Artificial intelligence continues to dominate Americans’ lives, with new technologies transforming the way people interact with brands, the internet — and one another.
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Nick Skytland, a vice president at Gloo, a faith-based AI company, recently explained the impact of artificial intelligence and why his organization is on a mission to investigate how it contends with the Christian worldview.
Gloo recently launched its Flourishing AI effort, a project to research benchmarks surrounding how faith is perpetuated and handled in the AI space.
Skytland argues mainstream AI models default to generic or secular advice rather than biblical or Christian guidance, even when faith-based prompts are given.
“Gloo is a technology company that serves the faith ecosystem, and, back in July, we had released some research that we call Flourishing AI,” Skytland said. “And it’s just a benchmark that’s really grounded in seven dimensions of human flourishing based on a lot of research that’s out there.”
Gloo’s focus is on the Christian worldview and understanding how this dynamic shows up through various AI tools.
“We really think that this might be the first comprehensive framework of its kind, measuring AI alignment for human flourishing from an authentic biblical worldview,” Skytland said.
The researcher said he tends to be a “half-full optimist” and believes “AI is incredible” and has a lot of promise. Still, there are some caveats and worries.
“I think there’s something that we really do need to understand here — that AI does have a built-in bias,” Skytland said. “It does have a built-in, essentially hidden worldview, especially to the average user.”
This is why Gloo has gone so deep into its efforts to try and discern what is happening within the AI framework.
“This is something we’re really trying to understand with the flourishing AI benchmark, to expose the structural bias and then think about … what does that mean from a Christian worldview?” he said.
AI operates based on the data it is fed and trained on, which can lead it not to present things through a biblical framework.
“It’s … very great technology. But, as a Christian, we should ask the question: ‘Does it represent my values?'” he said. “And, if not … how do I approach that? What do I think about that?”
Skytland said these issues are most pronounced when Christians ask AI about theology and relationships.
“Not surprisingly, faith and spirituality remain the most difficult dimension across all the frontier models that we’re seeing,” he said. “This is a really important point, but we don’t just measure it in the dimension. We think about how does our faith affect humanity?”
Despite these challenges, Skytland said he believes the “models are getting better.” Even as challenges persist, the AI expert encouraged parents and educators, noting it’s a “huge opportunity for Christians.” Watch what he had to say above.
Find out more about Gloo’s Flourishing AI Christian (FAI-C) Benchmark, which, according to a press statement, “evaluates whether AI systems support human flourishing through a distinctly Christian worldview.”
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