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13 - The Anthropology and Sociology of Religion and AI

from Part III - Religious Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2024

Beth Singler
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Fraser Watts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

This chapter introduces social scientific perspectives and methods applicable to observing the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and religion. It discusses the contributions that anthropological and sociological approaches can make to this entanglement of two modern social phenomena while also drawing attention to the inherent biases and perspectives that both fields bring with them due to their histories. Examples of research on religion and AI are highlighted, especially when they demonstrate agile and new methodologies for engaging with AI in its many applications; including but not limited to online worlds, multimedia formats, games, social media and the new spaces made by technological innovation such as the innovations such as the platforms underpinning the gig economy. All these AI-enabled spaces can be entangled with religious and spiritual conceptions of the world. This chapter also aims to expand upon the relationship between AI and religion as it is perceived as a general concept or object within human society and civilisation. It explains how both anthropology and sociology can provide frameworks for conceptualising that relationship and give us ways to account for our narratives of secularisation – informed by AI development – that see religion as a remnant of a prior, less rational stage of human civilisation.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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References

Bibliography

Bailey, Edward. 1997. Implicit Religion in Contemporary Society. Kok Pharos Publishing House.Google Scholar
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Singler, Beth. 2022. “Origin and the End: Artificial Intelligence, Atheism and, Imaginaries of the Future of Religion”, in Emerging Voices in Science and Theology: Contributions by Young Women, ed. Sollereder, Bethany and McGrath, Alistair. Routledge.Google Scholar
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Further Reading

Cusack, Carole. 2010. Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith. Routledge.Google Scholar
Geraci, Robert M. 2010. Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Malcolm. 1994. The Sociology of Religion: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives. Routledge.Google Scholar
Horst, Heather A. and Miller, Daniel eds. 2012. Digital Anthropology. Berg.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

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