Perspectives of Traditional Religions on Positive AI Futures
Technology corporations are rapidly developing artificial intelligence systems with unprecedented capabilities. Each year we yield more of our tasks and decisions to these systems. AI is transforming everything from everyday social interaction and how we work, to democracy and war. Even if we can mitigate the range of risks, from AI-enabled bio-terrorism to the loss of human control, AI will continue to change the world in ways we cannot imagine.
This change can be positive. Bespoke, narrow AI systems can solve many specific problems and improve people’s lives. Equally, an inclusive global conversation can help to address the existential questions AI raises about work, control, purpose, hope and what it means to be human. Such a conversation could in turn guide a cautious, pluralistic approach to the development, application and governance of these transformative technologies.
The current path is not that. Instead, the path is whatever the existing incentive structures behind corporate behavior make it – in other words, the accidental result of a great race to maximise profits. Most of the world is not getting a say in what our future will look like.
Most of the world – approximately 84% of the population – believes in or subscribes to what might be called a traditional religion. Yet the perspectives of world religions on AI, what they fear about it and what, if anything, they hope for and want from it, are largely absent from strategic AI discussions. In the halls of AI power the idea of god is either rejected or raised as something humans can create. Momentous decisions about the future of life are being made on the basis of extremely unrepresentative beliefs.
As we move into a new era where so many new things become possible, world religions – resilient institutions that have for so long cultivated wisdom about what is ethical and beneficial – have much to offer. They have unmatched experience and reach in organising communities, providing hope and meaning to people’s lives, and tackling existential questions around purpose, personhood, and power.
Part of FLI’s Futures program, this initiative aims to support religious groups to voice their faith-specific concerns and hopes for a world with AI, and work with them to resist the harms and realise the benefits.
This will involve convening and giving platform to representatives to discuss these issues and their potential solutions. We begin with a series of guest posts on this site envisioning positive futures from specific religious perspectives.
Posts from religious thinkers
The Future and the Artificial: An Islamic Perspective
On AI, Jewish Thought Has Something Distinct to Say
A Catholic Vision for a Positive Future with Divine, Human, and Artificial Intelligence
A Hindu Perspective on AI Risks and Opportunities
Events
UK multi-faith event explores religious perspectives and narratives around AI
FLI and the Leverhulme CFI put on a ‘Faith and AI Workshop’ at Jesus College, Cambridge, bringing together a range of thinkers from Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Hindu traditions. Sessions focused on how AI is affecting religious communities and practice, how religious narratives interplay with narratives around AI, and finally how religions might work to move towards more positive futures with AI.
FLI and AI & Faith run workshop on positive AI futures at DC's Museum of the Bible
Christian and Muslim leaders discuss how to steer AI in a wiser direction for Nigeria
FLI, represented by William Jones, co-organised a meeting of Nigerian Christian and Muslim leaders in Abuja to discuss how to AI in a wiser direction for Nigeria. Religious leaders from the Christian Council of Nigeria (CCN) and the Jama’atu Nasril Islam (JNI) agreed on the need for religious leaders to take the lead in the direction Nigeria is going with AI, including through education and governance. The resulting Communique was featured in the Nigerian Tribune and Vanguard.
FLI encourages bold Catholic moral leadership on AI at the Vatican
Max Tegmark and William Jones attended the Builders AI Forum hosted by the Pontifical Academy for Science in the Vatican. Tegmark spoke in a panel discussion about the need for the Catholic Church to provide moral leadership at this time by drawing a clear line between AI tools that can help humanity, and the hubristic pursuit of a digital god AGI to which we could lose control.
If you are a religious leader working on a faith initiative on AI, you have religious views on AI risks and opportunities you feel are not being heard, or you have ideas for how religious groups can meaningfully impact AI development and governance, do get in touch.
Contact: will@futureoflife.org