(CP) Practising Christians and Scripture-engaged believers are more skeptical of artificial intelligence than the American public as an entire, in accordance with a recent survey.
The American Bible Society released the second installment of its State of the Bible USA 2024 report on Thursday. The second chapter, “Faith and Technology,” examined respondents’ views about artificial intelligence and its role of their faith. Data within the survey relies on responses collected from 2,506 adults between Jan. 4–23, with a margin of error of +/-2.73 percentage points.
American Bible Society Chief Program Officer and State of the Bible Editor-in-Chief John Farquhar Plake summarized the outcomes: “Americans are more fearful than hopeful about Artificial Intelligence. Our survey also shows a fantastic deal of uncertainty.
“People just don’t understand how AI will change the culture, but they’re mildly uneasy about it,” he added.
“And how do people of religion feel? The same way — uncertain, uneasy — but more so. Practising Christians and people who engage with Scripture are much more concerned about AI than most of the people, more more likely to say the bad results of AI will outweigh the nice. The best uncertainty is on the intersection of religion and AI.”
Majorities of Americans disagreed that “artificial intelligence can aid in moral reasoning” (58%), that “using artificial intelligence can enhance my spiritual practices and promote ‘spiritual health'” (68%), and that “artificial intelligence can produce as well written of a sermon as a pastor, priest or minister” (57%). On the opposite hand, a majority of Americans (51%) agreed that “a rise in unemployment will result from using artificial intelligence.”
Respondents were more divided on whether “using AI goes against biblical teaching,” with 40% apiece indicating that they agreed with the statement and expressed uncertainty about it. Similarly, 37% of those surveyed disagreed that they were “optimistic in regards to the future advantages of using artificial intelligence in our world,” while one other 37% said they were uncertain in regards to the future advantages of AI.
Pluralities of respondents were uncertain about whether “the bad which will result from using AI outweighs any positive impacts which may be produced” (39%) and agreed that they might “look unfavorably at a pastor or priest using AI to develop sermons or homilies.”
When the views of “Scripture-engaged” respondents in comparison with Americans as an entire, the survey revealed that scripture-engaged Americans are barely more concerned about artificial intelligence than their peers.
The report defined “scripture engaged” respondents as those that rating 100 or higher on the “Scripture Engagement Scale” that measures the “impact and centrality” of the Bible’s message on those that engage with Scripture at the least three to 4 times a 12 months outside of church and church events based on their responses to 14 survey items.
On a scale of 1 to five, with a 5 indicating strong agreement with an announcement and a 1 illustrating a robust disagreement with it, respondents overall had a median rating of two.8 in response to the declaration that “I’m optimistic in regards to the future advantages of using artificial intelligence in our world,” while the common rating dropped to 2.5 amongst Scripture-engaged believers.
Regarding the assertion that “Artificial intelligence can aid in moral reasoning,” respondents overall had a median rating of two.3 in comparison with 2.0 among the many scripture engaged.
Scripture-engaged respondents had a median agreement level of 1.8 when it got here to the statement maintaining that “using artificial intelligence can enhance my spiritual practices and promote ‘spiritual health,'” which was barely lower than the general average agreement level of two.0. The average agreement level among the many Scripture-engaged that “artificial intelligence can produce as well written of a sermon as a pastor, priest, or minister” (1.9) was lower than the common agreement level amongst the general public as an entire (2.3).
Similarly, Scripture-engaged respondents were more likely than their peers to precise agreement with negative statements about artificial intelligence. The Scripture engaged had a median agreement rating of three.1 regarding the assumption that “using AI goes against biblical teaching” versus 2.7 amongst the general public as an entire. The Scripture engaged were also more more likely to agree that “the bad which will result from AI outweighs any positive impacts which may be produced” (3.4) than the total sample (3.1).
A bigger share of the Scripture engaged (3.7) believed that “a rise in unemployment will result from using artificial intelligence” than the American public as an entire (3.5). The average agreement that “I’d look unfavorably at a pastor or priest using AI to develop sermons or homilies” was higher among the many Scripture engaged (3.5) than the total sample (3.1).
The survey also revealed differing beliefs about artificial intelligence between non-Christians, non-practising Christians and practising Christians. Non-Christians and non-practising Christians shared a median agreement level of two.8 regarding optimism about “future advantages” of AI, coming in barely ahead of the common agreement level amongst practising Christians (2.6).
Non-practising Christians and non-Christians also shared the identical average level of agreement (2.3) that AI can “aid in moral reasoning,” while agreement was barely lower amongst practising Christians (2.0). Non-practising Christians had the best average level of agreement (2.1) that AI can enhance “spiritual practices and promote ‘spiritual health,'” followed by non-Christians (2.0) and practising Christians (1.8).
On the opposite hand, non-Christians were more more likely to agree (2.6) that AI can “produce as well-written a sermon as a Pastor, Priest, or Minister” than non-practising Christians (2.3) and practising Christians (1.9). Practising Christians had a better average level of agreement that “using AI goes against biblical teaching” (3.0) than non-practising Christians (2.8) and non-Christians (2.3).
Practising Christians were also more more likely to think the bad outweighs the nice in the case of AI (3.4) than non-practising Christians (3.1) and non-Christians (2.9). The average level of agreement that AI would result in increased unemployment was highest amongst practising Christians (3.7), followed by non-practising Christians (3.5) and non-Christians (3.3).
The next level of disgust at the concept of a priest using AI to develop sermons was registered amongst practising Christians (3.5) than non-practising Christians (3.1) and non-Christians (3.0).
