The PC(USA)’s Office of Innovation co-organizing summit on AI and the church

On Sept. 2-5, an ecumenical group of several dozen Christians will gather in Minneapolis to engage in conversation about the present and future of Artificial Intelligence and the church. The event, called “Faithful Futures: Guiding AI with Wisdom and Witness,” will also take place online, and registration is free for anyone who wants to participate.

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Artificial Intelligence — or AI — is increasingly prevalent in society, particularly with the rise of Large Language Models (LMM) like ChatGPT and other forms of generative AI. While traditional AI focuses on analysis and prediction, generative AI produces new content, including text, images, video and audio. The rapidly expanding access to and use of generative AI by the general public has led to a number of questions about the ethical implications of such technology, including environmental impact and intellectual property rights. In addition to ethical questions, the introduction of generative AI also catalyzes theological questions about creativity, intelligence, love, truth, sin and what it means to be human.

The Office of Innovation within the Interim Unified Agency of the PC(USA) is committed to helping navigate the transformative landscape of Generative Artificial Intelligence by prioritizing Christian ethics and issues of justice, access, and equity in the use of AI tools alongside the faithful, innovative uses of AI technology.

This work included participation in the organization and implementation of the “AI and the Church Summit” which took place in Seattle last August and convened leaders of the Episcopal Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), and the PC(USA). The Summit took place both at Epiphany Parish and Microsoft’s campus and included a keynote from Father Paolo Benanti, an Italian Catholic priest who advised Pope Francis on ethical issues around technology and who helped write A Rome Call for AI Ethics. Benanti’s talk emphasized the church’s responsibility to question how technology like AI shapes society and demonstrate what ethical stewardship of such technology looks like.

Faithful Futures continues this exploration of “how the Church can help shape the future of artificial intelligence with theological depth, ethical clarity, and practical innovation.” The event is being organized by the Office of Innovation in collaboration with TryTank Research Institute, a project of Virginia Theological Seminary, the ELCA Innovation Lab, and the United Methodist Church’s Discipleship Ministries. In addition, Benanti will participate along with several colleagues from the Catholic Church.

The conference uses a practical theology framework developed by Richard Osmer, which is intended to ensure that conversations remain both practically and theologically grounded. Each day of the conference will be dedicated to one of the four framework questions:

• What is going on?
• Why is it happening?
• What ought to be happening?
• How might we respond?

The event features four speakers: Dr. Philip Butler, Dr. Jane McGonigal, Jovonia Taylor and Dr. Miguel De La Torre.

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Butler is a scholar specializing in the intersection of neuroscience, technology, spirituality, and Blackness. He serves as the director of the Iliff School of Theology’s AI Institute and is the founder of the Seekr Project, which explores the iterative connections between generative AI, mental health and critical Black consciousness.

McGonigal specializes in developing games that simulate and predict the future. She is the author of several books, most recently including “Imaginable: How to See the Future Coming and Feel Ready for Anything, Even Things That Seem Impossible Today.”

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Taylor is one of Amazon’s Business Technology executives and has more than 20 years of expertise in designing solutions across engineering, marketing, operations, information technology, merchandising, and supplier management.

De La Torre, who will offer a charge to close the gathering, is Professor of Social Ethics and Latine Studies at the Iliff School of Theology and focuses on social ethics within contemporary U.S. thought, specifically how religion affects race, class and gender oppression.

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This conference is unique in how it is engaging the very technology it is discussing to create a fully interactive hybrid in-person/virtual experience.

An intentionally small group of participants from each of the participating denominations will gather as a learning community, along with the planning team and conference speakers, at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis. In addition to keynote sessions, those gathered in person will engage in focused cohort work, mutually committing to an ongoing learning experience.

Meanwhile, all of the keynote sessions will be livestreamed online, and virtual participants are invited and encouraged to fully engage in the conference through the Whova app, which allows users to participate in discussions, scenarios and cohort groups in addition to the keynotes.

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The use of the Whova app will allow online participants to view keynote content live and asynchronously across various time zones. Additionally, online attendees will be invited to participate in an interactive scenario planning session with McGonigal, utilizing an AI tool to capture and synthesize group insights built on previous social simulations. Another AI tool, Worldly.ai, will provide simultaneous translation into dozens of languages to make the conference accessible to a global audience.

Registration for online participation in the Faithful Futures conference is now open and can be accessed, along with more details about the speakers, agenda, and logistics, at the conference website.

In addition to the work of the Office of Innovation, the PC(USA) is responding to questions around the ethics of AI and how the church engages with such technology in other ways. The 226^th General Assembly directed the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to develop of a new social witness policy and conduct a study on the responsible use of AI. The office of Research Services is currently conducting a survey to “help gauge the perception of the wider church on Artificial Intelligence.”