Tech Companies Meet With Faith Leaders to Discuss Ethical AI Development

Tech companies are seeking input from faith leaders on shaping artificial intelligence as the technology integrates rapidly into society. Representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI met last week with leaders from various religious groups in New York for the inaugural Faith-AI Covenant roundtable.

The roundtable was organized by the Geneva-based Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, which addresses issues such as extremism, radicalization and human trafficking. It is expected to be the first of several meetings planned around the globe, including in Beijing, Nairobi and Abu Dhabi.

A key partner in the initiative said tech executives need to recognize their power and responsibility to make appropriate decisions. The partner, who previously worked at Google and Facebook before entering British politics, stated that regulation cannot keep up with the technology.

“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,” the partner said. The goal is to develop a set of norms or principles informed by different faiths, including Christian, Sikh and Buddhist traditions, that companies would follow.

Faith groups represented at the meeting included the Hindu Temple Society of North America, the Baha’i International Community, The Sikh Coalition, the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Some religious traditions had already issued their own statements on AI before companies began reaching out. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints handbook states that AI cannot replace divine inspiration but can serve as a useful tool to enhance learning and teaching.

The Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 2023 urging proactive engagement with emerging technologies rather than responding only after they affect churches and communities. One participant noted that religious communities see priorities differently despite areas of common ground.

The roundtable highlighted differences in values and needs among global faiths when creating shared principles.

Anthropic has been among the most active in engaging faith and ethics leaders. The company states in its public Claude Constitution that it wants its chatbot to act as a deeply and skillfully ethical person would. That constitution was developed with input from religious and ethics leaders.

The meeting follows a public dispute in March between Anthropic and the Pentagon over military use of artificial intelligence. The company said it would restrict its technology from being used to develop autonomous weapons or for mass surveillance of Americans.

It remains unclear how extensively the companies will incorporate the faith leaders' input into their development processes. Some observers have questioned whether the discussions will lead to concrete changes or primarily serve as a distraction from wider debates about AI's societal role.

One research engineer at the Distributed AI Research Institute said the focus on making AI ethical assumes the technology will be built and overlooks questions about whether certain systems should be developed at all.