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As a reporter covering the technology industry, I spend a lot of time thinking about artificial intelligence.
Billboards for AI companies are scattered across my San Francisco neighborhood. I regularly talk to people – business leaders, my friends and family – about AI chatbots. I've even tried using AI cloning to improve my dating life.
So when I came across a Facebook group called “AI for Church Leaders and Pastors,” my interest was piqued. On the page I found a community of religious leaders discussing updates to AI programs like ChatGPT and Claude, and even using image and video generators to recreate Biblical scenes.
The parallels were intriguing: For many technology enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, AI itself has become something of a religion. I wanted to dig deeper into how spirituality and AI were colliding in religious institutions across the country.
I searched the Internet for clergy who had experimented with AI to help them write their sermons, and called more than a dozen. I also visited some local churches, synagogues and mosques to ask religious leaders what they thought about the use of AI in their work.
I quickly discovered that AI was already a controversial topic in many religious communities. I even found a Bible study group made up of engineers from the top AI companies, meeting every week in the basement of a church in Silicon Valley.
The religious leaders I was most interested in speaking to were those who saw AI as a dilemma: yes, the technology might make their jobs easier. But at what price?
I've found that most coverage of AI focuses on advances in the technology itself, such as updates to chatbots or the emerging global market for computers and semiconductor chips that power them. But I've always been interested in reporting on the other aspect of AI: how people use it, and the ethical issues that arise from automating the more personal aspects of our lives.
Religion seemed like a good topic to explore in my reporting, because the foundations of most beliefs are written texts that AI can process, just like news articles or books. But I also saw plenty of reasons why people would be opposed to using AI in a practice where human intimacy is in many ways the whole point. How would religious leaders react if AI had hallucinations – statements that chatbots make up?
One of my most informative conversations was with Jay Cooper, a pastor in Austin, Texas. He was the first of a number of religious leaders to ask the question: Can God speak through AI?
In his own response, Mr. Cooper quoted a passage from the Book of John where Jesus, claiming to be a king, is confronted by Roman officials. Jesus tells them, “Anyone who is on the side of truth listens to me,” to which a Roman official responds, “What is truth?”
On a personal level, I've always been interested in these types of conversations, even though I consider myself more “spiritual” than religious. My parents met in divinity school. My mother has been a hospice chaplain for many years. I attended a Lutheran college, where I often accompanied friends to morning chapel and participated in dorm discussions about faith.
When reporting on sensitive topics, it is always helpful to have some familiarity with the topic. While I was reporting, religious leaders often asked me for my thoughts on AI, and being able to come up with a thoughtful answer was important in building a sense of trust.
The article came about after I interviewed Rabbi Oren Hayon and Rabbi Josh Fixler via Zoom in December. With the help of Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad, a Muslim AI researcher at the University of Washington, Rabbi Fixler had created a program called “Rabbi Bot.” Trained on Rabbi Fixler's ancient sermons, Rabbi Bot could write sermons in his style, even delivering them during a service in an AI version of his voice.
While watching a YouTube video of a sermon that Rabbi Bot had preached two years ago, I was intrigued by the scene in which Rabbi Fixler spoke out loud to the chatbot during a service, and his booming voice responded over the synagogue speakers, as if he came from heaven. . I immediately knew it would open my article.
During our Zoom call, Rabbi Hayon provided incisive analysis of how AI fits into a larger history of technological tools that are changing the way people worship. This includes technologies such as radio and television and the Internet, as well as older tools, dating back to the invention of the printing press in the 15th century.
When it comes to AI in general, it's easy for people to speak out strongly for or against the technology. The job of reporters is not to take sides, but to inform. I hope that after my article, readers will think about the idea of using AI in religion, and in other parts of life, in a more nuanced way.
