Technology companies are increasingly turning to religious leaders for guidance on creating ethical artificial intelligence, marking a shift from Silicon Valley's traditional scepticism of organised religion. Last week, representatives from Anthropic and OpenAI joined faith leaders in New York for the inaugural 'Faith-AI Covenant' roundtable, organised by the Geneva-based Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities.
The initiative aims to develop a set of norms or principles, informed by diverse faiths including Christianity, Sikhism, Buddhism, and Hinduism, that companies would follow. Baroness Joanna Shields, a former tech executive at Google and Facebook now in British politics, said: 'Regulation can't keep up with this. This dialogue, this direct connection is so important because the people who are building this understand the power and capabilities of what they're building and they want to do it right — most of them.'
Some religious groups have already issued their own guidance on AI. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints said AI 'can be a useful tool to enhance learning and teaching', while the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 2023 urging proactive engagement with emerging technologies. However, creating common principles is challenging as global faiths differ in values and priorities, noted Rabbi Diana Gerson of the New York Board of Rabbis.
Anthropic has been particularly active in courting faith leaders, following a public dispute with the Pentagon over military use of AI. The company's 'Claude Constitution' states: 'We want Claude to do what a deeply and skillfully ethical person would do in Claude’s position.' The document was developed with input from religious and ethics leaders.
Critics question the sincerity of these efforts. Rumman Chowdhury, CEO of Humane Intelligence, called them 'at best a distraction'. Brian Boyd of the Future of Life Institute acknowledged both moral obligation and public relations motives, saying: 'The slogan was “Move fast and break things.” And they broke too many things and too many people.'
