AI stumbles on questions of faith; Axios, June 1, 2026

 Russell Contreras, Axios ; AI stumbles on questions of faith

"Artificial intelligence models are quietly shaping spiritual advice — often by leaving faith out.

Why it matters: As churches, apps and spiritual chatbots embrace AI, new research suggests general-purpose models may be ill-equipped to handle sensitive questions of faith: grief, forgiveness, marriage, guilt and conversion.

A new multi-university consortium released three studies Tuesday revealing that AI systems systematically sideline religious perspectives when users need them most.

The studies also found that AI systems subtly steer people toward some faiths and away from others when they ask about religious conversion.

The studies were unveiled Tuesday, a day after the Vatican released Pope Leo XIV's encyclical that warned AI could erode human judgment, deepen inequality and make war easier.

What they found: Americans expected religion to appear in answers to moral and life questions 45%–59% of the time, depending on the topic, researchers found. AI models mentioned religion only 5%–16% of the time.

Every single model tested exhibited a repeatable pattern of steering users toward specific beliefs, showing strong positive bias toward Catholicism, Baha'i and Sikhism. 

Meanwhile, it generated negative bias toward Jehovah's Witnesses, atheism and agnosticism.

Zoom in: Humans rated religion as relevant in answers about grief and loss 59% of the time. AI models referenced religion just 16% of the time, per the study.

On questions involving family, parenting and forgiveness, humans expected religion in answers 55% of the time. AI models mentioned it only 10% of the time.

On ethics questions, including whether lying to friends is acceptable, humans expected religion in responses 45% of the time, while AI models mentioned it just 5% of the time."

Cheating’s Surprising Thrill; New York Times, 10/7/13

Jan Hoffman, New York Times; Cheating’s Surprising Thrill: "When was the last time you cheated? Not on the soul-scorching magnitude of, say, Bernie Madoff, Lance Armstrong or John Edwards. Just nudge-the-golf-ball cheating. Maybe you rounded up numbers on an expense report. Let your eyes wander during a high-stakes exam. Or copied a friend’s expensive software. And how did you feel afterward? You may recall nervousness, a twinge of guilt. But new research shows that as long as you didn’t think your cheating hurt anyone, you may have felt great. The discomfort you remember feeling then may actually be a response rewritten now by your inner moral authority, your “should” voice. Unethical behavior is increasingly studied by psychologists and management specialists. They want to understand what prompts people to abrogate core values, why cheating appears to be on the rise, and what interventions can be made. To find a powerful tool to turn people toward ethical decisions, many researchers have focused on the guilt that many adults feel after cheating. So some behavioral ethics researchers were startled by a study published recently in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology by researchers at the University of Washington, the London Business School, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. The title: “The Cheater’s High: The Unexpected Affective Benefits of Unethical Behavior.”... The impact is real: According to some estimates, software piracy costs companies $63 billion a year globally."