Religion and Robots and AI … Oh My! (From the Archive)

from How God Works: The Science Behind Spirituality · host PRX

Artificial Intelligence, and its possible applications to religion, have been in the news a lot lately, so while we're busy working on Season 8, we thought we'd share this episode from 2022 with you.Can you pray with a robot? Will people worship AI like a god? It’s not science fiction. It’s starting to happen now. But what does it mean if robots become priests, or AIs start offering ethical advice? And how do we know when to trust them?We’ll talk to MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal about how technology can manipulate our minds and emotions for good or ill, and with religion professor Robert Geraci about how technology is being used in religion, and why AI may need some spiritual training itself.Watch Cynthia Breazeal’s TED talk here, and find out about her work on the MIT Media Lab website. Find out more about Robert Geraci’s work on his website.Meet the robots: Nexi, Mindar, and SanTO.

What this episode covers

Artificial Intelligence, and its possible applications to religion, have been in the news a lot lately, so while we're busy working on Season 8, we thought we'd share this episode from 2022 with you. Can you pray with a robot? Will people worship AI like a god? It’s not science fiction. It’s starting to happen now. But what does it mean if robots become priests, or AIs start offering ethical advice? And how do we know when to trust them? We’ll talk to MIT social roboticist Cynthia Breazeal about how technology can manipulate our minds and emotions for good or ill, and with religion professor Robert Geraci about how technology is being used in religion, and why AI may need some spiritual training itself. Watch Cynthia Breazeal’s TED talk here, and find out about her work on the MIT Media Lab website. Find out more about Robert Geraci’s work on his website. Meet the robots: Nexi, Mindar, and SanTO.

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Religion and Robots and AI … Oh My! (From the Archive)

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This episode was published on January 26, 2025.

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