When the Word Is Not Just Flesh: Reporting on A.I. in Religion

Times Insider explains who we are and what we do, and delivers behind-the-scenes insights into how our journalism comes together.As a reporter covering the technology industry, I spend a lot of time thinking about artificial intelligence.Billboards for A.I.companies are scattered around my neighborhood in San Francisco.

I regularly talk to people — company executives, my friends and family — about A.I.chatbots.

I even tried using A.I.clones to fix my dating life.So when I came across a Facebook group called “A.I.

for Church Leaders and Pastors,” my interest was piqued.On the page I found a community of religious leaders discussing updates to A.I.

programs like ChatGPT and Claude, even using image and video generators to recreate biblical scenes.The parallels were intriguing: for a lot of tech enthusiasts in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond, A.I.has itself become a sort of religion.

I wanted to probe deeper into how spirituality and A.I.were colliding in religious institutions across the country.I scoured the internet for clergy members who had experimented with A.I.

to help write their sermons, and called over a dozen.I also visited a few local churches, synagogues and mosques to ask religious leaders what they thought about using A.I.

in their work.I quickly discovered that A.I.was already a contentious topic in many religious communities.

I even found a Bible study group made up of engineers from the top A.I.companies, who met every week in a Silicon Valley church basement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

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