Series Index
1. How AI Is Reshaping Religion and Human Ethics
2. What Remains Human in the Age of Expanding AI
3. Can AI Redefine Religion?
4. Common Ground in Tradition and the Future of Faith
5. Rebuilding Human Desire and Ethics in the AI Age
6. Human Existence and the Value of Being in the AGI Era
By IM Byung-min (IBM), Columnist
Artificial intelligence can explain and evaluate religion, but it cannot experience religion for itself. Religion is not merely a system of knowledge. It is tied to inner human experiences such as fear, suffering, hope, guilt, gratitude and awe. Even if the world moves beyond AGI into the age of ASI, it is difficult to say that AI will possess the five senses, emotions, anxiety over death or longing for salvation in the same way humans do.
The question, “How does AI define religion?” therefore returns us to a more fundamental question: “How have humans understood religion?” AI’s answer is not a confession of faith. It is the result of reorganizing the religious language, history, theology, philosophy and ethics accumulated by human beings. AI can explain religion, but it cannot pray. It can compare doctrines, but it cannot bear the suffering and comfort of faith as part of its own life.
Religion has long been a human way of understanding the unseen world. Prehistoric burial practices, animism that perceived spirits in nature, and totemism that symbolized collective identity all reveal humanity’s attempt to find meaning in the face of death, nature, suffering and uncertainty. Human beings felt fear before they acquired knowledge, and confronted death before they possessed science. Religion emerged at that point, offering order, comfort and communal norms.
The changes in my mother’s faith also invite reflection on this issue. At one time, she placed a bowl of clear water before her and prayed earnestly. Later, she visited a Buddhist temple, read scriptures and prayed in the Buddhist manner. Eventually, influenced by family, she accepted Catholic faith. This was not simply a matter of changing religions. It showed how life circumstances, family relationships and personal experience can reshape the form of faith. People do not choose religion by doctrine alone. Life’s turning points, family changes, social environments and inner needs often move the direction of belief.
In this sense, religion is deeply connected to human vulnerability. Humans experience sorrow, pain, anxiety and loss. It is also striking that traces of grief and attachment can be found in animals. When elephants lower their heads and remain beside a dead companion, their behavior suggests that living beings seek stability and peace. Yet humans do not leave grief as a mere emotion. They interpret it as meaning. They ask: “Why does suffering exist?” “What comes after death?” “How should I live?” Religion is humanity’s ancient response to these questions.
The Holy Spirit in Christianity, enlightenment in Buddhism, submission in Islam and moral self-cultivation in Confucianism differ in expression. Yet they share a common concern: the human effort to purify desire and confusion within the self. Religion explains the invisible absolute, but it is also a way of governing oneself. The interpretation that the Lord’s Prayer contains the core structure of human faith can be understood in this context. Human beings ask something of God, while also asking how they themselves ought to live.
This is where the meaning of religion becomes newly important in the age of AI. Artificial intelligence can calculate and analyze faster than humans, but it cannot feel the moral weight of good and evil. The argument that AI must develop structures of self-checking and verification in order to reduce errors is not only a technical issue. It is also an ethical one. If humans have used religion to reflect on their desires and actions, then technology in the AI age must also be equipped with systems that examine its own errors and risks.
Ultimately, for AI to redefine religion does not mean that AI will create a new religion. Rather, AI forces humans to ask again what religion truly is. Is religion a system of knowledge, a standard of ethics, a source of emotional comfort, or a way for human beings to recognize their own limits? AI can offer answers to these questions, but it cannot live those answers.
Even in the age of AI, the center of religion remains human. Humans know death, feel pain, regret wrongdoing and hope for a better life. No matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes, it cannot carry the existential weight of human life. Religion in the AI era will not disappear. Instead, it will stand before a sharper question: What do humans believe, what do they fear, and for what purpose do they seek to purify themselves?
