Alle afleveringen
30 afleveringen, van nieuw naar oud
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Evangelicals are rejecting AI personhood
23 oktober 2026 · 52 min
Earlier this month, the National Association of Evangelicals released a resolution on artificial intelligence. It's short, and compared to Pope Leo's encyclical, it is somewhat more pointed—especially with regard to AI having a soul or personhood. Lees meer
On this episode, I spoke with Walter Kim, the president of the NAE, about how the resolution came together.
Text: https://www.nae.org/artificial-intelligence/
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Teaching priests how to fix AI
9 oktober 2026 · 47 min
If you want to have an impact in the world of AI, you need to speak the language of code. That's getting easier, but it's still not easy. And it puts religious leaders at a disadvantage. Lees meer
But what if you taught religious leaders how to speak this language? That's the subject of this episode with Nina Lutz.
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Is it better to love a cat or a robot? (w/ Dustin Atlas)
24 september 2026 · 47 min
When we talk about relationships with AI, we often focus on whether these machines are alive or sentient. But life and sentience aren't necessary for relationships; in fact, we often have deep relationships with objects and animals—and we often treat people like objects, too. Lees meer
There is a theory of relationship that understands this, and it's the one proposed by Martin Buber, author of "I and Thou" and many other works.
In this episode we speak with Dustin Atlas about Buber and AI, author of the book How to Talk to a Cat: Buber, Philosophy, and Dialogue with Unspeaking Things.
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Is AI leapfrogging women in religious leadership?
3 september 2026 · 50 min
AI conversations have a tendency to become so big that you can't really locate yourself within them. For this episode we're flipping the script and talking about a longstanding conversation into which AI has unexpectedly intruded: women's religious leadership. Lees meer
Sara Wolkenfeld is Chief Learning Officer at Sefaria. She joins the podcast to discuss her recent article.
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AI and Fear of Death
21 augustus 2026 · 44 min
How does our inevitable deaths change how we live—and how does fear of loss change how we develop technology? Alex Sarkissian is a death doula and a co-founder of the Buddhism and AI Initiative; he joins us to discuss his recent article on AI and Dying.
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AI loves Catholicism. Why? (w/ David Wingate)
6 augustus 2026 · 44 min
How does AI portray religion? Does it talk about it in the way that most Americans do? Does it treat all religions the same? Lees meer
CEFE-AI (https://cefe.ai/) is a multi-university consortium that has been trying to answer these questions. For the last few months it has been developing benchmarks on how AI models treat faith, and the results are surprising. On this episode we talk with David Wingate, professor at BYU and academic lead for CEFE-AI, about the group's work.
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Faith and the Printing Press (w/ Michelle Margolis)
24 juli 2026 · 38 min
Yes, AI is new and unique—but we've been through an information revolution before. The printing press transformed religion, authority, and public life. Those upheavals offer insights into the age of AI. Lees meer
Michelle Margolis is the Norman E. Alexander librarian for Jewish studies at Columbia University, and she's the past president of the Association of Jewish Libraries. From censorship and misinformation to expertise and trust, we explore why history still matters when technology changes everything.
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A next-gen religious chatbot (w/ Zohar Atkins)
3 juli 2026 · 56 min
The market in religious chatbots is now quite healthy. If you’re Episcopalian you can go to Ask Cathy; if you’re Catholic there’s Magisterium; if you’re a Latter-day Saint there’s LDSBot; if you’re Muslim there’s Ansari; and if you’re Jewish you can go to Rav Dicta, or one of the services that lets you talk to the avatars of famous historical rabbis. Lees meer
Zohar Atkins is the creator of Yochai, a chatbot designed for engaging with Jewish texts, rather than just getting answers to Jewish questions. We demoed the newly-launched product and talk about how AI might change Jewish learning.
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Islam and AI (w/ Waleed Kadous)
26 juni 2026 · 47 min
As a decentralized faith, Islam does not have one single approach to AI. Muslim communities are constructing norms around AI usage in religious scholarship and sermon-writing through a mix of guidance from religious leaders and emergent communal practice. I talked to Waleed Kadous, the creator of Islamic AI assistant Ansari, about how the technology is shaping not only Islamic scholarship but our value systems and real world politics.
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The Image of God in the Age of AI (w/ Tomer Persico)
18 juni 2026 · 52 min
The idea that human beings are created in the image of God is a central part of both Jewish and Christian theology, and with the rise of AI it has become perhaps the best example of how ancient religious wisdom can regulate modern technology by reminding us of what we value most of all. If human beings are created in the image of God—if we have something in us that separates us from animals—then we have an idea to rally around, a way to articulate that humanity’s special status needs to be preserved at all cost. Lees meer
The problem is, this theological idea is a lot more unstable than we’d like to admit. I talk to Tomer Persico, research fellow at the Shalom Hartman Institute and author of In God's Image: How Western Civilization Was Shaped by a Revolutionary Idea.
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The Latter-day Saint Way on AI
11 juni 2026 · 31 min
There is more than one type of religious approach to AI. While the Catholic response has received by far the most media attention, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been developing a response that has a stronger emphasis on practice. I spoke with Elder Gerrit Gong, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, about the church's approach.
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A Catholic and a Jew read the pope's AI encyclical together
29 mei 2026 · 1 uur 5 min
On May 25, 2026, Pope Leo XIV issued Magnifica Humanitas, a major new document on AI for the world's biggest religion. I talked with Brian Green about what it says, why it was written this way, where it sits in the history of major church documents, and whether it is likely to effect change on the AI industry.
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There's been an earthquake. We're coming back.
13 mei 2026 · 6 min
After less than a year from the end of our first season, Belief in the Future is coming back into a world where religion and technology are now crashing into each other. Lees meer
***
Belief is affiliated with the Faith Family Technology Network. It is a production of Sinai and Synapses and is supported by the Templeton World Charity Foundation. This episode was edited by M. Louis Gordon, and our production manager is Misha Holleb.
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What Could Go Right?
27 augustus 2025 · 39 min
To close out our summer episodes, we're talking with Kevin Kelly, founder of WIRED Magazine and writer about all things tech and culture. Kevin is a devout Christian with an eye toward the ethical good of technology. In our conversation, we cover technological skepticism, the AI identity crisis, the Amish, and much more. Lees meer
P.S. Check out host David Zvi Kalman's new YouTube channel, Sabbath Mode, for more in depth conversations about religion and technology.
Resources:
Kevin's website
Kevin's books
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The Two Codes
20 augustus 2025 · 33 min
BIG NEWS: Belief in the Future now has a YouTube channel: Sabbath Mode. Go check it out before listening to the episode Coding is one part skill, one part magic, and one part tradition. But when AI use takes out the conversation of code -- the necessary language of the code itself -- can the tradition be kept alive? How do we keep something living and growing without passing along its stories, its trials and errors, and its complexities? On this episode, host David Zvi Kalman speaks with scientist Samuel Arbesman about his new book, The Magic of Code, and the ways that religion and coding reflect one another. Lees meer
Resources:
The Magic of Code by Samuel Arbesman
The poetic web
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Are AI Sermons a Good Thing?
12 augustus 2025 · 33 min
Religious organizations, like all other organizations, are beginning to use AI. Some of these uses are unremarkable, but others bring AI into the business of delivering religious messages. In this episode, host DZ Kalman speaks with religion and AI evangelist Kenny Jahng about the tools he sees churches adapting and what it means to use AI as a tool for evangelism. Lees meer
Resources:
Kenny Jahng's website
Futureproof, by Kevin Roose
Exponential NEXT
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The Wild World of Bible Apps
26 februari 2025 · 46 min
We often think about how technology has influenced religion, but we rarely question the opposite: how has religion pushed technological advancement? In the case of Christianity, software to share the Bible has been in development for decades and has been shaping tech advancement behind the scenes for even longer. On this episode, we're talking to John Dyer, a professor at Dallas Theological Seminary and the author of the new book People of the Screen that details the entwined history of software and evangelism. Lees meer
Reading and resource list:
YouVersion
Hebcal
The Medium is the Message, Marshall McCluhan
Geneva Bible
The Scofield Study Bible
Encountering Peace
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The Church that wants to build God
17 januari 2025 · 39 min
What if AI and religion had a converging relationship rather than a parallel one? In Professor Beth Singler's new book, Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction, she explores how enmeshed technology and religion are in our current era, and how we as a society may be heading toward the creation and worship of a god-like AI. Lees meer
Reading list:
Roko’s Basilisk or Pascal’s? Thinking of Singularity Thought Experiments as Implicit Religion
The TESCREAL bundle: Eugenics and the promise of utopia through artificial general intelligence
Existential Conversations with Large Language Models: Content, Community, and Culture
The Turing Church
Theta Noir
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The Temptation of AI Christ
24 december 2024 · 29 min
The confessional booth is usually a private space for reflection and human connection. But what if, on the other side of the wall, you discovered you were asking forgiveness from a robot? This week, we're talking to Marco Schmid, the theologian at St. Peter's Chapel in Lucerne, Switzerland, about how his church uses AI to guide people to and through their prayer. Lees meer
You can read more about St. Peter's Chapel and its AI program on NPR or The Guardian, or join AI Jesus for an interactive chat on Twitch.
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Does Religion Have Wisdom for Tech?
3 december 2024 · 46 min
Does religion have a role in developing ethical frameworks around technology? On this episode, we're talking to Rabbi Zvika Kreiger, spiritual leader of Chochmat Halev and former Director of Responsible Innovation at Facebook. Zvika and host David Zvi Kalman dive into the Metaverse and discuss how religious leaders can lean into technology, and what separation of tech and religion looks like.
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Is Tech Too Fast to be Governed?
12 november 2024 · 38 min
Technology moves quickly – often times faster than governments can create laws to regulate it. So how do we adapt our lawmaking practices to keep up? Lees meer
We’re talking to Gideon Lichfield, a journalist and alum of MIT Technology Review, The Economist, and WIRED Magazine, about how lawmaking can keep up with the fast pace of our digital world, and how government and religion mirror each other when interfacing with new technology.
Reading list:
Gideon’s newsletter, Futurepolis.
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness by Jonathan Haidt
Dune by Frank Herbert
Karl Schroeder
Kim Stanley Robinson
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The Secret Synagogue Tapes
22 oktober 2024 · 35 min
You're not allowed to record in synagogue. But what if you're saving a dying culture? Lees meer
Have a question/tip/criticism? Write to us at our fancy new website, beliefinthefuture.com
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The Cantor in the Brothel
30 september 2024 · 16 min
What happens when you take synagogue music out of the synagogue? Lees meer
Works mentioned
Jeremiah Lockwood, Golden Ages: Hasidic Singers and Cantorial Revival in the Digital EraLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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What Silicon Valley Means by "God"
10 september 2024 · 38 min
Why do tech CEOs and visionaries use religious language—and what, if anything, does it have to do with organized religion? We talk Mary-Jane Rubenstein, Professor of Religion and Science in Society at Wesleyan, about unity, infinity, simulated realities, NASA, and how human beings have sought to make meaning of their world. Lees meer
Reading List:
Homo Deus by Yuval Noah Harari
Astrotopia by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
Worlds Without End by Mary-Jane Rubenstein
Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler
The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin
The Broken Earth Trilogy by N.K. Jemisin
Penseés by Blaise Pascal
Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard
The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis
The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
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Does AI Need History?
27 augustus 2024 · 45 min
The Greeks dreamed of automata, the Jews of golems, and now we've coded bots into powerful servants. Can our ancient quest for artificial life reveal our ethical obligations to today’s creations?
Guest Speaker:
Elly Truitt, who holds a Ph.D. in the History of Science from Harvard University and an M.Phil. in Medieval History from the University of Cambridge, is a historian specializing in the circulation of scientific knowledge and objects across Eurasia and North Africa from antiquity to the early modern period. Her work, including the acclaimed Medieval Robots: Mechanism, Magic, Nature, and Art (2015), explores the role of automata in medieval culture and the ethical questions they raised about identity and creation.
Reading List: Lees meerMedieval Robots by Elly Truitt
Machines as the Measure of Men by Michael Adas
Books & Essays by Stanislaw Lem
Greek myths featuring Hephaestus and mechanical servants
"Did the Greeks Believe in Their Robots?" by Martin Devecka
“Israelite Kingship, Christian Rome, and the Jewish Imperial Imagination: Midrashic Precursors to the Medieval ‘Throne of Solomon'” by Ra’anan Boustan
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Should I Use the Plagiarism Machine?
13 augustus 2024 · 55 min
In this crossover episode of Belief in the Future with Responsa Radio, host David Zvi Kalman dives into whether using generative AI systems like ChatGPT and DALL-E is a form of theft, drawing comparisons to the Jewish tradition of responsa. Back in the day, medieval rabbis often quoted other scholars without giving credit, but it was within a self-referential learning community. If today’s machine learning models can swiftly scrub the web, disregarding attribution, what kind of culture are we fostering by relying on their extensive 'knowledge'?
Guest Speakers: Lees meerRabbi Ethan Tucker is the President and Rosh Yeshiva at Hadar
Rabbi Avi Killip is Executive Vice President at Hadar
About Responsa Radio:
Responsa Radio is a podcast that brings the age-old Jewish tradition of responsa to life in a modern context. Hosted by Rabbi Ethan Tucker and Avi Killip, the show explores contemporary questions through the lens of Jewish law and ethics, engaging listeners in thoughtful discussions that connect ancient wisdom with today’s challenges.
Reading List:
Responsa: A body of Jewish legal literature comprising questions and answers written by rabbis to address issues of Jewish law. This tradition often involves finding historical precedents for contemporary questions, including those related to modern technology.
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AI and the Baptists
30 juli 2024 · 43 min
What does evangelical Christianity have to say about AI? Quite a lot, according to Jason Thacker. As Director of the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC), he oversaw the creation of the organization’s official AI statement of principles—the first put out by any religious denomination—which recommends moral responsibility towards new technology. Thacker and Kalman discuss how the document came to be, how it might extend to U.S. legislative guidance, what makes it particularly Baptist, and how a Jewish statement might differ. Lees meer
About our guest:
Jason Thacker is a prominent figure within the Southern Baptist Convention, serving as the Director of Research and Technology Ethics at the ERLC and as an assistant professor of philosophy and ethics at Boyce College and Southern Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky. Thacker is the author of several books, including Following Jesus in the Digital Age and The Age of AI: Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity.Reading List:
- Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow
- Inside Project Maven, the US Military’s AI Project
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Ghost in the Machine
15 juli 2024 · 56 min
Death isn't always an elegant ending. When Muhammad Ahmad, a research scientist with a doctorate in machine learning, learned his father’s diagnosis was terminal, he began to create a text-based AI simulation. Host David Zvi Kalman explores the successes and limitations of this process with Mohammed and Rabbi Ethan Witkovsky, who shares a Jewish take on "DeathGPT" and wonders if ancient scholars could enter the chat.
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The Two Lamp Mystery
1 juli 2024 · 36 min
Two religious communities invented the same lamp. Why? Lees meer
In our first episode David Zvi is joined by Lindsay Ems, an expert in the sociological impacts of technology on religious communities. Through the lens of Amish technology and the Sabbath for Orthodox Jews, they explore innovative ways these groups maintain their traditions in an increasingly electrified world.
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Belief in the Future - Trailer
24 juni 2024 · 4 min
What we're about.
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