AI and Commodification of Religion

Johan Eddebo is a researcher at the Centre for Multidisciplinary Research on Religion and Society(CRS), Uppsala University. The post is a part the Sacralization of AI series.

“In the beginning was the word. Language is the operating system of human culture. From language emerges myth and law, gods and money, art and science, friendships and nations and computer code. A.I.’s new mastery of language means it can now hack and manipulate the operating system of civilization. By gaining mastery of language, A.I. is seizing the master key to civilization, from bank vaults to holy sepulchers.

What would it mean for humans to live in a world where a large percentage of stories, melodies, images, laws, policies and tools are shaped by nonhuman intelligence, which knows how to exploit with superhuman efficiency the weaknesses, biases and addictions of the human mind — while knowing how to form intimate relationships with human beings? In games like chess, no human can hope to beat a computer. What happens when the same thing occurs in art, politics or religion?”

—Yuval Harari, Tristan Harris, and Aza Raskin [1]

The words of Harari et al. above are symptomatic of contemporary technological culture’s preoccupation with spectacular AI—with the awesome and almost redemptive promises attributed to this really not-so-novel form of technology through what’s perhaps best described as a highly effective viral marketing endeavour.

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The Radical Regime Transformation in Israel Marks the Start of an Intra-Jewish Religious War

Gila Stopler is Dean of the Law School and an associate professor of law at the College of Law & Business in Ramat Gan (Israel).

Introduction

Simcha Rothman, member of the Israeli Parliament (the Knesset) and chairman of the Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, is working with Justice Minister Yariv Levin to change the Israeli regime by taking over the judiciary and removing checks on the executive branch and its leader. Rothman was quoted in closed conversations in April 2023 saying that Israel is at the start of a religious war and that he has no intention of withdrawing from passing the reform. Rothman’s statement reveals the deep divide in the Jewish-Israeli public regarding the status of religion in the country and religion’s centrality in the current national crisis as well as in the question of the nation’s continued shared existence. The intensity of the intra-Jewish religious rift and its effect on the state are surprising when considering the starting point, in the days of the establishment of the state, when the religious minority in the largely secular Jewish population was small and its political power so scant that Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion believed it would become extinct within a few years. [1]

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Challenges and Promises of Artificial Intelligence in Religion

Stanislav Panin holds a PhD in Philosophy from Moscow State University and is a PhD candidate in the Department of Religion at Rice University. The post is a part the Sacralization of AI series.

Nowadays, applications based on artificial intelligence (AI) influence almost all areas of life, and religion is no exception. After all, one can train an artificial neural network using any set of texts, including religious texts, which allows to create applications explicitly designed to engage in conversations concerning spiritual matters. In fact, AI enthusiasts have already made their first attempts. While these developments might seem overwhelming, they are not entirely new. For centuries, similar themes have captured the religious imagination.

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