OpenAI and Anthropic just met with religious leaders at the 'Faith-AI Covenant.' Here's why

"Leaders from various religious groups met last week with representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI for the inaugural "Faith-AI Covenant" roundtable in New York to discuss how best to infuse morality and ethics into the fast-developing technology. It was organized by the Geneva-based Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, which seeks to take on issues such as extremism, radicalization and human trafficking. The roundtable is expected to be the first of several around the globe, including in Beijing, Nairobi and Abu Dhabi."

"Tech executives need to recognize their power - and their responsibility - to make the right decisions, said Baroness Joanna Shields, a key partner in the initiative. She worked as a tech executive with stints at Google and Facebook before pivoting to British politics. "Regulation can't keep up with this," she said. But the leaders of the world's religions, with billions of followers globally, have the "expertise of shepherding people's moral safety," she reasoned. Faith leaders ought to have a voice, Shields said."

""This dialogue, this direct connection is so important because the people who are building this understand the power and capabilities of what they're building and they want to do it right - most of them," she said of AI tech executives. The goal of this initiative, according to Shields, is an eventual "set of norms or principles" informed by different groups and faiths, from Christians to Sikhs to Buddhists, that companies will abide by."

Tech companies are increasingly seeking guidance from faith leaders to shape artificial intelligence as concerns grow about its rapid societal integration. Representatives from companies including Anthropic and OpenAI met with leaders from multiple religious groups in New York for the inaugural “Faith-AI Covenant” roundtable. The initiative, organized by the Interfaith Alliance for Safer Communities, aims to infuse morality and ethics into fast-developing technology and address issues such as extremism, radicalization, and human trafficking. Baroness Joanna Shields, with experience in technology and politics, said regulation cannot keep up and that religious leaders have expertise in shepherding moral safety. The initiative seeks a set of norms or principles that companies will follow, with future roundtables planned globally.

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