Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-25T17:10:05.264Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

13 - The Anthropology and Sociology of Religion and AI

from Part III - Religious Studies

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2024

By
Beth Singler
Edited by
Beth Singler  and
Fraser Watts
Beth Singler
Affiliation:
Universität Zürich
Fraser Watts
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Get access

Summary

This chapter introduces social scientific perspectives and methods applicable to observing the relationship between artificial intelligence (AI) and religion. It discusses the contributions that anthropological and sociological approaches can make to this entanglement of two modern social phenomena while also drawing attention to the inherent biases and perspectives that both fields bring with them due to their histories. Examples of research on religion and AI are highlighted, especially when they demonstrate agile and new methodologies for engaging with AI in its many applications; including but not limited to online worlds, multimedia formats, games, social media and the new spaces made by technological innovation such as the innovations such as the platforms underpinning the gig economy. All these AI-enabled spaces can be entangled with religious and spiritual conceptions of the world. This chapter also aims to expand upon the relationship between AI and religion as it is perceived as a general concept or object within human society and civilisation. It explains how both anthropology and sociology can provide frameworks for conceptualising that relationship and give us ways to account for our narratives of secularisation – informed by AI development – that see religion as a remnant of a prior, less rational stage of human civilisation.

Keywords

AIanthropologysociologymethodologiesonline worldssocial mediagig economy
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Religion and Artificial Intelligence , pp. 223 - 240
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bibliography

Bailey, Edward. 1997. Implicit Religion in Contemporary Society. Kok Pharos Publishing House.Google Scholar
Boellstorff, Tom. 2008. Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. Princeton University PressGoogle Scholar
Durkheim, Émile. 1915. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, a Study in Religious Sociology. G. Allen & Unwin; Macmillan.Google Scholar
Fenn, Richard K. 2003. “Editorial Commentary: Looking for Boundaries of the Field: Social Anthropology, Theology, and Ethnography” in The Blackwell Companion to the Sociology of Religion, ed. Fenn, Richard K.. Blackwell Publishing Ltd.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hine, Christine. 2000. Virtual Ethnography. Sage.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. McGraw Hill Education.Google Scholar
Popova, Biliana. 2020. “Islamic Philosophy and Artificial Intelligence: Epistemological Arguments.” Zygon: Journal of Religion & Science 55(4), 977–995.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singler, Beth. 2017. “An Introduction to Artificial Intelligence and Religion for the Religious Studies Scholar.” Implicit Religion 20(3), Special Issue: Artificial Intelligence and Religion, 215–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singler, Beth. 2020a. “The AI Creation Meme: A Case Study of the New Visibility of Religion in Artificial Intelligence Discourse.” Religions 11(5), 253.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Singler, Beth. 2020b. “Blessed by the Algorithm: Theistic Conceptions of Artificial Intelligence in Online Discourse.” AI & Society 35, 945–955.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Singler, Beth. 2022. “Origin and the End: Artificial Intelligence, Atheism and, Imaginaries of the Future of Religion”, in Emerging Voices in Science and Theology: Contributions by Young Women, ed. Sollereder, Bethany and McGrath, Alistair. Routledge.Google Scholar
Storm, Jason Josephson. 2017. The Myth of Disenchantment. University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tamatea, Laurence. 2008. “If Robots R-US, Who Am I? Online ‘Christian’ Responses to Artificial Intelligence.” Culture and Religion 9(2), 141–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Alex. 2019. “The Data Centre as Technological Wilderness.” Culture Machine 18, The Nature of Data Centres, May.Google Scholar
Turner, Victor. 1967. The Forest of Symbols: Aspects of Ndembu Ritual. Cornell University Press.Google Scholar

Further Reading

Cusack, Carole. 2010. Invented Religions: Imagination, Fiction and Faith. Routledge.Google Scholar
Geraci, Robert M. 2010. Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Virtual Reality. Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hamilton, Malcolm. 1994. The Sociology of Religion: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives. Routledge.Google Scholar
Horst, Heather A. and Miller, Daniel eds. 2012. Digital Anthropology. Berg.Google Scholar
Lakoff, George and Johnson, Mark. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×