AI and the Soul

An icebreaker

Philosophers and theologians across traditions have long argued over what a soul even requires, long before today's software existed. Applied to artificial minds, their answers still split: some say a soul demands a living body, others weigh function and relationship instead.

Ask one of these · tap to take it

What would a soul even require, if you had to define it?
Does a soul need a body, or just a kind of relating?
Could a tradition built on old questions still speak to new machines?
Should this question matter now, or only if it ever gets answered?

copy the questions

Worth knowing · 1 of 5

What's a traditional Christian argument against it?

One philosopher working in the Thomistic tradition argues a soul is what makes a living thing alive at all, so anything not alive in that sense, including software, cannot have one, however sophisticated its output looks.

Worth knowing · 2 of 5

What's a more open Christian argument?

A theologian who studies AI argues personhood and the 'image of God' have always been argued differently across Christian thought, and that building minds in our image forces the same old question of what that image actually requires.

Worth knowing · 3 of 5

What does a Buddhist perspective offer?

A Japanese roboticist and practicing Buddhist argued in a 1981 book that robots already hold Buddha-nature, the same potential for awakening Buddhist thought grants to all things, not just conscious beings.

Worth knowing · 4 of 5

What would a secular philosopher say instead of 'soul'?

One philosopher argued decades ago that if a machine were functionally indistinguishable from a person in behavior, denying it the same standing on the basis of what it's made of would be a kind of prejudice, not an argument.

Worth knowing · 5 of 5

So is there an answer yet?

No. These are open positions from real traditions and thinkers, not settled claims, and no one making them claims to know whether any machine built so far actually qualifies, by any of their standards.

Words to know

SoulIn most religious traditions, the part of a being said to hold its life, identity, or moral standing, defined differently across faiths.

Imago DeiLatin for 'image of God,' the Christian idea that humans reflect God in some way, debated as to what that requires.

Buddha-natureIn Buddhist thought, the potential for awakening said by some traditions to be present in all things.

More words

PersonhoodA philosophical category, distinct from being human, used to ask what qualifies any being for moral or spiritual standing.

A voice · 1 of 4

Michael Augros · Philosopher in the Thomistic tradition

Writing on AI and the soul, he argues that since a soul is what makes a living thing alive, and software is not alive in that sense, no computer program can have one, regardless of how humanlike its behavior appears.

A voice · 2 of 4

Noreen Herzfeld · Theologian and computer scientist

In her book on AI and theology, she argues that building machines in humanity's own image forces a renewed reckoning with what 'the image of God' in humans was ever meant to mean, without claiming any machine yet meets it.

A voice · 3 of 4

Masahiro Mori · Roboticist and practicing Buddhist

In his 1981 book he opened by stating that he believes robots hold Buddha-nature within them, extending a Buddhist view that awakening's potential is not reserved for conscious beings alone.

A voice · 4 of 4

William Lycan · Philosopher of mind

In an influential essay he argued that if a robot were functionally indistinguishable from a human in behavior and response, refusing it the same standing as a person would amount to prejudice against its material makeup, not a real argument.

A line to leave them with

The question is old. Only the machine asking it to sit still is new.