The Institute for Security and Technology (IST) and AI and Faith (AIF) are launching a joint initiative on Religious Voices and Responsible AI, to equip pastors, imams, and religious educators with practical tools to help their communities navigate AI’s risks, opportunities, and ethical use. With support from the Future of Life Institute, IST and AIF will develop and publish curricula and community resources that enable faith communities to participate meaningfully in shaping safe and beneficial AI.
Powerful AI systems are progressing at a rapid pace and stand to have far-reaching consequences for societies worldwide. But as they make their way from frontier labs into our homes, workplaces, and civic life, many people do not see their values reflected in how these technologies are governed, built, deployed, or performed. Religious leaders are among the most trusted voices in many communities, and often want to address AI but lack accessible, high-quality materials tailored to their context. By translating the core questions of safety, security, and human wellbeing into resources that clergy can teach and adapt locally, this effort seeks to meet that need.
IST and AIF aim to co-develop modular content on AI fundamentals and safety and ethics considerations for leaders, along with congregation-ready discussion guides, short videos, and reading lists. We plan to ground AI ethics in religious values to promote understanding and adoption and to address concerns about AI’s influence on beliefs and behaviors and its persuasion or manipulation harms that can disproportionately affect faith communities. To move from learning to action, the effort will also launch a civic engagement hub highlighting opportunities for public comment, community consultations, and other pathways to constructive participation.
In its pilot year, the effort will focus on trust-building and resource creation for two specific communities: non-denominational evangelical Christian churches in Southern California and mosques in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Seattle area, both of which sit at the intersection of large religious communities and major technology hubs. By partnering directly with faith leaders, the Religious Voices and Responsible AI Initiative will bring clear, values-centered guidance into congregations, and channel those voices into policy conversations that determine how AI serves society.
“Faith traditions bring deep moral reasoning about human dignity, responsibility, and the common good,” said AIF’s Mark Graves. “This collaboration gives leaders actionable, relevant content for their communities and opens a credible path for religious perspectives to inform how AI is developed and used.”
“The pace and scale of AI deployment make these next two years critical for how it will shape our world—and our society will be better off if our engagement is informed by the ethical and theological beliefs of our citizens,” said IST’s Elizabeth Vish. “This project brings the conversation on safe and beneficial AI directly to communities of faith, so that their members can join public discourse on how and in what way we want to use this tool.”
Our project operates from a foundational conviction: the decisions that shape AI’s role in society are too important to be made without the moral traditions and community wisdom that faith leaders represent. We must ensure that the technologies reshaping our daily life reflect the values of the communities they serve. When religious leaders speak with clarity about AI’s implications, they bring both ethical grounding and the trust of millions to conversations that will define the future we build together.
This effort is supported by the Future of Life Institute and its grant program on “Multistakeholder Engagement for Safe and Prosperous AI” and aligns with both FLI’s Futures program–which engages diverse communities to imagine and operationalize positive, people‑first technology futures–and its Religions Initiative, which explores how faith perspectives can inform responsible approaches to AI. Read more about IST’s announcement here.
