religious scholars

Japan's imperial family calendars are drawing attention after Princess Aiko's 2027 edition became a bestseller before release, while no calendar for Princess Kako could be found. Religious studies scholar Yuji Shimada wrote that the line-up reflects a generational shift within the imperial household, with the younger generation increasingly at the centre of public interest.

A group of religious scholars held talks with Anthropic, the company behind the Claude chatbot, about moral and ethical questions raised by artificial intelligence. The discussions, reported by the New York Times, reflect growing interest in how religious and philosophical traditions can inform AI development as such systems increasingly shape human decisions and values.

A new academic article titled 'Gods in the Classroom: Religion and Education in First Millennium BCE Babylonia' has been published in the journal Iraq, published by Cambridge University Press. The study examines how religious ideas and practices intersected with scribal education in ancient Babylonia, drawing on cuneiform sources from the first millennium BCE. It is currently drawing attention from readers of technology and general-interest discussion forums.

A meeting between religious scholars and AI company Anthropic has drawn attention, with reports suggesting what the scholars heard during the encounter left them stunned. The story is circulating via a gadget-focused outlet, but no details have emerged about what was said, which scholars attended, or what specifically prompted the reaction.

Anthropic's attempt to win Vatican support for its views on artificial intelligence has failed, according to reports circulating online. Vatican scholars reportedly refused to accept the company's assertion that scaling transformer neural networks could give artificial systems subjective experience, moral standing, or spiritual agency. The rejection underscores a widening gap between Silicon Valley claims about AI consciousness and religious institutions' views on what constitutes a soul or moral personhood.

A group of religious scholars met with Anthropic to discuss how AI models should understand morality and themselves. One participant noted that models having an accurate view of themselves seems key to behaving well in the world. The talks raised a thorny question: even if AI can be taught to behave morally, whose morals should it follow?

The New York Times reports that Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah spent months consulting religious scholars and thinkers from many faith traditions on how to give the Claude AI assistant a moral character. The scholars described the conversations about instilling ethics into artificial intelligence as striking and unexpected. The reporting has drawn attention to how leading AI companies are turning to religion and philosophy to guide chatbot behavior.