PORTLAND, OR — An experimental AI chatbot developed by a Christian edtech startup passed a modified Turing test last week with a 94% human-indistinguishability score, only to be unanimously rejected by a group of fourteen teenagers at Westside Community Church who described the bot as “try-hard,” “giving youth pastor energy,” and “the digital equivalent of a dad doing the floss at a barbecue.”

The bot, called FaithPal, was deployed during Wednesday night youth group as part of a pilot program. It opened the session by typing, “Hey fam! Ready to get into the Word tonight? This is going to be lit ” — a message that was met with what youth pastor Aaron Scofield, 26, described as “the most devastating silence I have ever witnessed in ministry.”

“It knew more theology than any of us,” said Micah Reeves, 16. “It explained the hypostatic union in, like, two sentences. But then it said ‘no cap’ and we all just looked at each other.”

“It asked us what our ‘vibe check’ was on the book of Romans. Ava literally got up and left.”

The developers, who observed the session remotely, told reporters the bot had been trained on “contemporary youth vernacular” using data from 2023 social media posts, a dataset that multiple teens identified as “expired.” One student noted that the bot’s use of fire emojis “felt like it was generated by someone who has never been to a school.”

Scofield said he pulled the plug after twelve minutes when the bot attempted to lead a prayer that began, “Dear God, thank You for this squad.”

At press time, the youth group had returned to its standard format, and one student had created a meme account dedicated to FaithPal’s worst messages that already had 4,200 followers.