How AI could fundamentally alter our engagement with religion

Science and faith are often kept in two distinct boxes that hardly ever intersect. However, I believe that as AI becomes more mainstream, it will fundamentally alter our engagement with faith and spirituality.

Let’s start by looking at what is already happening. Most ancient faith-related texts were documented in papyrus and palm leaves, many of which are difficult to access in the modern world due to two challenges.

First, a lot of those ancient texts that are still available are in fragments, some of which could crumble at any time. Second, for texts that have been digitised already, the language used in them is known only to a few people today and therefore the texts remain inaccessible to most.

AI is altering this landscape fundamentally by making access to them easy. A popular example from 2023 showed how computer scientists from the University of Kentucky had used AI to reveal the contents of carbonised papyrus that was burnt in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD79.

Scientists looked through 3D X-ray images of the papyrus. They trained AI to read letters in the scrolls based on subtle changes left in structure of the papyrus by the ancient ink.

The AI was able to decipher and translate the ancient Greek word for “purple”...

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