent for the Jewish Torah.

3. Virtual religion

Young people are engaging with cultural heritage in new ways thanks to these technologies. They are role-playing Indian demigods in a heritage game in the Sandbox metaverse, as well as Catholic clergy on the Roblox gaming platform.

The latter example comes from the Philippines. It involves hundreds of youngsters represented as avatars, attending a Sunday service in a virtual Quiapo Church – a popular Filipino Catholic place of worship. They listen to a sermon from a priest who is being role-played by another member of their Roblox group.

Similar Roblox Catholic services take place in other countries, including Poland and Vietnam. These both help to secure the future of such traditions, and gives youngsters from different parts of the world an easy opportunity to experience one another’s religious cultures.

Coming at spiritual experience from a different angle is Chakra VR, an app on Metaquest in which users meditate in the metaverse and learn about the seven chakras in the body.

4. Anthropomorphism

In some cases, we’re seeing AI combining with heritage in ways in which they take on human characteristics. AskMona is a good example, an AI chatbot deployed in places like the Colosseum Park in Rome and art exhibitions by the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris. Visitors can ask “Mona” whatever they like about what they are seeing, and it can begin to seem as if they are dealing with a human.

More exotic examples include the Impossible Torah, a series of written commentaries of the Jewish religious text by AI versions of famous authors such as William Shakespeare and René Descartes. Trained on the life and works of the character in question, this goes way beyond simple mimicry.

They each aim to talk about the Torah in the way that the character would have done, had they been available to write a submission in person. The examples of Da Vinci and Socrates at the beginning of the article fall into a similar category.

Also intriguing was an AI-powered church service held by the German Evangelical Church Congress in 2023. The pastor got Chat-GPT to write a sermon which was then delivered to the congregation by a photorealistic AI-created human.

This all demonstrates how technology is quickly changing the ways in which we interact with heritage and religion. As AI-driven chatbots and characters become increasingly common and take on a life of their own in the metaverse, these worlds will become ever more vivid and accessible.

And that level of immersion is nothing compared to what could be coming if brain-computer interfaces such as Neuralink become commonplace in years to come. No doubt they’ll be able to stimulate the right brain in ways which create deeply spiritual and lifelike experiences with limited distractions. It could lead us to hidden realms of spirituality and connections with the ancients that might lead to more evolved humans. For all the fears about technological advancement, it’s also fascinating to reflect on the huge potential benefits.

Sreevas Sahasranamam has ongoing research projects funded by the British Academy/Leverhulme Trust, British Council and Indian government.