Religion and Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rarely out of the news and the public imagination. Images of red-eyed Terminators illustrate press accounts of incremental advances in medical diagnosis facial recognition natural language processing and robotics. Such advances transform society through measurable impacts on people’s decisions and opportunities.Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction explores an emerging field with a religious studies approach drawing on cultural and digital anthropological methods to demonstrate the entanglements of religion and AI our imaginaries of these objects and our ideas about their utopian or dystopian futures. It addresses key topics including:What AI is and is notHow religions are reacting to AI with examples of rejection adoption and adaptationHow established religions understand creation and place human-like AI within thatHow overtly secular and even ‘new atheist’ groups understand AI as a tool for liberation from human evolution and religionReligious visions of superintelligent AI.This engaging book is essential for anyone considering the relationship between religion science and technology and interested in the questions raised by transhumanism posthumanism and new religious movements.