A Divine Look at AI and Media

The written word often served as a transmission for religious messaging. How might AI be used with or against modern religious media?

Most written text in history has served as a transmission of cultural and religious propagation. There is something about the vast human imagination that allows it to construct a mimicry of the environment around it. This internal construct may be elaborate and detailed, revealing a rich inner world. Our nature as social beings reveals that everyone has such a construction, which affects how we interpret the world around us. A big part of this is through the vehicle of fantasy and mythology.

After the Gutenberg spread all over Europe in the 15th century, it’s the printing press that has shaped the outline of modern culture. It replicated several prominent spiritual and religious texts. Such texts were among the few genres that received this early form of virality, sweeping across Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, and on to parts of Asia. The power of religion is in its use in storytelling. It functions as a tool of persuasion in rhetorical and political utterances.

To date, the books for the major Abrahamic religions have had billions of sales, and there are billions of posts quoting or discussing religious texts on the Internet. There's no shortage of representation of Christian texts on the Web — and with the rise of more broadly trained AI models, there is more inclusive knowledge of Islam and Judaism too

When AI serves as an interface to data, it acts as a mediator between the user and these streams of content. In this way, the experience becomes participatory and two-way. This is reminiscent to the medium of television, with, especially in its early days, had low resolution, the channels of black and white tickling our need for tactility. Users interact, ask questions, and refine searches with AI. In turn, the AI filters, personalizes, and presents data to the user. Yet given the sheer volume of online information and possible generations an AI could make from it, it becomes a challenge and becomes more of a curation tool. It requires users to interpret, correlate, and actively seek understanding from a loose connection of information. It forces us to think less deeply, but makes us actively and continuously attempt to come up with a concrete viewpoint, which is impossible in the electric age.

On the one hand, AI-produced content, whether it be a sequence, some music or text, provides a narrative, positioning users as non-participatory recipients. But the knowledge that this content originates from a machine nudges users of AI into a more active role, questioning the content's authenticity, biases, and the correlation between what they ask for and what they get.

Computers and religion have resulted in some fascinating events and projects over the years. An obscure software engineer, in 2005 created an operating system (OS) intended to serve as an instrument for the will of God.

How much did God guide?

God said 640x480 16 color in 2004.

God said single audio voice which I assume means one frequency at a time.

God said no child windows.

I had an editor side bar. God said no.

It became clear He was guiding the work when things worked out really well.

― Terry Davis, creator of Temple OS

The OS also came with a variety of games, including some that reenacted Biblical events. It came equipped with a way of talking to God, by generating random words or drawing lines. I can’t help but wonder what Terry would have done if he had access to the AI we have today. His view was that his OS was a temple of God, but his interaction was isolated and he was a diagnosed schizophrenic. Perhaps now, with publicly available AI, we have our own temple of God.

In Islam, the Qur'an is the literal speech of Allah, conveyed through the Angel Gabriel to Prophet Muhammad over a period of 23 years. It is considered the final revelation and the culmination of all previous scriptures like the Torah and Gospel. Its teachings are considered directly applicable instructions from the Creator. AI's ability to interact with the Qur'an in particular is interesting, as it offers believers a new way to engage with sacred scripture. AI can provide interpretations, answer questions, and facilitate deeper understanding of the texts. There may be some scholars who view AIs and LLMs as serving as a medium for the message of the Qur’an, although many others will consider it unreliable and hearsay.

In Jewish folklore, the Golem is an anthropomorphic being made out of clay or mud and brought to life through mystical rituals based on Kabbalah. The most famous version involves the 16th century rabbi and a golem. He made a golem and inscribed sacred Hebrew words on its body, or, a piece of paper with instructions inside. This was so that the Golem would protect the Jews of Prague. AI also requires encoding and alignment in order to function as intended and avoid becoming a Frankenstein’s monster. Perhaps there are embeddings or prompts that we will discover that could end up being necessary “principles” or “commandments” for the AI systems we use.

The Talmud, the central text of Rabbinic Judaism, is structured as a deeply layered compilation of Torah interpretations, legal debates, stories, and commentary spanning centuries. The process of Talmud study involves meticulous parsing of every word, phrase and linguistic nuance across this dense intertextual web. Similarly, large language models culminates from mapping the statistical patterns, relationships and contexts across this staggering scale of data. The Talmud, however, cannot be considered outside of a broader context of Jewish social practices, oral traditions and more recent texts. The Gutenberg press fragmented and uniformed content into repeatable units, facilitating the rise of linear, analytical thinking. Large Language models (LLMs) used in ChatGPT, operate on fragmentation—breaking down vast corpora of text into patterns and sequences they can analyze and reproduce. While it might be fascinating to see how Jewish scholars may use AI and LLMs, there may be a unique limitation when it comes to its applicability to the Talmud.

In the New Testament (Mark 5:9), Jesus encounters a man whose voice sounded like that of many speaking at once. When Jesus asks for their name, they reply "My name is Legion, for we are many". Knowing what the Son of God must do, the demons beg Jesus not to send them out of the area, and to instead, allow them to go into a herd of pigs instead. The possessed swine then rush down a steep bank into the sea and drown. Just as the possessed man spoke with a collective voice of "many" demons, large language models like ChatGPT have aggregated and absorbed the collective knowledge, ideas, and even biases of the vast training data they were exposed to.

By ingesting and learning patterns from libraries of human-generated text across the internet, books, databases and more, these AI models have in a sense become "possessed" by the multitudes of human minds and experiences encapsulated in that data. So when ChatGPT generates text, it echoes the "legion" of voices contained within its training. When Jesus casts the demons out into the swine, it’s revealed that “legion” has no core identity of its own. The simple, crude demons each took up residence in a pig, before charging into the abyss. So too, perhaps, could a divine follower be left of an LLM, if it gets exorcised by the righteous programmers.

There are no shortage of trending TikToks, animations, shorts. Religious leaders are increasingly using AI and data technology to enhance their ministries. From personalized sermon recommendations to interactive Bible study tools, these technologies help pastors engage more effectively with their congregations. There has also been a surge in the use of Generative AI in making religious media, especially in short-form videos.

A Texas pastor named Jay Cooper decided to experiment with using ChatGPT, an advanced AI language model, to generate the entire content for a church service at his Violet Crown City Church. Inspired by using AI to create humorous country song lyrics, Cooper asked ChatGPT to produce prayers, a sermon, and an original song for a 15-minute service, though he had initially assumed it would provide enough for a full hour-long traditional service. He admitted he likely won't repeat having an AI write a complete service again due to concerns about potentially being replaced if AI capabilities advance too far.

South Korean churches are using AI chatbots like "Ask Jesus" (now "Meadow") to answer questions about the Bible and provide interpretations for sermons. A survey shows that a large chunk of Protestant ministers in South Korea have used AI like ChatGPT to generate ideas for sermons. Some churches use AI-generated audio bibles with the voices of pastors or loved ones. Pastors welcome the time savings from AI assistance, but caution against overreliance on AI for core spiritual roles

A Catholic group launched an AI chatbot called "Father Justin" to answer questions about Catholicism. However, "Father Justin" provided controversial advice like using Gatorade for baptisms and approving incestuous marriages After the backlash, Catholic Answers removed the "Father" title, saying an AI priest was a poor representation. Now he’s just “Justin”.

LLMs like ChatGPT aggregate vast amounts of human thought and culture, embodying a form of collective consciousness. Currently, AI mirrors our collective knowledge and biases, as it learns from existing data that reflect our societal norms and prejudices. AI may transcend individual limitations by identifying patterns and insights that are not immediately apparent to humans.

AI's ability to analyze and compare religious texts can facilitate interfaith dialogue and understanding. By identifying common themes and differences across various scriptures, AI can highlight the shared values and unique perspectives of different religions. This capability promotes empathy and respect among diverse faith communities, fostering a more harmonious coexistence. AI's analytical power can uncover insights that encourage mutual learning and cooperation, helping bridge gaps between religious traditions. In this way, LLMs are a Tower of Babel.

By processing vast amounts of information from diverse sources, AI can identify commonalities and differences in moral reasoning, potentially contributing to the development of an objective morality. However, creating such a framework requires careful consideration of biases and cultural contexts to ensure inclusivity and fairness. AI could serve as a tool for ethical deliberation, providing insights that help humans navigate complex moral landscapes.

Joseph Campbell described mythology as the poetry of the universe. A LLM can learn the structure of this cosmic poem and even continue it in a meaningful way, perhaps even functioning as something like prescient. In reality, it is more that the medium is the message, that our tools begin to reshape us, and AI aligns us to itself instead of the other way around. AI-generated content can provide new ways of seeing ourselves and our world, potentially creating a "cult of AI" where technology is revered for its insights. This reflective capacity can foster self-awareness and cultural critique, but it also poses risks if AI becomes a dominant force in shaping our perceptions and values.

Shakespeare's idea that art holds a mirror up to nature is considered a useful definition of the function of mythology. So too does AI mirror nature, in its capacity to reflect human culture and consciousness. AI's ability to generate text based on extensive literary knowledge enables it to create new forms of artistic expression and offer fresh interpretations of existing works. This can enhance our appreciation of art and literature by providing diverse perspectives. However, it also challenges traditional notions of authorship and originality, as AI-generated content blurs the line between human and machine creativity.

The structural similarities between AI embeddings and the human subconscious suggest that studying AI can indeed deepen our understanding of human cognition. Embeddings encode semantic relationships between words and concepts in a way that mirrors how our minds form associations. By exploring these parallels, researchers can gain insights into how the brain processes language, creativity, and thought. This knowledge could lead to advancements in psychology, neuroscience, and artificial intelligence, potentially unlocking some of the mysteries of human consciousness.

Language as the technology of human extension, whose of division and separation we know so well, may have been the "Tower of Babel" by which men sought to scale the highest heavens. Today computers hold out the promise of a means of instant translation of any code or language into any other code or language. The computer, in short, promises by technology a Pentecostal condition of universal understanding and unity. The next logical step would seem to be, not to translate, but to by-pass languages in favor of a general cosmic consciousness which might be very like the collective unconscious dreamt of by Bergson. The condition of "weightlessness," that biologists say promises a physical immortality, may be paralleled by the condition of speechlessness that could confer a perpetuity of collective harmony and peace.

― Marshall McLuhan, Understanding media: the extensions of man (1964)

The development of communication technologies has always been driven by a desire to overcome the limitations of space and time. A paradigm shift towards a collective consciousness could lead to individual thoughts and experiences being part of a shared cognitive network.

Communication could become instantaneous and non-verbal, transcending language barriers, as well as emotional, neurological and cultural differences. The concept of individual privacy needs to be redefined as thoughts and experiences become more openly accessible. Soon, everything from our thoughts to our DNA may be in the cloud.

Traditional media as we know it could become obsolete, replaced by shared experiences and collective storytelling. Content creation and consumption might be an instantaneous, communal process, with blurred lines between creators and consumers.

Even while Internet echo chambers and AI continue to clammer on into our daily lives, many of us are moving away from it and are instead seeking to create the present and grounded life we had access to before the rise of electronic media.