Is AI Erasing Religion? The Surprising New Data

On this episode of "Deseret Voices," host Jane Clayson Johnson sits down with Dr. David Wingate — professor of computer science at Brigham Young University and academic lead for the Consortium for Evaluation of Faith and Ethics in AI (CEFE-AI). Together, they explore groundbreaking research conducted across an unprecedented interfaith collaboration, uniting scholars from Brigham Young University (Latter-day Saint), Baylor University (Baptist), the University of Notre Dame (Catholic), and Yeshiva University (Jewish). The consortium’s mission: to test how mainstream artificial intelligence systems navigate, represent, or potentially misrepresent human faith, morality, and spiritual traditions.

Wingate shares key findings from the team's newly developed AllFaith Benchmark, which evaluated 14 major large language models — including ChatGPT, Claude, Grok, and Gemini. The conversation examines the phenomenon of "omissive bias" (or symbolic annihilation), where AI systems default to secular, therapeutic, or corporate reasoning while ignoring spiritual perspectives when users ask adjacent questions about grief, loss, suffering, or life's purpose. Wingate also explains what the study found on conversion bias across faith traditions, discusses the emerging trend of hyper-focused religious chatbots (like LDSBot, Magisterium, and RavChat), and highlights the risks of emotional attachment and sycophancy as people increasingly turn to algorithms for moral guidance. 

“Deseret Voices” is hosted by award-winning journalists McKay Coppins and Jane Clayson Johnson, who go beyond the headlines to explore the stories, people, and ideas shaping our world today. Through thoughtful, in-depth conversations, the “Deseret Voices” podcast brings clarity and common ground to the complex issues defining our time. 

“Deseret Voices” is a Deseret News podcast, produced by Keira Farrimond, Creative Director - Video & Podcasts. 

Episodes of “Deseret Voices” drop every Monday wherever you get your podcasts. Follow along and join the conversation on YouTube (@deseretnews), Instagram (@deseretnews), Facebook (@deseretnews) and X (@deseret).