What are the concerns about AI and religion? Do they overlap with the concerns that people have about AI and the economy?
I can’t speak for any religion, but I have noticed that my own has been vocal about AI. But its stance might surprise you.
I’m going to summarize what I’ve seen the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (often colloquially called Mormons or Latter-day Saints—but for brevity in this article I’ll just say “the Church”) say about artificial intelligence. I’m going to contrast it to points made by economists.
This was prompted by a recent talk by David Bednar. Bednar is a former business school professor and president of BYU-Idaho, but more importantly he is one of the leading officers in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He gave this talk in November 2024.
Optimism or Pessimism?
Does the church see the AI future with optimism or pessimism? For economists, you can find people on both sides.
Among economists, the economist I consider most optimistic about the AI future is Tyler Cowen. Over a decade ago, Cowen published The Great Stagnation, an argument that the low-hanging fruit of economic growth had already been picked and that we were in a period where it would take some time to find the advancements that would significantly improve our fortunes. AI seems to be the breakthrough he was looking for. Cowen has been innovative in AI adoption, publishing an AI native book, interviewing an AI ghost, and funding several projects on AI.
The most pessimistic economist I have seen is 2024 Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu. He released a paper arguing that AI will increase TFP by at most 0.66% over 10 years. That’s not annual growth. Cumulative growth. He sees AI mostly doing things humans already do but replacing them in the production function. He worries about the control of tech companies and thinks we should implement “tax reforms that discourage automation and promote labour”.
Where does the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints land?
My impression is that it is mostly optimistic about the future. But the source of optimism is slightly different from the optimistic case for economic growth. The case for optimism was given as early as Brigham Young, one of the Church’s first leaders.
Every discovery in science and art, that is really true and useful to mankind has been given by direct revelation from God, though but few acknowledge it. It has been given with a view to prepare the way for the ultimate triumph of truth, and the redemption of the earth from the power of sin and Satan. We should take advantage of all these great discoveries, the accumulated wisdom of ages, and give to our children the benefit of every branch of useful knowledge, to prepare them to step forward and efficiently do their part in the great work.
Two things stand out to me from that quote. First, the belief that God inspires humans to innovate as a way to further His work. In this framing, the question that every new technology carries is not, “How can this be used to make profits?” in a way that creates economic growth. The key question is, “How can this be used to bring more people to Jesus Christ?” That doesn’t exclude economic growth, since the Church believes that lifting people out of poverty is a part of Christ’s work. But there are possibly unique ways in which technological advancements help further the work of sharing the gospel.
There are already hints at how the Church sees a role for AI in furthering its mission. Bednar, in a talk to tech companies in Utah’s Silicon Slopes, mentioned AI could help reduce one of the Church’s biggest bottlenecks of translating materials for an international church. FamilySearch, the Church’s genealogy website, is using volunteers to train AI models that read historical documents and connect them to family trees. In March, the Church released guidelines on how it will use generative AI, including a commitment to clearly communicate when someone is interacting with artificial intelligence (which indicates they could have something like a chatbot).
The second thing that stands out is the imperative to “take advantage of all these great discoveries” and “give to our children the benefit”. This is a call to not only embrace new technologies but to train the next generation to use them. I would say this includes the potential for the next generation to contribute to technological advancements and their applications.
While I don’t know how members of the Church have contributed to AI or may contribute in the future, there are other fields where members have contributed. Major developments in television came from Philo Farnsworth, a farmboy from Utah. The University of Utah, which, despite being a state school, has long ties to the Church (and the church’s current leader is an alum and former professor), was a major hub of tech development in the 1970s, training the minds behind Pixar, Adobe, and object-oriented programming. And BYU has spawned tech entrepreneurs who created software that might not have the flash of Facebook but has become so pervasive it is practically infrastructure, from WordPerfect back in the 1970s to Qualtrics today.
Overall, I’d place the Church on the optimistic side of the AI debate. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t worried about its threats.
What are the possible AI threats?
Economists seem pretty unified on the possible threats of AI. At the micro scale, there’s the threat to workers who are displaced by AI. At the macro scale, there’s the existential threat that AI could possibly annihilate the human race, known as P(doom). Even though economists agree on possible threats, the main difference seems to be (1) the magnitude of such threats and (2) the probability the threats occur. The Church, on the other hand, is not focused on those threats.
I categorize the two threats most salient to the Church as the two commandments that Jesus said were the foundation of all others.
Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
The Church is most worried about how AI will affect your relationship with God and your relationship with others.
It’s easier to see the threat that AI poses to relationships. In Bednar’s recent address, he gave the example of an AI companion that becomes the main source of companionship. “Counterfeit emotional intimacy may displace real-life emotional intimacy—the very thing which binds people together.”
The threat to the relationship with God might be harder to see, especially since faiths differ in how God interacts with people. But the principle Bednar focused on was that connecting to God requires personal effort, and AI can either help us in that effort or stop us from expending that effort. An example he gives is a little specific to the Church. In weekly worship meetings, the sermons are given not by a pastor but by regular members of the congregation. At least one purpose of this practice is to invite members to put some effort into understanding the teachings and to draw closer to God as they reflect and share. But if members use AI to write their sermons, then there’s no personal effort and therefore no connection with God. It’s like the spiritual version of plagiarizing an essay.
But even in this example, Bednar demonstrates the optimistic view. While worried about AI writing sermons, he showed how he used AI to help him write the very sermon he was giving. He first wrote the talk without AI, then he gave the talk to a LLM and asked it to analyze its tone in light of the audience he was addressing. He showed the prompt and the response, and he added that he adjusted his talk based on the feedback. The message was clear: AI can be used for good, and you should use it, but you have to be wise in your use.
I saw an economics analogy in the warning. Labor-saving technologies have two effects on firms. First, they increase the relative cost of using workers, so firms will substitute to the new technology (substitution effect). Second, they make it cheaper to produce more, which could actually get firms to hire more workers (scale effect). In a spiritual sense, I think what Bednar is arguing is that you can’t let the substitution effect dominate. Don’t let AI take away your spiritual effort, let it enable you to put more effort than you could in the past.
Takeaways
Economics is a social science, so the obvious focus is on the social repercussions of AI. But religion is no stranger to talking about social repercussions. Yet this religion doesn’t seem too worried about the existential threats. It’s hard for me to discern whether this is because they think the probability is low or the cost is low.
The biggest source of conflict between the two approaches is on the consequences of AI in personal relationships. I think many economists would look at an AI companion and say that it’s an efficient solution to a problem of social isolation. Economists would even admit that it’s not a perfect substitute, and it may even be a poor substitute, but if it provides utility and the price equals the marginal cost, then people will make the choice that best suits them.
The Church’s response, in the language of economists and my own interpretation, is that individuals do not internalize the true cost of AI companions to relationships. Investing too much in a relationship with a chatbot may provide you some benefits, but it deprives your spouse, children, and community of a piece of you. And that piece happens to be very important for social cohesion and is not efficiently priced by the market.
I’m interested in seeing how these developments continue. It’s fascinating that the Church is getting out ahead of the technology. We’re still pretty early in the adoption curve, and I’m surprised at how many people have barely interacted with generative AI. How will all this look when AI is a much more common tool in faith?