AI and Faith

In this episode, we dive deep into the core teachings and tenets of Hinduism. Join us to explore what this rich philosophical and faith tradition can teach us about bringing AI into the world in a way that is both pro-human and pro-humanity. We also examine the power of plurality and discover meaningful connections shared with other faith traditions, including Judaism.Meet our host:Gilad Berenstein is currently working in venture capital in Seattle after founding and leading a successful travel personalization startup and serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence (AI2). Gilad holds masters and undergraduate degrees from the Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.Meet our guests:Pawan Deshpande is an investor and former product leader, entrepreneur and machine learning researcher.Kush Varshney is an IBM Fellow at IBM Research – Thomas J. Watson Research Center, where he directs research in human-centered trustworthy AI, bridging moral philosophy, machine learning, and systems governance.Lav R. Varshney is the Della Pietra Infinity Professor and Inaugural Director of the AI Innovation Institute at Stony Brook University.Read more details about the episode here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/hinduism-and-ai-76/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Gilad BerensteinGuests: Pawan Deshpande, Kush Varshney and Lav R. VarshneyEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

Listen to our podcast with two AI and Faith experts and leading voices working at the intersection of AI and healthcare ethics: Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad and Yuriko Ryan. They explore how responsible AI design intersects with healthcare ethics, particularly as AI systems increasingly shape diagnosis, care, and decision-making for aging and vulnerable populations. The discussion focused on what faith-informed ethical frameworks can offer to AI systems that affect, and in a growing number of cases substantially determine, decisions affecting human lives. Listen now to our conversation.Meet our host:⁠Greg Cootsona is the Executive Director for AI and Faith. He is also a lecturer in Comparative Religion and Humanities at California State University, Chico, and co-founder of Science for the Church, a nonprofit bringing science and technology to Christian congregations.Meet our guests:Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad is an Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence at Baylor College of Medicine. His research spans AI in healthcare and medicine, personality emulation, and the social and ethical implications of emerging AI technologies.Yuriko Ryan is a bioethicist-gerontologist with over 20 years of international experience in healthcare ethics and policy research. Based in Vancouver, Canada, she holds a Doctorate in Bioethics from Loyola University of Chicago and is a certified Healthcare Ethics Consultant (HEC-C).Read more details about the episode here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/ai-and-ethics-of-healthcare-75/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Greg CootsonaGuests: Muhammad Aurangzeb Ahmad and Yuriko RyanEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

In this conversation, we continue our discussion of the book Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. In the previous episode, we were joined by three of the book’s authors from the AI Research Group of the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture, Paul Scherz, Brian Green, and Noreen Herzfeld. In this episode, we will broaden the discussion to include responses from Rabbi Geoff Mitelman and Islamic scholar Ali-Reza Bhojani and a discussion among all five speakers.Meet our host:Dr. Mark Graves is the Research Director at AI & Faith, a Research Associate Professor of Psychology at Fuller Theological Seminary, and a Visiting Scholar at University of San Francisco.Meet our guests:Rabbi Geoffrey A. Mitelman is the founder of Sinai and Synapses. Previously he served as a pulpit rabbi, taught at the Hebrew Union College – Jewish Institute of Religion and the Academy for Jewish Religion. Ali-Reza Bhojani is Assistant Professor in islamic Ethics in the department of Theology & Religion at The University of Birmingham and Honorary Fellow at the Al-Mahdi Institute. Dr. Brian Patrick Green is the Director of Technology Ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University and teaches AI ethics and space ethics in the school’s Graduate School of Engineering. His work focuses on the ethics, philosophy, and theology of technology.Dr. Noreen Herzfeld is the Nicholas and Bernice Reuter Professor of Science and Religion at St. John’s University and the College of St. Benedict where she teaches in both the Department of Computer Science and the Department of Theology.Dr. Paul Scherz is the Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame and a Program Chair for the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab. His work examines the intersection of theology, science, medicine, and technology.Read more details about the episode here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/reclaiming-human-agency-part-2/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Dr. Mark GravesGuests: Rabbi Geoff Mitelman, Ali-Reza Bhojani, Dr. Paul Scherz, Dr. Brian Green, and Dr. Noreen HerzfeldEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

In this conversation, we discuss the book Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. We are joined by three of the book’s thirteen authors from the AI Research Group of the Vatican’s Centre for Digital Culture who summarize and discuss the book: Dr. Paul Scherz, Dr. Brian Green, and Dr. Noreen Herzfeld. The book examines how AI can erode human agency and ways to construct responsible human agency in an age with AI. In our next episode, we will broaden the discussion to include a rabbi and Islamic scholar.Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/reclaiming-human-agency-1/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Dr. Mark GravesGuests: Dr. Paul Scherz, Dr. Brian Green, and Dr. Noreen HerzfeldEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

Listen to a conversation with Shoukei Matsumoto, Buddhist monk and author of “A Monk's Guide to a Clean House and Mind”. Dive into his view on navigating these uncertain times with the rise of Artificial Intelligence.Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/ai-a-buddhist-perspective/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Pablo Andrés Ruz Salmones Guest: Shoukei Matsumoto Editing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

As we finish the summer, we invited two of our guests back to continue our conversation about artificial intelligence in the news and in current affairs. We spoke about the AI lab leaks we’ve been reading about all summer, about AI creativity and it’s impact on art, and about the responsible deployment of artificial intelligence.Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/ai-news-governance-creativity/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Gilad Berenstein Guests: Ben Christensen and Dr. Marcus SchwartingEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

Listen to a conversation with Luke Hartsock, co-founder and CEO of Gearvox, and Greg Cootsona, AI and Faith's executive director. Dive into this conversation about Luke's most recent paper: "When Words Become Weights: How LLMs Humiliate the Word, and How to Build Dialogue That Doesn't." They also discussed how faith can influence AI development and Luke's AI system called GANDALF.Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/ai-that-keeps-its-word/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Greg CootsonaGuest: Luke HartsockEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

Listen to Doug Estes and Marcus Schwarting, two Christian biblical scholars, discuss their new book: 40 Bible Passages About AI: Scripture for an Age of Intelligent Machines. Take a deep dive with us while learning all about the ways AI decisions can be guided from the Bible. From what to do and what not to do to specific passages, they shed light on the many difficult decisions facing humanity.You can read the book here: https://www.amazon.com.br/Bible-Passages-About-Scripture-Intelligent-ebook/dp/B0H5LHQ8HMMeet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/bible-to-guide-ai-decisions-69/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Gilad Berenstein Guests: Dr. Douglas Estes and Dr. Marcus SchwartingEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

In this conversation, we were joined by Tracy Trothen and Jason Weiner, a Christian and a Jewish chaplain on the front lines of bioethics. We discussed how each of them bring their faith and religious tradition to the very modern questions posed by bioethics and artificial intelligence emergence into this field. Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/chaplains-discuss-ai-bioethics/See more bioethics resources here: https://aiandfaith.org/news/ai-and-bioethics-resources/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Gilad Berenstein Guests: Dr. Tracy Trothen and Rabbi Dr. Jason WeinerEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39

There is so much happening in the world of artificial intelligence that keeping up can feel impossible. To help us cut through the noise, we invited two experts from the AI and Faith community to unpack what’s on their radar right now. Our guests are Ben Christensen, business technologist and founder of SAP Interfaith Alliance, and Dr. Marcus Schwarting, AI researcher at SUNY Buffalo and senior editor at AI and Faith. Tune in as we discuss the latest AI model releases, AI and discrimination, the ethics of dual-use technologies, and the feedback our editor has been hearing from you, our listeners.Meet the speakers here: https://aiandfaith.org/aif-podcast/ai-and-islamic-law/Views and opinions expressed by podcast guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of AI and Faith or any of its leadership.Production: Penny YuenHost: Gilad Berenstein Guests: Ben Christensen and Dr. Marcus SchwartingEditing: Isabelle BraconnotMusic from #UppbeatLicense code: 1ZHLF7FMCNHU39