A new essay from the Scanlon Foundation Research Institute explores how religious leaders and communities in Australia are engaging with artificial intelligence, using it as a tool while grappling with its ethical, theological, and practical implications for faith, authority, and human judgement.
This essay provides a window into how some of those at the forefront of using AI in their communities are using these tools. It describes their successes and failures and some of the issues they are working through as thought leaders and people of faith. It does not attempt to be exhaustive—to capture the views of every faith leader or of every faith community—but to share a range of experiences, from those learning at the very beginning of the journey to those breaking new ground. Their stories provide a different lens through which to consider both the transformational power and the ethical challenges of AI, a journey that we are all on as citizens of the 21st century.
The essay is worth reading and reflection. It reports on use of CoPilot, ChatGPT and other forms of artificial intelligence. Buddhism, Judaism and Islam feature in user observations on how effective – or not effective – the uses of artificial intelligence in religion has been experienced. One sober reflection emerges – and this is inclusive of reflections on using the internet for religious moral guidance: artificial intelligence is not perfect, it cannot perform pastoral care and it cannot respond to human emotion and feeling.
Nonetheless, an illuminating essay worth reading for the purposes of removing ignorance about Artificial Intelligence, moral guidance and the pastoral work of religious leaders in many faith communities.
Download Scanlon Foundation Essay, Riding the Wave
