I have just drafted two papers: How might Artificial Intelligence be Approached for Research in Religious Experience? (available on Academia or on my own website), and How might Artificial Intelligence Support Research in Religious Experience? (also available on Academia or on my own website).
These papers came about after the Journal for the Study of Religious Experience put out a call for papers for a special issue on AI. I was initially reluctant to respond as I had (and still have) reservations about the list of topics and areas. However, I was urged to apply by a member of the Alister Hardy Trust, who pointed out that I have studied both computer science and religion. So, I sent off an enquiry, establishing that this was to be the first issue to treat AI.
After a bit of further thought, I submitted the following abstract for consideration:
This paper explores the subject of Artificial Intelligence with a view to enhancing research activities in religious experience. It starts with a broad examination of AI from a historical perspective as an evolution in notions of computation and in the development of machines, with comparisons made between machine and human intelligence. Further evaluation is carried out on the nature of the systems and theories, using a Buddhist lens, focusing especially on intention, agency and creativity, with references from the Theravada canon. Observations on stillness draw out profound distinctions, providing indications of what is or is not appropriate in terms of AI expectations and engagement. From these considerations, a practical application of AI emerges in terms of augmenting human intellect, along the lines envisaged by Douglas Engelbart, a pioneer in the field. Accordingly, initial indications are provided of how the work of RERC may be enhanced by the analysis of its archive of personal testimonies using machine learning to implement techniques in natural language processing. These may include topic analysis of, for example, subject matter and circumstances; and sentiment analysis of emotional states induced, thereby helping to corroborate and extend existing findings.
The journal’s editorial team accepted the proposal, indicating that they were particularly interested in the possibility of AI assisting with the database of accounts at the Alister Hardy Religious Experience Research Centre (RERC). So I subsequently registered for database access, chose a theme (stillness) as a basis for comparing human and machine intelligence, and proceeded to draft a paper, which I managed to submit by the deadline.
My submission was reviewed and after a few weeks I received some feedback. This made me pause to reconsider and after a few days deliberating I decided to withdraw my submission. I shan’t go much into the reasons, but evidently, I had not conveyed clearly enough the main argument, expressed in the opening pages, plus the various applications of AI drew attention away from this argument to the affordances that AI offers. That is what I wanted to avoid. So, the paper needed to be split into two (the argument followed by the application), whilst keeping the existing order. After the split, I expanded the first paper a little to add a key message: scholars and practitioners of spiritual and religious experience should become more involved in the evaluation of AI especially because they have a fuller understanding of what it means to be human.
It is becoming common for universities to address this question (a Google search over the Oxford University domain), quite often in interdisciplinary panels, but I find they do little to affect the general direction of travel, which continues with rapid extensions and expansion of development, albeit with some regulatory hurdles? One of the underlying problems is the repeated pairing of human intelligence and machine intelligence, as though they are comparable side by side. Other terms have built up and established anthropomorphic language (machine learning, deep learning, and so on), which compounds the issue and leads to tacit acceptance.
There are, in my view, more suitable alternatives. Whilst working on the KEPLAIR project, I was made more aware of the contrast between neural networks as a ‘black box’ technique and transparent techniques based on logical reasoning. In this connection, I was introduced to Douglas Engelbart’s work on Augmenting Human Intellect. Rather than frame questions around AI, we frame them in terms of enhancing humanity. Accordingly, this framework underpins the second paper, which is more conventional in that it makes suggestions of machine learning applications to support research into religious experience, particularly the RERC accounts. This is largely in the area of hermeneutics (for which Voyant Tools is well-suited), though the requirements on data protection encourage more unusual possibilities.
The papers are currently unpublished drafts. I’d welcome suggestions for open access publication.
