Belief in the Future

What if AI and religion had a converging relationship rather than a parallel one? In Professor Beth Singler's new book, Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction, she explores how enmeshed technology and religion are in our current era, and how we as a society may be heading toward the creation and worship of a god-like AI.  

Reading list: 

Roko’s Basilisk or Pascal’s? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion

The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence

Existential Conversations with Large Language Models: Content, Community, and Culture

The Turing Church

Theta Noir

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The confessional booth is usually a private space for reflection and human connection. But what if, on the other side of the wall, you discovered you were asking forgiveness from a robot? This week, we're talking to Marco Schmid, the theologian at St. Peter's Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, about how his church uses AI to guide people to and through their prayer. 

You can read more about St. Peter's Chapel and its AI program on NPR or The Guardian, or join AI Jesus for an interactive chat on Twitch. 

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Does religion have a role in developing ethical frameworks around technology? On this episode, we're talking to Rabbi Zvika Kreiger, spiritual leader of Chochmat Halev and former Director of Responsible Innovation at Facebook. Zvika and host David Zvi Kalman dive into the Metaverse and discuss how religious leaders can lean into technology, and what separation of tech and religion looks like.

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Technology moves quickly – often times faster than governments can create laws to regulate it. So how do we adapt our lawmaking practices to keep up? 

We’re talking to Gideon Lichfield, a journalist and alum of MIT Technology Review, The Economist, and WIRED Magazine, about how lawmaking can keep up with the fast pace of our digital world, and how government and religion mirror each other when interfacing with new technology. 

Reading list: 

Gideon’s newsletter, Futurepolis.

The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt 

Dune by Frank Herbert

Karl Schroeder

Kim Stanley Robinson

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You're not allowed to record in synagogue. But what if you're saving a dying culture?

Have a question/tip/criticism? Write to us at our fancy new website, beliefinthefuture.com

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What happens when you take synagogue music out of the synagogue?

Works mentioned

• Jeremiah Lockwood, Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital Era

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Why do tech CEOs and visionaries use religious language—and what, if anything, does it have to do with organized religion? We talk Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan, about unity, infinity, simulated realities, NASA, and how human beings have sought to make meaning of their world.

Reading List:

• Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
• Astrotopia by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
• Worlds Without End by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
• Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
• The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
• The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
• Penseés by Blaise Pascal
• Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
• The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
• The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James

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The Greeks dreamed of automata, the Jews of golems, and now we've coded bots into powerful servants. Can our ancient quest for artificial life reveal our ethical obligations to today’s creations? 

Guest Speaker:

Elly Truitt, who holds a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge, is a historian specializing in the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects across Eurasia and North Africa from antiquity to the early modern period. Her work, including the acclaimed Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (2015), explores the role of automata in medieval culture and the ethical questions they raised about identity and creation.

Reading List:

• Medieval Robots by Elly Truitt
• Machines as the Measure of Men by Michael Adas
• Books & Essays by Stanislaw Lem
• Greek myths featuring Hephaestus and mechanical servants
• "Did the Greeks Believe in Their Robots?" by Martin Devecka
• “Israelite Kingship, Christian Rome, and the Jewish Imperial Imagination: Midrashic Precursors to the Medieval ‘Throne of Solomon'” by Ra’anan Boustan

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In this crossover episode of Belief in the Future with Responsa Radio, host David Zvi Kalman dives into whether using generative AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E is a form of theft, drawing comparisons to the Jewish tradition of responsa. Back in the day, medieval rabbis often quoted other scholars without giving credit, but it was within a self-referential learning community. If today’s machine learning models can swiftly scrub the web, disregarding attribution, what kind of culture are we fostering by relying on their extensive 'knowledge'?

Guest Speakers:

• Rabbi Ethan Tucker is the President and Rosh Yeshiva at Hadar
• Rabbi Avi Killip is Executive Vice President at Hadar

About Responsa Radio:

Responsa Radio is a podcast that brings the age-old Jewish tradition of responsa to life in a modern context. Hosted by Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Avi Killip, the show explores contemporary questions through the lens of Jewish law and ethics, engaging listeners in thoughtful discussions that connect ancient wisdom with today’s challenges.

Reading List:

Responsa: A body of Jewish legal literature comprising questions and answers written by rabbis to address issues of Jewish law. This tradition often involves finding historical precedents for contemporary questions, including those related to modern technology.

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What does evangelical Christianity have to say about AI? Quite a lot, according to Jason Thacker. As Director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), he oversaw the creation of the organization’s official AI statement of principles—the first put out by any religious denomination—which recommends moral responsibility towards new technology. Thacker and Kalman discuss how the document came to be, how it might extend to U.S. legislative guidance, what makes it particularly Baptist, and how a Jewish statement might differ.

About our guest:

Jason Thacker is a prominent figure within the Southern Baptist Convention, serving as the Director of Research and Technology Ethics at the ERLC and as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Thacker is the author of several books, including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity.

Reading List:

- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow

- Inside Project Maven, the US Military’s AI Project

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Death isn't always an elegant ending. When Muhammad Ahmad, a research scientist with a doctorate in machine learning, learned his father’s diagnosis was terminal, he began to create a text-based AI simulation. Host David Zvi Kalman explores the successes and limitations of this process with Mohammed and Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky, who shares a Jewish take on "DeathGPT" and wonders if ancient scholars could enter the chat.

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Two religious communities invented the same lamp. Why?

In our first episode David Zvi is joined by Lindsay Ems, an expert in the sociological impacts of technology on religious communities. Through the lens of Amish technology and the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews, they explore innovative ways these groups maintain their traditions in an increasingly electrified world.

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What we're about.

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