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In a recent speech at Rome\u2019s La Sapienza University, Pope Leo XIV warned that investments in artificial intelligence and high-tech weapons could push the world into what he called a \u201cspiral of annihilation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Leo has identified AI as a critical issue for humanity and is expected to soon release a papal encyclical (a kind of open letter on Catholic doctrine) addressing the subject. His concerns reflect a broader debate taking shape across religious communities: Though artificial intelligence in its current form has only been in the marketplace for a few years, religious leaders and scholars from traditions stretching back centuries or more have already weighed in on the technology.<\/p>\n
While perspectives naturally vary across faiths and, in some traditions, between sects and congregations, many discussions have focused on the roles AI can and can\u2019t play in religious teaching and study. Additionally, scholars are examining its implications for human labor, society, and the environment.<\/p>\n
Some clerical leaders have experimented with using AI to draft sermons<\/a> and other religious materials, while some faith communities have built chatbots designed to answer<\/a> doctrinal and ethical questions. A team that included researchers from Kyoto University has even deployed a robotic Buddhist monk, dubbed the \u201cBuddharoid<\/a>,\u201d at a temple in Kyoto, where it can assume postures associated with prayer. The project comes as Japanese Buddhism, like some other religious traditions around the world, faces declining numbers of adherents. Other developers have created AI versions of spiritual figures, including emulations of Jesus<\/a>, the Virgin Mary, and even Satan<\/a>.<\/p>\n But other leaders have been more cautious about how AI should be used in religious practice, often emphasizing the unique relationship between humans and the divine. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, recently told Decision<\/em> magazine<\/a> that a pastor who uses AI to write a sermon (versus using it for research) is essentially committing plagiarism.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s just state the theological obvious: A pastor is a human being who is called to study God\u2019s Word, to hear God\u2019s Word, to preach God\u2019s Word, and to obey God\u2019s Word,\u201d Mohler said. \u201cA machine is called to none of those things and capable of none of those things.\u201d<\/p>\n The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints noted late last year<\/a>\u00a0that AI \u201ccannot replace the gift of divine inspiration or the individual work required to receive it,\u201d indicating that AI can be used for tasks like research, editing, and translating but not to \u201creplace the individual work and spiritual guidance required to prepare divinely inspired talks, lessons, prayers, or blessings.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Pope Leo recently called on priests<\/a> to avoid \u201cthe temptation to prepare homilies with artificial intelligence,\u201d arguing that AI \u201cwill never be able to share faith.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Still, other Christian organizations<\/a> have developed AI for purposes like training for missionary work and even answering questions about scripture. More than 600,000 people have used<\/a> FaithBot, an AI tool launched by the Southern Baptist Convention’s International Mission Board last year, for instance. <\/p>\n Overall, according to a survey<\/a> from evangelical research organization Lifeway Research<\/a>, only about 10% of U.S. Protestant pastors say they\u2019re regular users of AI, with another 32% experimenting with it. Another 18% are actively avoiding it, while 20% are ignoring it, according to the survey. Pastors expressed concern about errors in AI content, while 55% agreed with a statement that \u201cGod has always shared His Word through people, and AI isn\u2019t a person.\u201d <\/p>\n Protestant churchgoers surveyed are divided over the technology\u2019s use in sermon preparation: About 44% say they don\u2019t see anything wrong with pastors using it to prepare sermons, but 43% disagree. They\u2019re also divided on the merits of hearing a sermon about \u201capplying biblical principles to AI,\u201d with younger churchgoers more likely to say such a presentation would be valuable. About 61%, though, say they\u2019re concerned about AI\u2019s influence on Christianity. <\/p>\n Similar questions apply in other religions, with AI tools readily available for studying a variety of religious texts from essentially all major traditions, even amid concern that their responses may lack nuance, human wisdom, and divine inspiration. <\/p>\n Rabbi Yehuda Shurpin<\/a>, author of a question-and-answer column for Chabad.org, recently weighed in, saying that AI can\u2019t \u201creplicate the depth of human connection required for spiritual counseling and support\u201d or substitute for a rabbi on questions of Jewish law. And Egyptian religious authorities<\/a> have warned against the use of AI in interpreting the Quran, while writers for the Yaqeen Institute for Islamic Research recently cautioned allowing AI to devalue religious scholarship.<\/p>\n \u201cIn the Islamic tradition, knowledge has never been an exercise in processing information; it is a moral and spiritual pursuit rooted in sincerity and realized through meaningful application,\u201d wrote Mohamed AbuTaleb, Ibtihal Aboussad, and Kenan Alkiek<\/a>. \u201cKnowledge should draw us closer to Allah.\u201d <\/p>\n Multiple religious leaders have expressed concerns about AI\u2019s potential role in replacing human labor from both a theological perspective and a humanitarian one, with the pope recently advising<\/a> that AI should be a tool to serve flesh-and-blood humans, not replace them. <\/p>\n Mohler, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, discussed \u201cthe possibility that AI could take away meaningful work and jobs from human beings who, as we see in the earliest chapters of Genesis, were made in God\u2019s image and were made to work.\u201d<\/p>\n Conflating humans and AI can also risk devaluing human labor in general, some religious leaders say. Daniel Daly, executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health, recently warned<\/a> that a human may come to be viewed as a \u201cmachine to be used.\u201d<\/p>\n And the technology\u2019s occasional tendency to regurgitate existing material without properly citing or compensating the people behind it can disrespect those authors and go against religious precepts, warned Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman in a recent article<\/a>. Other religious leaders have expressed concern about AI and copyright, too: \u201cIslamic ethics place a high value on fairness and the protection of property,\u201d the Yaqeen Institute authors noted.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n AI accuracy remains a concern as well, with hallucinations far from a solved problem. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints counseled last year that church leaders shouldn\u2019t turn to AI to give church members advice on \u201cmedical, financial, legal, or other sensitive matters,\u201d suggesting they turn to trained human professionals instead.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Nor, say some religious leaders, can AI replace human creativity. \u201cArtificial intelligence has certainly opened up new horizons for creativity, but it also raises serious concerns about its possible repercussions on humanity\u2019s openness to truth and beauty, and capacity for wonder and contemplation,\u201d Pope Leo said in December<\/a>, warning about the displacement of human labor and the abandonment of God-given talents.\u00a0<\/p>\n While AI, in theory, can provide more time for rest and leisure, allegedly labor-saving devices certainly haven\u2019t always done so, writes pastor and technology scholar A. Trevor Sutton in Christianity Today<\/em><\/a>.<\/em> True rest, he suggests, comes from following religious commandments to seek it\u2014not simply from putting machines to work for us.<\/p>\n Additionally, Jewish scholars have begun to weigh in on how and when<\/a> AI may be used during the Sabbath, when work is generally forbidden, citing precedent from prior technologies<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a 2021 essay<\/a>, Soraj Hongladarom, a philosophy professor at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, argued that ethical AI development can follow the Buddhist principle of seeking to eliminate world suffering.\u00a0 But many faith communities have expressed concern about the negative aspects of AI, including labor issues, AI\u2019s use in combat, the potential for generating misinformation, and the environmental costs of deploying sprawling new data centers.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The pope\u00a0recently warned<\/a>\u00a0that military AI should be monitored \u201cso that it does not\u00a0absolve humans of responsibility for their choices and does not exacerbate the tragedy of conflicts.\u201d The World Council of Churches has\u00a0similarly warned\u00a0<\/a>about the risk of \u201ckiller robots,\u201d or autonomous weapons systems, to human life. Furthermore, religious leaders and scholars have warned about AI\u2019s potential for misinformation\u2014including false claims about religion and religious communities. \u201cBecause most of that data is Western and secular in origin, AI often carries blind spots about Islam and Muslims,\u201d wrote the Yaqeen Institute authors. \u201cSome models, for instance, have even failed to acknowledge real-world injustices, such as the persecution of Uyghur Muslims.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n The American Jewish Committee has noted that many Jewish Americans are concerned<\/a> about AI\u2019s potential for spreading misinformation about Jews. And Pope Leo himself<\/a> has been the target of AI misinformation.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n The potential environmental costs associated with data center use of water and power also haven\u2019t gone unnoticed by faith communities\u2014from the Presbyterian Church (USA)<\/a> to the Methodist Church in the United Kingdom<\/a>\u2014even as some express optimism that AI could help develop new technologies to aid the environment and humankind. Different communities are likely to reach different conclusions about those trade-offs. In some parts of the United States, Capital B News recently reported,<\/a> reactions to data center projects have divided churches along racial lines.<\/p>\nAI and labor<\/h2>\n
Social and environmental justice <\/h2>\n
Some religious leaders hope for AI\u2019s help in addressing humanitarian issues\u2014from developing new health treatments to boosting food and industrial production. In 2023, Southern Baptist officials sought<\/a> to \u201cacknowledge the powerful nature of AI and other emerging technologies, desiring to engage them from a place of eschatological hope rather than uncritical embrace or fearful rejection.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jewish scholars frequently compare modern technology and AI to the centuries-old legend of the golem<\/a>, a clay creature who is brought to life to act as an obedient servant or protector but (in most stories) eventually becomes independent of its masters, spiraling out of control and wreaking havoc.<\/p>\n
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