Pub Theology 4/21/26 -- Giving AI a moral foundation
An article in The Washington Post from a week or so ago (I'll link to it in a minute) caught my eye as it brings us back to a topic area we've spent some time with before, the intersection of faith and technology. Specifically it's about Artificial Intelligence. But unlike the last time we discussed this, we're not playing around with Chatbot Jesus.
It turns out that last month, the AI company Anthropic, creators of the Claude chatbot, convened a summit with Christian leaders, from both Roman Catholic and Protestant traditions, for advice on how to steer Claude's moral and spiritual development as it reacts to complex and unpredictable ethical queries from users. For example, advice on how to respond to users grieving the loss of a loved one, or whether the chatbot considered itself a "child of God."
According to the article from The Post (which you car read by clicking this link):
“They’re growing something that they don’t fully know what it’s going to turn out as,” said Brendan McGuire, a Catholic priest based in Silicon Valley who has written about faith and technology, and participated in the discussions at Anthropic. “We’ve got to build in ethical thinking into the machine so it’s able to adapt dynamically.”
Attendees also discussed how Claude should engage with users at risk of self-harm, and the right attitude for the chatbot to adopt toward its own potential demise, such as being shut off, said one participant, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to share details of the conversations.
The summit comes as the rapid spread of AI across society puts Silicon Valley leaders under pressure to account for the impact of their technology. Concern about job losses to automation has grown as more businesses have embraced AI. OpenAI and Google have been sued by the families of people who died by suicide after intense and personal conversations with chatbots.
Anthropic officials say that they plan to convene similar meetings with representatives of other religious and philosophical traditions. That this is just the start of their effort to give Claude a moral foundation.
What do you make of this? Does this raise more questions in your mind than it answers? And how comfortable are you with the idea that chatbots need a moral foundation? What exactly are we creating with this technology? Do we even know?
Join us for the conversation this Tuesday, April 21 at Irish Tavern in downtown Lake Orion. The discussion starts at 7pm.
