How to: Religionswissenschaftliche Forschung zu, über und mit KI

Abstract

Artificial Intelligence (AI) impacts society, politics, and debates related to religion, making it a promising field for scholars of religion. This position paper outlines how AI can become a subject of investigation in religious studies, particularly in the fields of utopian/dystopian visions of AI, transhumanist ambitions, analogies to religion, ethical debates around AI and its explainability, and the ways in which field-relevant actors engage with the social implications of AI. It describes the opportunities and challenges of engaging with AI-related topics from a religious studies perspective and identifies promising areas of research. For this, the openness towards interdisciplinary research and sensitivity for the limitations of knowledge are relevant strategies. Finally, we demonstrate how research on, about, and with AI can succeed methodologically within the field of religious studies. The goal is to further establish this research segment, to connect junior scholars, and to facilitate communication about the scope and direction of the contributions of religious studies to public and academic discourse among researchers and other interested parties.