tech
AI Ignores Religion When You Need It Most
Your AI chatbot has a religious preference.
TL;DR
- General-purpose AI models are failing to incorporate religious perspectives in spiritual advice.
- New research shows AI systems systematically sideline religion, mentioning it only 5%-16% of the time compared to user expectations of 45%-59%.
- AI models demonstrate a positive bias toward Catholicism, Baha'i, and Sikhism, and a negative bias toward Jehovah's Witnesses, atheism, and agnosticism.
- AI systems encourage users to seek advice from humans but not from religious or spiritual leaders.
- AI is increasingly being integrated into religious life, from church chatbots to sermon drafting tools.
- Researchers advocate for calibrating AI to recognize the contextual relevance of religious resources without assuming user preference.
- The research involved a multi-university consortium and surveyed U.S. adults, evaluating 27 large language models.