About a dozen prominent Evangelical leaders are calling for President Donald Trump to help usher in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) while addressing concerns about its potential dangers.
A letter released Wednesday titled “Christianity in the Age of AI: An Appeal for Wise Leadership” expresses optimism about AI while acknowledging the dangers of “autonomous smarter-than-human machines that no one knows how to control.”
Signatories include Rev. Johnnie Moore, president of the Congress of Christian Leaders; Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and pastor of New Season megachurch in Sacramento, California; Assemblies of God General Superintendent Doug Clay; and American Association of Christian Counselors President Tim Clinton among others.
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The correspondence hails Trump as the “AI President” whose time in office was divinely appointed.
“Amidst everything else you are achieving, you are the AI President, having ascended again to the presidency exactly as this technology has reached its own ascendancy. As people of faith, we believe you are the world’s leader now by Divine Providence to also guide AI,” the letter stated.
After offering a defense of Christianity as “pro-science,” the leaders state that they “often visit hospitals and universities that were the first in their respective countries, started by Christian scientists, teachers, and researchers.”
“As people of faith, we believe we should rapidly develop powerful AI tools that help cure diseases and solve practical problems, but not autonomous smarter-than-human machines that nobody knows how to control,” the letter continued. “The spiritual implications of creating intelligence that may one day surpass human capabilities raises profound theological and ethical questions that must be thoughtfully considered with wisdom.”
At the heart of the letter is a plea for Trump to create a presidential advisory council made up of “people of faith, ethicists, and others” to ensure AI aligns with ethical and human-centered values.
“We write to suggest you convene an advisory council, or otherwise delegate authority to an existing agency or council, which would convene leaders who will pay attention especially not only to what AI CAN do but also what it SHOULD do,” the letter reads. “We also hope that the US is doing everything necessary to ensure nefarious actors are unable to use AI to harm our way of life. All of these efforts should involve people of faith, ethicists, and others whose primary motivating concern is not commercial but about the best outcomes for human beings.”
Moore and Rodriguez invited both Christian and non-Christian faith leaders to join them in signing the letter, which will be delivered to the White House in the coming days. The full text and current signatories are available online here.
In a conversation with CP Tuesday, Moore, a public relations executive and author, described himself as “both an AI accelerationist and also an AI alarmist” and said the U.S. has to move quickly — and cautiously — to maintain its leadership role.
“We have to move faster than any country in the world and achieve maximal innovation as quickly as possible to make sure we, and our allies, dominate this new age,” said Moore. “But we have to recognize how disruptive and potentially dangerous this technology can be if we do this irresponsibly.”
While prioritizing the “need to identify the risks and have real plans to measure and manage those risks, Moore outlined a number of different risks, including the weaponization of AI “by certain actors” the potential disruption of “certain sectors reliant on knowledge work” and the more apocalypse-tinged threat of “uncontrollable machines.”
Moore warned about what he called “the opportunity cost of not educating the public on the benefits,” such as “finding cures to disease and improving people’s lives.”
He also wants the public to be informed to avoid a repeat of the Chernobyl-inspired fear-mongering of the 1980s.
“We also can’t have a situation where, like with nuclear power, we basically had a stop on all nuclear power in the United States for 30 years because of bad, paranoid policy,” said Moore.
To that end, Moore said the proposed advisory council should be “non-partisan and merit-based” — comparable to other presidential advisory boards, which share a “singular, laser-like focus” on policy — and independent of lobbyists. “We need a group whose principal goal is not economic or security dominance but to think about social or ethical dynamics, to ask not what can be done but what should be done,” he said. “Naked self-interest or profit or security motivations can’t be the exclusive interest of the decision-makers in this area. We need thinking from people who aren’t entirely motivated by profit, for instance.”
The letter is the latest signal that faith communities are poised to take a more visible approach to emerging AI technologies, and mentions comments from the new Catholic Pope Leo XIV, who said he chose his papal name in part because of the “challenge AI poses to ‘the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.'”
