Faith, Ethics, and Human Dignity in an Age of Artificial Intelligence: A Call to Action

This address was delivered on July 29, 2025, during the Religions for Peace World Council in Istanbul, Republic of Türkiye.

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His Eminence Metropolitan Emmanuel, Elder Metropolitan of Chalcedon, Secretary General Dr. Francis Kuria, esteemed religious leaders, ladies and gentlemen, we express appreciation to Religions for World Peace for gathering our diverse and vibrant faith traditions in historic Istanbul. I am honored to represent The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this timely conference and to address “Faith, Ethics, and Human Dignity in an Age of Artificial Intelligence.”

In a way, artificial intelligence (AI) bridges our conference’s three sessions, since AI can play a role in human flourishingⁱ (our first session) and common prosperity (our third session).

My name is Gerrit Walter Gong.ⁱⁱ Gerrit is a Dutch name; Walter (my father’s name) is an American name; and Gong of course is a Chinese surname. I have always liked my international name. It invites me to be a global citizen in the household of faith.

By way of background, my parents met at Stanford University; I grew up in Silicon Valley. My father, Professor Walter A. Gong, coauthored Mechanics, a physics text, with William Shockley, who won the Nobel Prize for co-inventing the transistor. During my years at the U.S. Department of State, Secretary of State George Shultz assigned me to help him discern the shape, scope, and consequences for diplomacy in the information age.ⁱⁱⁱ Now, as a leader in a worldwide Christian faith, I helped introduce our guiding Principles for Church Use of Artificial Intelligence to our General Authorities, General Officers, and church workforce.

In the 19^thcentury, the primary means of production was agriculture; in the 20 century, it was industry; and now in the 21^st century, it is information, innovation, and scalable intellectual property. While DeepBlue in 1997, Watson in 2011, and AlphaGo in 2017 respectively defeated the human world champions in chess, Jeopardy, and Go, an age of artificial intelligence was born in the public mind with ChatGPT’s acclaimed debut in November 2022. ChatGPT usage is now estimated to be approximately 800 million weekly active users – one of history’s fastest technology adoptions.^iv

As we know, GPT stands for Generative Pre-trained Transformer. This particular form of artificial intelligence powerfully combines sophisticated query and response, advanced reasoning, and inventive patterns of algorithms that analyze complex and massive data stores.^v Exponentially compounding AI technologies promise new ideas and new possibilities in coming years. Surprising insights into new domains will in turn create even more domains and insights.

Frequently changing foundational models, training algorithms, objective functions and evals, agentic orchestration, and myriad domain applications constantly reshape the age of artificial intelligence.^vi The “internet of things” will become the “artificial intelligence of things.” We confront profound questions: what it means to be human; who and what will define perceptual “truth”; emotional relationships between humans and AI (including AI companions^vii); business models; how we understand divine principles of work, faith and reasoning, even relationship with the Divine.

Not surprisingly, we don’t know fully how to measure what is happening. Standardized benchmarks have not yet been fully established for many areas of AI performance and impact. These include aspects of ROI, quality, quantity, integrity, and AI efficiency gains over time,^viii as AI improves some economies and industries while negatively disrupting others.^ix

Among AI’s most important effects – and those most difficult to measure meaningfully — are those which impact relationship with the Divine, other core relationships, and human flourishing and common prosperity. It is on these spiritual dimensions of AI’s influence that I wish to focus today.

Our best taxonomies to define ethical and responsible AI include categories such as trust, alignment, accountability, privacy, data governance, fairness and bias, transparency, explainability, security and safety, socioeconomic-cultural equity.^x,xi Of particular importance to us as religious leaders are AI implications in the realms of faith, ethics, and human dignity. As we enter uncharted technological and ethical territory, we need especially now to align AI’s pervasive exponential reach with enduring faith-based ethical principles and moral values.^xii

I believe that we, as religious leaders, can take action on three fundamental AI-centered issues now.

First, we must be clear, and help society understand, that AI is not and cannot be God. Many talk too glibly about “AI becoming God” or “godlike AI.” AI training data is sourced by humans; AI’s moral and ethical principles are only those its creators consciously inject and align. Even if AI training changes or if we achieve AGI (artificial general intelligence) or ASI (artificial super intelligence), we know reasoning — even superhuman reasoning — has limitations. Man is not, and certainly Divinity is not, defined solely by reasoning.

No set of utilitarian AI algorithms should determine or speak for our most treasured human values and spiritual experiences. AI cannot provide inspired divine truth or independent moral guidance. Human benevolence, compassion, judgment, optimism, faith – that which speaks to and for our souls – require lived experience and authentic relationships.

Those who seek to deify AI may unwittingly discover a modern Tower of Babel. Human efforts to create utopia or to reach heaven always fall short. Ultimately, we are constrained by human limits of moral understanding and capacity to know and do good.^xiii As a creation of God, man can create AI, but AI cannot create God.

Our most precious truth, comfort, revelation, guidance come when we personally commune with the Divine. Spiritual truth and light come from understanding who God is in creation and the universe. For children of God, platforms and technologies cannot substitute for authentic Divine connection and relationship. As Russell M. Nelson, President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints says, “The privilege of receiving revelation is one of the greatest gifts of God to His children.”^xiv

As religious leaders we can help our people anticipate, adapt to, and beneficially use ongoing AI changes. We are not afraid of AI, nor do we think AI will be the solution to everything. We can help our adherents and congregants see AI as a useful tool that, properly and appropriately used, can bless many aspects of daily life.

Our second AI-centered issue: we can consciously choose and intentionally use AI as a tool for good.

Our most human and humane purposes and values will need what the poet calls our “deep heart’s core.” ^xv We will need the best our religious and moral heritages can offer to foster our core relationships with self, nature, each other in society, and the Divine.

I call these four core relationships I-It-They-Thou relationships. These existential relationships encompass the vertical (Thou) and horizontal (They) – the Christian tradition’s first and second great commandments to love God and neighbor.^xvi These core relationships also include an internal relationship with self (I) and external relationship with the environment and natural world (It).

As religious leaders, we can intentionally articulate and foster a vision for the world that counterbalances AI which drives algorithmic efficiencies and AI which protects and promotes human flourishing and common prosperity.

This raises our third AI-centered issue: we can commit together to ensure AI’s moral compass is not dictated solely by technology or the small group developing the technology. A united effort encompassing faith-based, civic, and technology leaders is needed to champion safe and responsible, human-centric AI.

Those committed to faith-based morals, ethics and values are needed in this conversation for at least three reasons. First, religious believers contribute in significant ways to human flourishing and common prosperity. Second, 76 percent of the world’s people identify with a religion.^xvii And, third, many publics are deeply concerned for the future of AI and skeptical of corporations, countries, and governments. Even in a world influenced by secular thought, not only religious believers but citizens everywhere want religious and moral leaders to help ensure AI is safe and can be trusted.

Taken together, these three issues (not replacing God with AI, intentionally using AI for good, and together championing AI that is safe and trusted) call for mutually respectful, practical dialogue.

This dialogue best includes those impacted by the daily, philosophical, and theological intersections of AI and the divine gifts which define who we really are. These divine gifts include moral agency and choice; capacity to nurture character, judgment, wisdom through embodied experience; and personal effort and creative growth beyond simple cognitive understanding.^xviii

As we make AI tools uplifting across text, voice, music, images, and video, let us also establish processes that identify, monitor, generate, and guarantee our best human outcomes in the AI systems we build.

Artificial intelligence’s still-evolving potential blurs the boundaries and limits of its reach and impact. Concentrating information, capital, and technology concentrates power. Power concentrated in the hands of a relative few challenges the common good, especially when some of those relative few think they know best for all society.^xix Amidst AI competition between and among companies, countries, governments at all levels, all societies and all peoples share a vital interest to encourage, support, and incentivize safe and responsible AI.

What I will call a “Faith Community AI Evaluation” can help.

A Faith Community AI Evaluation can fairly and accurately represent our pluralistic faiths, with two focused purposes. First, as most in society desire, it can help ensure AI systems portray persons of faith and religious beliefs in a respectful and accurate manner.^xx Second, it can offer training and use cases so AI models include faith-based moral and ethical purposes, principles, and training reflective of our best pluralistic, societal values. A Faith Community AI Evaluation can also provide a valuable additional AI check-and-balance.

A Faith Community AI Evaluation would invite each of our faith communities to develop training sets we feel accurately portray our history, doctrines, beliefs, and moral principles. Working with relevant parties, we can establish protocols, run tests, publish benchmarks, and iteratively define and improve AI performance in this important area. This added dimension of AI evaluation can increase public confidence in AI and contribute in a practical way to ethical and responsible AI use.

In conclusion, for us as religious leaders, a three-part call to action:

First, let us identify in our diverse faith traditions principles and values that give persuasive voice to the faith, ethics, and human dignity we need in an age of artificial intelligence.

Second, let us help chart a future where AI genuinely contributes to the common good, including human thriving and common prosperity, for people everywhere.

Third, let us bring together in timely dialogue leaders and citizens across industry, research, civic and government bodies, and pluralistic faith-based groups to align AI developments and enduring principles and moral values. We can help promote safe and trusted AI, including through a recognized “Faith Community AI Evaluation.”

These imperatives need the catalytic contributions of our diverse faith traditions. In the Christian tradition, Jesus Christ declares, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.”^xxi In coming days, let us unite our best efforts to identify ways and truths that help us live our best lives with faith, ethics, and human dignity in an age of artificial intelligence.

Thank you very much.

With appreciation, I acknowledge valued insights from many AI-expert friends and colleagues in business, academia, and research, and from colleagues and our AI Working Group in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In a recent meeting in Pristina with H.E. Prime Minister of Kosovo (referenced here by permission) we discussed AI opportunities and concerns for his country.

Of course, I remain personally responsible for these remarks.