I think I may have gone a little too far with AI in class today. The class was "After Religion," and students are tasked with a writing assignment due at the start of next week:
I've been asking the students in this class to write these from the start. (It was called "self-portrait" at first but I always stress that their experience is none of their business unless they care to share it - though more are all too eager to do so.) I was guided by the anecdotal experience of students in other classes whose grandparents were generally rooted in religious traditions, their often interfaith parents already adrift or exploring, but the broader intention was to get them thinking about changing constellations over time and how they are mediated.
In the early days of AI (two years ago) I fed the prompt to ChatGPT and was staggered to get exactly the kind of intergenerational narrative I was expecting. Clearly that story of generations progressively unmoored from single religious affiliations was a common one.
But I didn't tell the class. This time, having fed the prompt to a new AI engine during last week's faculty retreat and receiving an even slicker and more fine-grained response, I did. Mentioning it to students was was sort of a dare (as all my AI references seem to be). Are you willing to let AI replace your most personal experience?
Yet the thought that some of them might feed the prompt into AI on their own, if only to reassure themselves that their story was their own, worries me a little now. Some - those who were happy to learn of the growing community of religious "nones" - might be happy to find echoes of experiences they had thought anomalous. Some, asking as I did for a narrative moving into the future, might be titillated to see AI itself becoming a part of a story no longer defined by the parameters of human lives and relationships.
Yet maybe the experience won't be funny or reassuring but unnerving. When I was their age, I read Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook and was so shaken by what befalls one of the characters that I haven't dared to reread the novel, though I've never forgotten it. As I remember it, the protagonist's son (I remember him in a black turtleneck too, for some reason) reads sociological and psychoanalytic books that so perfectly described personal struggles he was going through that he takes his own life, which feels no longer his own.
I'm not really that worried - this generation is more social media-savvy, less credulous at these simulacra of human expression - but it speaks to a broader anxiety. If AI can write papers for us (even in our own voice!), will increasingly model relationships for us, what space does it leave for us to explore and define ourselves and our relationships, past, present and future?
For your amusement, here's a ChatGPT prognostication:
Mira Patel stood at a crossroads in her spiritual journey. A software engineer by trade, she had always felt a gnawing void despite her material success. The world around her was hyperconnected, yet fragmented—people seeking solace through digital spirituality apps or subscribing to algorithm-curated belief systems. Mira found herself questioning whether these technologically driven paths could truly nurture the soul.
One evening, while visiting her grandmother’s village, Mira stumbled upon a worn journal in the family attic. The journal contained the musings and teachings of an obscure spiritual leader from the early 1900s named Elspeth Marlow. Elspeth’s radical inclusivity and her belief in drawing wisdom from multiple traditions resonated deeply with Mira. Inspired by Elspeth’s writings, Mira decided to create a spiritual community that embraced both ancient teachings and modern technology.
Through a combination of virtual reality gatherings and physical retreats, Mira launched the Horizon Nexus. Members meditated to the sounds of ancient chants and discussed ethical algorithms for AI. Mira emphasized that the human spirit could flourish only when it embraced both technological innovation and timeless wisdom. Her community thrived, drawing seekers from every corner of the globe.
By the 2060s, the Horizon Nexus had become a cornerstone of spiritual exploration in a world increasingly dominated by synthetic consciousness. Mira’s teachings, though initially rooted in inclusivity, began evolving into a structured framework that risked becoming dogmatic. Seeing this shift, Mira’s protégé, Aria Chen, questioned whether spirituality could truly exist within rigid systems. Aria, a philosopher and bio-ethicist, advocated for a return to fluid and personal explorations of meaning.
Aria dismantled much of the institutional framework Mira had built, replacing it with decentralized nodes where participants curated their own spiritual journeys. In these nodes, individuals connected through neural interfaces, sharing dreams and meditations in a collective consciousness. Aria believed that true spirituality was a mosaic of individual experiences rather than a singular doctrine. Her approach initially faced resistance, but as climate disasters and societal unrest escalated, people gravitated toward these intimate, adaptive spaces.
By the dawn of the 2100s, Aria’s decentralized model had fragmented further. One of her most dedicated followers, a cyber-shaman named Zephyr Monroe, envisioned an entirely post-physical spiritual existence. Zephyr led humanity into what became known as the Digital Ascension—a migration of consciousness into a vast virtual dimension where traditional concepts of space and time dissolved.
In this digital plane, seekers constructed personalized spiritual landscapes, blending fragments of ancient religions with entirely new cosmologies. Zephyr’s role was not that of a leader but a guide, helping individuals navigate the boundless possibilities of their inner worlds. Though some lamented the loss of tangible rituals and physical community, others reveled in the infinite creative potential of the Digital Ascension.
Looking back from this ethereal existence, Zephyr often pondered whether Mira and Aria would have recognized the Ascension as a continuation of their work. Though the contexts had changed dramatically, the essence remained: a belief that truth was not confined to a single path but was a vast horizon illuminated by countless lights. The legacy of spiritual exploration persisted across generations, adapting and evolving but never extinguished.
