New Theological Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence and Spiritual Intelligence

This panel draws on ongoing work related to the field of AI, including from two grant-funded research projects. The first, entitled "Understanding Spiritual Intelligence," is a project of the International Society for Science and Religion and includes a major focus on artificial intelligence. The second, managed by the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, is entitled "Virtuous AI?: Cultural Evolution, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtue." and explores how AI will shape us and society as well as the relationship between humans, AI, and virtue. The panel will present new research relating intelligence and AI to spirituality and culture. Braden Molhoek addresses how AI can change human culture, help or hinder our acquisition of virtue, and whether AI is capable of some kind of virtue. Noreen Herzfeld, author of The Artifice of Intelligence: Divine and Human Relationships in a Robotic Age (2023), examines whether we can have a truly authentic relationship with an AI. Harris Wiseman explores processes of "slow knowing" and their role in describing spiritual intelligence.