Pleased to have been able to contribute to this piece, dealing with the viral spread of a story that coincided with a wider discussion about longtermism and ‘doomerism’ in AI
I was interviewed for this piece – but not as one of the faith leaders!
New podcast interview from the Theologischen Fakultät der Universität ZĂźrich đ
“The Jedi religion from the Star Wars saga has hundreds of thousands of followers today, down from the hundreds of thousands who said they were Jedi in the 2001 and 2011 England and Wales Censuses. But do they really believe in Darth Vader and the Death Star? And what connections can be established between pop culture and religious ideas in general? Beth Singler, Assistant Professor of Digital Religion(s) – and not, as Chat GPT has suggested, a member of the Health and AI steering committee at the Turing Institute – talks about science fiction-inspired religions, animism in vernacular Christianity and the fact that we think Chat GPT is intelligent just because it is linguistically eloquent. She also addresses ethical issues surrounding the Metaverse, asks whether artificial intelligence could found a religion and presents some specimens from her robot collection.”
https://erleuchtung-garantiert.podigee.io/35-singler#t=1
Not so keen on the use of ‘cult’ but here’s another interesting article I was interviewed for on the relationship between religion and AI:
A Cult That Worships Superintelligent AI Is Looking For Big Tech Donors
Fantastic new piece from Tony Tran which [dungeon] delves into the adventures of using AI for D&D and references ‘The Elf Ranger Test’ that I proposed back in 2018 đ
Dungeons & Dragons Could Prevent the AI Apocalypseâor Kick It Off
Pleased to have been quoted in this piece with so many other experts in Religion and AI:
LA Times: Can Religion Save Us From Artificial intelligence?
We’re very close to submitting the final draft of the CUP Cambridge Companion to Religion and AI, and I’m pleased to be able to share the current chapter list (unlikely final edits to the order and titles in the publication process notwithstanding!):
01. Introduction â Beth Singler and Fraser Watts
02. Steps Toward Android Intelligence – William Clocksin
RELIGIONS AND AI
03. Hinduism and Artificial Intelligence – Robert Geraci and Stephen Kaplan
04. The Buddha in AI/Robotics – Hannah Gould and Keiko Nishimura
05. Artificial Intelligence and Jewish Thought – David Zvi Kalman
06. Artificial Intelligence and Christianity: Friends or Foes? – Marius Dorobantu
07. Islam and Artificial Intelligence – Yaqub Chaudhary
SOCIAL & MORAL ISSUES
08. Transhumanism and Transcendence – Ilia Delio
09. The Eschatological Future of Artificial Intelligence: Savior or Apocalypse? – Noreen Herzfeld
10. AI Ethics and Ethical AI – Paula Boddington
11. Black Theology x Artificial Intelligence – Philip Butler
12. Imag(in)ing Human-Robot Relationships – Scott Midson
RELIGIOUS STUDIES
13. The Anthropology and Sociology of Religion and AI – Beth Singler
14. Simulating Religion – F. LeRon Shults and Wesley J. Wildman
15. Cognitive Modelling of Spiritual Practices – Fraser Watts
16. Artificial Companions and Spiritual Enhancement – Yorick Wilks
A pre-order page will go up on the CUP site when the book is a bit closer to publication đ
I am very pleased this is now out – written as I needed to exorcise some linguistic semantic bugbears đ In particular around some recent descriptions of the Longtermist worldview and Effective Altruism as Secular Religions:
And here’s something entertaining on the matter by @HamishDoodles â¤
I am absolutely delighted to have been interviewed for this piece that covers so many of the details and issues around the deification of AI, which has been a subject I have been looking at, as an anthropologist, for a while now. Tony was a great interviewer and I am pleased to see so many of the ethical issues we discussed in the piece – even if our divergence into AI and D&D wasn’t covered (and I could talk about D&D for days! If you are interested in AI and D&D, you can also check out this older piece by me)
The Daily Beast – The Radical Movement to Worship AI as a New God
Some thoughts on the impact of AI, the first part of a new series I am writing for Swivel Secure as I bring anthropological insights to the #AI conversation.
“I contain multitudes”: Code-Switching in the Age of AI
Professor Beth Singler 