How would your faith inform your view of sapient artificial life (AI, bioengineered, etc.) were it created? (hexbear.net)

submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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By this I don't mean the morality of creating such a lifeform, but how your faith would inform the meaning, implications, and ethical ramifications of existing alongside such a being.

I think such a thing is a fascinating question, but when works of fiction featuring such beings incorporate Christianity at all, they tend to either 1) have the creature be a mindless monster that must be killed as an example of Why Man Shouldn't Play God, or 2) have Christians as villains who wrongly believe #1. I'm hoping to hear a different perspective, and I figured this would be the place to ask.

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[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

I think the pope was just talking about setting up some guidelines on genAI so funny time to ask this question.

I think if there was artificial life that was fully sapient, had qualia, and showed the capacity to make meaningful decisions through reason there's not really much reason to doubt that it has a soul. Maybe those criteria are not useful because you can't prove that someone else has qualia, but at least philosophically. Now, the problem is, what if it doesn't have a physical body? I think I'd be too conflicted on that to really come to any definite view. I'd probably wait on the pope to say something lol

edit: also just to be clear, if it has a soul then it can be baptized and should be treated the way we treat humans in general. I don't know if Francis was the first pope to ever say anything on the question of how we should react to alien life, but he definitely said that much. I don't think artificial life would really be too different except for the fact it wouldn't be God's creation. As you said, the question of whether or not we should make artificial life is outside the scope of the thread.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 month ago

sapient, had qualia, and showed the capacity to make meaningful decisions through reason there's not really much reason to doubt that it has a soul

Is there Christian precedence to believe these things equate to a soul? Isn't a soul something that is given by God rather than something that emerges when certain criteria are met?

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Aye, I am arguing backwards. I'm a little rusty on theology, but my understanding is that the Christian belief is that those things are only possible through having a soul given by God. Maybe the "correct" position is that because humans can't create souls, it would either be impossible for artificial life to exist, or somewhere along the line God would have to create the soul that the artificial being has.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

or somewhere along the line God would have to create the soul that the artificial being has.

That's an interesting idea and one that occurred to me as well. If you take the statement "only God can create life" as descriptive ("God alone is capable of creating life") rather than prescriptive ("Don't make Frankenstein's Monster"), then it's the obvious implication that follows if artificial life were to arise.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

If you're asking this because you want inspiration for some setting, worldbuilding, or similar, I recommend checking out /r/askapriest and just browsing the arguments there for a while. Sort by top of all time, top of the year, etc. There's always lots of weird little grey areas that bring up debates like this. Naturally most questions are about personal problems, but even those can have some discussions that will make you learn some theological lines of thought and see what kind of logic they use.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

I'll check it out, thanks!

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago

if it has a soul then it can be baptized

Might be a bad idea if it's an AI, the water might short circuit it.

(Seriously, though, thanks for the answer! Good stuff.)

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago

I don't have a faith, so it wouldn't.

Quite frankly, if your faith lifts up humans as some sort of amazing, special and perfect creation, it's wrong. Nothing special about us.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 1 month ago

There's a reason I asked this in c/christian

this post was submitted on 12 May 2025

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