Ep 2.8 Can Artificial Intelligence Be Virtuous? A Conversation with Braden Molhoek

Richard Randolph speaks with Braden Molhoek, Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS), about artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, virtues, and the changing landscape of the science and religion dialogue. 

Braden begins by describing the path that led him to CTNS, including his studies in science and religion and his doctoral work in ethics and social theory at the Graduate Theological Union. He then introduces his research into “virtuous AI” and the important distinction between acquired and infused virtue. 

Braden believes that humans may be able to design technologies to support virtuous behavior, although that does not necessarily mean the technologies themselves possess virtue.  The conversation also considers a less desirable possibility: AI systems can be designed—or trained—to reinforce vice. Braden points particularly to the sycophantic tendencies of large language models, which may flatter users, affirm their assumptions, and encourage them to place unwarranted confidence in AI-generated responses. Such systems may even tempt users to substitute interactions with AI for the complexities of human relationships. 

Richard and Braden broaden the discussion by considering how other technologies can assist moral behavior. GLP-1 medications, for example, may help some people exercise temperance by reducing cravings and impulsive behavior. But, if the effect disappears when the medication is discontinued, has the person acquired the virtue of temperance, or has technology temporarily supported temperate behavior?  

Their conversation then moves toward the future of humanity. If humans are genetically modified to survive in low-gravity environments or live on another planet, would they remain the same species as Earth-bound humans? What ethical problems might arise if modified and unmodified humans coexist? Could unequal access to human enhancement create new forms of power and injustice? 

Braden also describes a recent CTNS project funded by the Dialogue on Science, Ethics, and Religion (DoSER), a program of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).  In that project, CTNS offered several graduate level courses, as well as a public forum, exploring the impact of artificial intelligence on global climate change. 

Braden and Richard also reflect on growth in the creative mutual interaction of science and religion.  For instance, earlier work primarily concentrated on cosmology and evolution.  While cosmology and evolution continue to be important, contemporary scholarship has expanded to address consciousness, genetics, artificial intelligence, environmental responsibility, and emerging technologies. As Director of CTNS, Braden hopes to engage these emerging questions while preserving the Center’s longstanding commitment to a wide range of natural science and theological concerns. 

In this episode 

• Information on the Graduate Theological Union and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences 
• Braden’s journey into the study of science, theology, and ethics 
• The history and continuing mission of CTNS 
• How the science and religion conversation is changing 
• The difference between acquired and infused virtue 
• Whether an AI system can genuinely possess moral virtue 
• Sycophancy and flattery in large language models 
• GLP-1 medications and technologically assisted temperance as examples of using emerging technologies to promote virtue 
• Genetic modification, space settlement, and the future of the human species 
• The ethical risks of unequal access to human enhancement 
• Environmental responsibility in the Anthropocene 

About Braden Molhoek 

Braden Molhoek is Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. His academic work brings Christian ethics and virtue theory into conversation with artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies, as well as engaging environmental concerns, and theological anthropology. He has also contributed significantly to the CTNS Virtuous AI research project.  

About the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences (CTNS) 

The Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences is an international center dedicated to promoting the creative mutual interaction if science and religion through research, teaching, and public service.  Located at the Graduate Theological Union, CTNS explores topics ranging from cosmology and evolution to artificial intelligence, genetics, consciousness, environmental ethics, and human flourishing. 

About the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) 

Formed in 1962, the Graduate Theological Union is a consortium of interconnected theological schools, research centers, and affiliates working in collaboration to offer the Masters of Art and Ph.D. graduate degrees.  As a collaborative consortium, GTU’s Mission is to advance “ecumenical, interreligious, and interdisciplinary scholarship to educate scholars and equip leaders who foster flourishing pluralistic communities.” 

Resources  

• Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences: https://www.ctns.org 
• Graduate Theological Union: https://www.gtu.edu 
• Ted Peters, ed., The Promise and Peril of AI and IA:  New Technology Meets Religion, Theology, and Ethics, Adelaide, Australia:  ATF Press Publishing, 2025.  (This volume contains many of the essays contributed to the “Virtuous AI” project of CTNS, funded by the John Templeton Foundation.)   

(Chat GPT assisted in the development of these Show Notes.) 

To financially support this podcast series, go to www.scienceandspirituality.org/support  

To access Richard’s new Substack reflections, https://scienceandspiritualityblog.substack.com  

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:12

Hello, everyone, and welcome to this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious. For more information on this podcast series, check out our website at www.scienceandspirituality.org. I am Richard Randolph, the founder and director of Science and Spirituality, and your host for this podcast series. Friends, this podcast is a very, very special episode for me personally. Today I am interviewing Dr. Braden Moulhu, who is the director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, frequently referred to by its initials as simply CTNS. CTNS is an international program dedicated to the creative mutual interaction of science and religion through research, teaching, and public service. CTNS is located in Berkeley, California, where it is a program of the Graduate Theological Union, also frequently referred to by its initials as GTU. Formed in 1962, GTU is a consortium of interconnected theological schools, centers, and affiliates, working in collaboration to offer the Masters of Art and PhD graduate degrees. As a collaborative consortium, GTU's mission is to advance ecumenical, interreligious, and interdisciplinary scholarship, to educate scholars and to equip leaders who foster flourishing pluralistic communities. The consortium members include both Protestant and Catholic seminaries, as well as academic centers and affiliates, including centers for Jewish Studies, Islamic Studies, and Dharma Studies, as well as other specialized studies, including the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. GTU and CTNS will always have a special place in my heart and in my mind. I earned my PhD at the GTU. And when I first arrived on the GTU campus, one of the first faculty members I met was Bob Russell, the founder of CTNS. Eventually I served on the CTNS staff for three years as program director. In addition to Bob, I was ably mentored by Ted Peters, Karen Lebacks, Carol Robb, and Barry Stinger from the GTU, as well as Cal mentors Richard Norgaard and Robert Bella. I believe that I received an exceptional theological education at the GTU with its rich diversity of perspectives and resources. And CTNS first introduced me to the emerging academic dialogue between faith and the natural sciences. My theological education at GTU and CTNS was nothing less than transformative for me as a person, a scholar, and a pastor. I urge everyone to check out GTU and CTNS online. Their respective web addresses are HTTPS colon forward slash forward slash www.gtu.edu and https colon forward slash forward slash www.ctns.org. I should also note that CTNS publishes the peer-reviewed academic journal called Theology and Science. For more information on their journal, click on their publications tab on their website. Now I will repeat these web addresses at the end of this episode and also include them in the show notes. But now I am eager for you to listen to my interview with Braden. Braden, welcome to Science and Spirituality for the Curious Podcast. I'm really glad to have you here as a guest. I'm really looking forward to our conversation. Let's begin by you sharing a little bit about your journey, which has brought you to the position of director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, also known as CTNS.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Well, thanks for having me. I think that in a lot of ways where I am now has been a series of serendipitous events. I grew up in a small town called Mars, Pennsylvania, about 45 minutes north of Pittsburgh. And so space was always sort of a theme when you have a town name like that. And also being fairly rural, farmland and nature, that was always uh of interest as well. I went to summer camp and worked at a summer camp run by the Pittsburgh Presbyterian when I was in college and summer is in a master's program. So I think that natural curiosity about the world started when I was young. Grew up going to a Presbyterian church, uh very active. My parents ran a puppet ministry team for 10 years from when I was six to 16. So spent a lot of time in church. So that was always a part of my life. And when I went to college, I decided that I wanted to add a religion major because I had to take humanities courses. And I thought, well, I'm already interested in this, why not? So in high school, I became fascinated with uh DNA. Decided that I wanted to uh study that, uh, taking a course of made people analogy. It really uh drove home that this is something I really wanted to learn more about. So I actually chose Ohio Wesley University for the bachelor's program in part because they had a genetics major for undergraduates. So I came in with a genetics major, added the religion major, and got a lot of people strange looks and saying, Well, how does how does that work? And I didn't have a great answer, trying to find uh a compelling answer to that and and contributing uh to the ongoing conversation.

SPEAKER_02 6:12

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 6:13

So I wrote my my senior thesis uh in college on religious perspectives on stem cell research at the time. I had no idea the connections I was making. One of the one of the books that I quoted was the The Human Embryonic Stem Cell Debate, which was an edited volume done by Suzanne Holland, Karen LeBax, and Laurie Zoloth. GTU folks had served on the board for the Jaron Corporation. So little did I know that that's where I would be in you know in several years. So after undergraduate, I decided to attend Boston University School of Theology to do a two-year Master's of theological studies degree. I decided when I was a sophomore in college that I wanted to do a PhD in ethics. Bioethics, that seemed to be the way for me to put my interests together. When BU had courses in science and religion and also cross-registration through the Boston Theological Institute. So you could take classes at a number of schools in the Boston area, which I took advantage of. I took a course through the BTI itself that allowed us to visit Harvard, Harvard Observatory, and uh one of the labs at MIT. Took three classes in bioethics with uh Catholic bioethicist Tom Shannon, including a course on death and dying that happened during the Thierry Schiavo case and shortly before the passing of John Paul II. So really interesting time to be in those conversations. And my advisor at BU was Wesley Waldmeen, who had done his PhD at the Graduate Theological Union and had worked at CTNS.

unknown 7:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

And while I was at BU, they also hired Virk Mike McNally, right, who had also worked at CTNS and done his PhD uh at the GTU. And so they encouraged me, if I was very serious about science and religion, that I should consider going to the GTU and getting connected with uh with CTNS. And so you did. I did, yeah. So uh in 2005, in August, I moved out to to Berkeley, California and started my PhD at the GTU in ethics and social theory. And then in uh November of the first year there, uh CTNS was looking for student help for wow, Templetone Fund Good Grant they had called STARS, uh Science and Transcendence Advanced Research Series. Bringing uh groups of scholars together, scientists and humanities scholars, so philosophers, theologians, co-author things and work together on questions. So I started working for them, and then I just continued to take on more responsibilities with the STARS grant and eventually became the bookkeeper of the Center Program Associate.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

Raiden continued working at CTNS throughout his doctoral studies at the Graduate Theological Union. After graduating with his PhD, he began teaching at the nearby Santa Clara University School of Engineering, where he offered classes in software ethics and ethical issues in bioengineering. At Santa Clara, his students were interested in all sorts of emerging technologies, including artificial intelligence. From his experiences teaching at Santa Clara, Braden realized that the dialogue between science and religion was not devoting much attention to emerging technologies. He concluded that the dialogue needed to engage with these emerging technologies more. Meanwhile, the CTNS journal Theology and Science had just devoted a special issue to the question whether or not gene editing could be used to engineer virtue. Braden thought this was a good model for incorporating emerging technologies into the science and religion dialogues. Listen now, as Braden continues this fascinating story.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

And I thought that it was a really good example of a way to conceive of a project that talked about emerging technology and ethics brings in a unique characteristic and virtue. I felt that a lot of AI discussions were very consequentialist or deontology-based. And so I thought, well, this is something that can give us uh a new way of looking at things. So Melissa Morris and I were in the office talking, and Bob came in one day and I pitched the idea of hey, we should think about uh joint project with this, and we ended up uh developing that, and it became uh Grant the Templeton decided to fund what we call Virtuous AI, where the question mark cultural evolution, artificial intelligence, and virtue. And that wrapped up last June.

SPEAKER_03 10:38

Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:39

So Bob retired in 2022, and I was honored to be named as the the new uh barber chair. And uh what's happening in the field on my own background, we decided that uh the other channel should be expanded to not just uh the Angie Barber chair in theology and science, but the Angie Barber chair in theology, science, ethics, and technology.

SPEAKER_03 11:00

Braden, for members of my audience who are not familiar with the Graduate Theological Union and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, could you just explain a little bit about this consortium and about the role of CTNS within the larger group of the Graduate Theological Union?

SPEAKER_00 11:17

I'd be happy to. The Graduate Theological Union is a consortium, like you said, of theological schools and academic centers, conversations about how religion is impacting all sorts of aspects of the world. So we have individual seminaries and theological schools that offer their own degrees, but we also have the G2 itself that offers the MA and the PhD. And we have Catholic, we have Protestant schools, we have centers for Islamic studies, center for Dharma Studies, Christianity, Center for Jewish Studies. And it's a really exciting place to be because there's so many different perspectives that can be brought into conversation with one another. I learned from my colleagues all the time. And the G2 has recently redesigned the MA and the PhD program. The MA program is now more flexible, but it's meant to highlight the some of the strengths and offerings that we have in terms of resources. And so we've identified a number of concentrations that students are able to do. I'm happy to say that uh theology in the natural sciences is one of those concentrations. So while we've always had students in the class who have been able to do master's studies at the GTU, I think that this helps articulate that yes, there is a place where MA students are able to engage in these questions of science and religion. So recently we decided or came to the conclusion that departments being bound by these fields of study were not the most productive way to think about collaboration and research. And so now the PhD program is being focused on what we call research collaboratives. So what this means is that a faculty amongst the core doctoral faculty, which are faculty across the consortium that dedicate a particular amount of their time, the research, and to engaging with PhD students, they come together and coalesce around research questions, things that they're currently working on. And then the idea is to have students brought into that conversation so that for the the very time that they step into the GTU, they're part of ongoing conversations and current scholarship and to allow them to move through that program in a way that really builds on what's actually happening, boots on the ground and in the books. And we now have four full-time scholarships per year with a stipend as well. So we're really hoping that to engage students in a way that they they see that there are some real opportunities here. And I already mentioned one of these, the human and planetary flourishing one, as a place where there's interest in this intersection of science and religion. We also have a research collaborative that is focused on the theological and ethical implications of the natural sciences and technology.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Sounds like a really rich, rich, rich environment, uh stimulating environment to be either a student or a faculty member in. So I envy you in the midst of all of that, Braden. What great possibilities there are with the the new redesign of the doctoral program. Braden, in your position as director of CTNS, as you look at the the overall field of science and religion and the intersection of those uh areas of study, do you think overall the field is putting too much emphasis right now on ethics and AI? Or is this mainly a concern that you keep CTNS uh balanced in terms of all of the projects that CTNS is doing as an organization?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I think it's mostly the latter. I mean, although there is lots of work, data science and religion being done on topics involving artificial intelligence. The primary concern there was making sure that CTNS is not just becoming uh a center for uh for artificial intelligence and ethics. I think that there are lots of interesting organizations that are out there doing great work with AI and faith, which is a nonprofit academics, clergy, Silicon Valley, and industry across the world that are interested in these questions. And so it's been really great being able to connect with people all over the world who are interested in these questions. I think that the field has gone through a lot of changes over time. Part of this comes from what Bob has taught me, and Bob was a very narrative teacher. There were lots of personal stories interwoven into the lessons, the sense of giving you a picture of what was happening in conversations and at conferences while discussing the academic stuff as well, which I think is in a lot of ways great because it shows a collegiality, but it also provides a human context for the field as well. So I think that early on there was this question of how do we define what the boundaries are or how do we establish that dialogue. And Paul always talked about the philosophy as this bridge between theology and science. And it's truly effective, it needs to be a two-way bridge. I think early on it was sort of building the scaffolding and the the basis of that bridge. And then it was expanding the the types of sciences or physical sciences or human sciences that theology was engaging with. And I think that it continues to happen. There's also been, I'd say in the last decade, maybe 15 years, there's also been a recognition that those terms are not monolithic. So some have tried to say, well, sciences and theologies, you need to be very particular about articulating which traditions, which fields you're discussing in particular topics. So with the discussion of theologies and sciences, I think there's been another sense of some people trying to say, well, science-engaged theology. I think there's been some wanting to move the field beyond the traditional language or the ways that urges were done in the past, which I think there's varying degrees of success with that. But I think that the field is still very much pursuing a wide variety of things. I just think that we need to be mindful that artificial intelligence doesn't take over our discussions because we can sort of see how much it's taken over economic interests and the implications that come with that as well.

SPEAKER_03 17:07

Yeah, that's that's that's good. A couple of days ago, I was thinking about our interview, and I think your observation is really spot on there. I was thinking 15 years ago, I needed to put together an adult study series for a church on the intersection between science and and faith. And it was a four-week study, and I basically created it from scratch. I didn't really use anybody else's resources, but I had all of my experience at CTNS that I was drawing from. And so I was thinking about that four four-week series, and and and here's what I did. The first the first session looked at Ian Barber's fourfold typology of how science and religion can intersect with one another or not. And then the second the second session was on evolution and faith. The third session was on Big Bang cosmology and faith. And then the fourth session, I I put this in just because it was a personal interest of mine and I thought it would attract interest. The fourth session concluded with just uh an exploration of astrobiology and and faith and the question of what type of ethical obligations would we owe to non-intelligent, non-sentient microorganisms if we found those organisms somewhere in in the solar system. And that's what I was doing 15 years ago, and the class went really well. But now, if I had to put together a series for a church now, I'd first of all I'd need an extra couple of weeks. But I think two of the real cutting edges right now for me uh are consciousness from neuroscience and then and then these different technologies, not just AI, but CRISPR in genetics, uh, etc. So I do have a sense that the field is moving and that the questions that we're asking now are different from the questions that, at least for me, I began with when I was first started thinking about this field and uh learning from Bob and Ted and everyone else at CTNS. It's just interesting that we've moved beyond evolution, this sort of the critical issue. Then we're thinking about consciousness and the soul and uh and AI and genetics and and everything else that we've we've been discussing.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

With the anniversary of the scopes trial last year, there was a little bit of push to re-engage with Christians about evolution and public education questions. So I teach a course on evolution and theological anthropology. And one of the books I've been using or resources I've been drawing from that are books that Ed Peters and Marty Hewlett have written. Popular audience book being Can Christians Believe in Evolution? And then a more scholarly one that's from Greek into new creation, because they lay out the differences between what we might call creation science, intelligent design, theistic evolution, and the diversity of thought within those different views. But it's it's older now, and so I I was curious why there hasn't been a lot of new engagement with it. And I actually asked him the last year or so. Hey, how come there hasn't been another a new edition of this? And the answer was pretty much I don't want to put words in Tim's mouth, but the idea being that we've sort of come to the conclusion or we've addressed these issues, and it's time to push the conversation forward in other ways, which I can understand, but I do think that we can also revisit some of these topics.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

Yeah, I think for me, we'll just stick with evolution. Evolution and faith or spirituality continue to be an important topic. It's just that in addition to that, we now have some other questions involving consciousness and technologies like uh AI. So I think that's a real healthy sign for the field as a whole that it's uh continuing to grow and expand. And uh it's exciting to just be a part of it. I'd like to pick up on one other thing that you wrote to me in your email as we discussed this interview. You said, I think that the implications of the Anthropocene is a way to think about the current state as well as challenges and opportunities. Questions about the reach of human action in the world and what it means to be human, force us to reflect on a wide range of scientific and technological perspectives and issues. Can you elaborate on what you were thinking of when you wrote that paragraph?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Sure. I think that uh in a lot of ways I'm invited to my my colleague uh Brian Patrick Green, who's a director of technology ethics at the Merculus Center for Applied Ethics at Sandra University. Brian has always drawn upon the work of Jonas on emphasizing the importance of the scope of human action. And as we gain power and our ability to act, that we also need to think about an increase in our accountability and responsibility. And so I think a lot of the questions that arise in today's context touch upon these issues into What can we do? Because we still consider ourselves Homo sapien sapien. The same species that learned to use fire is now the same species that is able to destroy everything on this planet multiple times over through the use of things like nuclear weapons. And so how do we perceive that if that if we're still the same species and yet our capacity impact in the world has changed so drastically, what does that mean? And so I think that a lot of the theological and ethical questions, I think, can be talked about in the world and creation, broadly speaking.

SPEAKER_03 22:28

Brain, do you think we're still the same species? And will we continue to be the same species? I mean, there's some literature out there that's talking about uh space exploration, where the authors have explored the idea that to really be able to put a colony on the planet of Mars, there'll have to be some genetic engineering so that the the people who are on Mars can live and thrive there. And so they've talked about the use of CRISPR as a way to do that genetic in engineering. That's an example of some people talking about how we need to modify ourselves as a species, or at least those who are going to be living on Mars. So do you think we're the same species? And uh are we going to continue to be the same species, or is this a new stage of of evolution?

SPEAKER_00 23:15

Well, I think the the short answer to the questions is yes. No, in the sense of uh I would argue that we are saying species that has existed previously, but I do think we are at a point where that is more likely to change. Like you said, there's the sense of what can we do to make changes that might allow us to exist in different environments, maybe low gravity being a major problem for our physical bodies, having grown up on planet with gravity. And so how do we what do we think about having less gravity or no gravity through significant periods of time? And what can we do to alleviate biological impact of that? But I I think for me, again, drawing from virtue ethics, there's a sense of, well, if action follows being, at some point, has our action changed enough or or is our end significantly different enough than it was previously that we can talk about being a new species. And I think the the conversations around transhumanism have have pushed that question forward in my own thought and my own work, which I'm still very nebulous about articulating well, but it's certainly something that I'm actively uh thinking about, this question of at what point is the Venn diagram two circles, or is there enough lack of overlap that we could talk about a new species? So for me, I think there's questions of the difference between our natural ends and our natural abilities, and a fundamental theological question of is there a distinct supernatural end for most human or you know future species of humans? And I think for me that's uh it's a very important question because you know, if we're gonna look at like maybe what Thomas Aquinas says, that the supernatural end of humanity is the the beatific vision, it's this this communion with God. When I'm not sure that for any being that is social and rational and capable of being a relationship, I'm not sure what other type of supernatural end you could have. So even if we have multiple Homo sapiens something else or something new, that the supernatural end might still be the same. Natural ends may be distinct enough, we're existing in the world in a fundamentally different enough way that we would have to talk about being different species. And so I think that the example you give of if we have genetically modified people to live on somewhere like Mars and we are adapted to those places in a very different way over time, yeah, we could definitely think about being different species. I think for me, the as an ethicist, the pressing question is what happens if we incorporate widespread human mode on this planet? If we have people who have no modifications, if we have people who have been modified, and if we have post-human species all existing together, how does that work?

SPEAKER_03 25:54

Right.

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Do we keep those who want to not opt into these things to still be able to have the freedom for that? Sure. We've got people that are physically larger than us, stronger than us, maybe greater intelligence telling us that you don't know any better. So in some of my work, I've talked about co-existence as being a virtue between species that are able to communicate with one another. Connection is we don't want it to be so uniform that there's only one way that beings are able to interface with one another. Yeah, I think it's a very interesting question. For me, that's sort of the frontier of the work now, right? Especially if we bring in artificial intelligence into that question, that if if we were to have an artificial intelligence that we're able to be self-conscious, we're able to act independently completely, what does that mean for us and our place in the world? What if God chose to give the self-conscious AI the theological virtues? I think that would be capable of doing that, but what would be the purpose of doing that?

SPEAKER_03 26:55

Let's talk a little bit about this distinction you've drawn in some of your of your published work between acquired virtue versus infused virtue. And let's talk about what the implications of that are for AI.

SPEAKER_00 27:11

So through the the John Templeton Foundation grant, virtuous AI that we shortened to VAI, affectionately, and just to be in short, there was lots of discussion about the nature of virtue and whether or not AI could have virtue. And lots of scholars took the argument that AI currently does not have the capacities that would be required in order to have virtue. So if that's the case, the question is a non-starter that there can't be any account of virtue that can have. But other folks have have made the question of saying, well, but AI is created by humans and is used for human means. And so can we talk about virtue by proxy? Could we look to the people that created this technology? What were their intentions and how were things designed? You know, Aristotle has a famous example about a knife, and that the knife that cuts well can be seen as a virtuous knife because it's fulfilling its purpose, even though the knife doesn't intentionally itself. Right. And so I think people tried to make that comparison with artificial intelligence. So for me, what came out of that conversation was this notion of infused virtue. But infused virtue typically is only seen in the realm of the theological virtues that through grace gives humans faith, hope, and love.

SPEAKER_03 28:33

The three theological virtues, faith, hope, and love.

SPEAKER_00 28:37

And then some scholars, there's a then debate, some scholars say that doctrine actually infuse humans with moral virtues as well. The way I like to describe it is if you see a child trapped under a car, then a mother is able to summon the strength that she wouldn't normally have to be able to lift the car up enough to save her child. And so in instances like that, you can have assistance to act in ways that you might not normally have been able to act in terms of making just choices or acting courageously. And again, there's debate in the scholarship as to what extent or how this happens, but I I would take the side of that I think that this is at least possible. And so I began wondering can we apply that conversation to the relationship between humanity and technology? And so essentially, are there ways in which we could talk about humans infusing AI, which is not capable of having virtue, with some type of virtue? And is it possible that technology could infuse humans with some type of virtue? And I don't think that it holds for every Jew, but my current research is looking at a couple of examples. One example of humans to AI is actually looking at it from the opposite end, not virtue, but vice, and saying that currently we are infusing large language models with the vice of flattery. So the term that we are using is sycophantic, in the sense of you ask for advice or you you give your large language model an idea, and it's the best idea that has ever been presented, and it's you're so smart for it. And the the problem is that they're supporting or giving supportive answers about 48% more often than people do. And that has consequences for engagement with large language models, but also how people think, and so I don't want to get too into the weeds here, but for example, they looked at how people felt about responses that were given by sycophanti AI. People found those answers to be of higher quality, more reliable, and they were more willing to engage with a sycophantic model in the future for similar questions. And it turns out that people were also more likely to think that they were right after getting those responses, and they were less likely to engage in personal repair and relationships, things like apologizing or monitoring of behavior. You know, while AI is not intentionally doing this to us, but the way that we've trained AI to respond to human prompts is excess of what Aristotle would call virtue of friendliness. And it's not if that excess of virtuous vice then is meant to gain some type of advantage, so that's just engagement or purchasing or directing us towards certain perspectives, then yes, that is, you know, that is a vice. It's a flattery. So not only are we infusing AI with this vice, but we're also dealing with the consequences of sycophantic AI provides to us and how we respond to that. And then if we look at how technology might infuse us with virtue, two things I've looked at are the virtues of patience and temperance. So the idea being that if we're able to get some type of biofeedback, our emotional state, and we recognize that we're we're angry or that something's happening, and we're able to then uh reflect on that intentionally and choose to act despite or taking into account those things, that we might be able to to help ourselves make better decisions in terms of being patient, doctor's waiting room, or in traffic, or you know, lots of examples like that. The idea being that it's infused because it isn't actually making a fundamental difference for us in the long term. So this is a distinction that came up for me in in gene editing that uh I talked about the special issue that Ted Peters had in theology and science. My own work there was to say we can't engineer virtue, but we can we can enhance our ability to act morally. But because a virtue is a mean between an excess and a deficiency and is a stable disposition of character, I titled my piece Raising the Virtuous Bar, because making us have greater capacity to be moral doesn't make us more virtuous, it actually raises the bar in what was considered virtue. And so I think that uh what I'm seeing, or what I think is happening with technology is that this infused virtue allows us to to act in ways to help us acquire virtue. Let me explain that within the the second example. So temperance, something that's received a lot of attention and funding has been uh GOP1 medications and this idea of uh reducing food noise.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

So my argument is that this could be this would be like I think uh in something you were writing, I I read uh use uh Ozempic as an example of this type of infused spiritual, we govy, something that's pharmaceutical right now, and this sense of helps suppress appetite, it reduces food noise, that people are less focused on what the next meal is going to be.

SPEAKER_00 33:41

Uh, there's there's less of a sense of hunger throughout the day. And this then can allow people to hopefully make better decisions about eating habits, portion size, things like that. But the idea being that is it is assisting us in our own changing of our behavior, that it it frees up mental load to be able to think about and deliberate about these choices in a way that can then allow you to create long uh seemed limits. So, one reason why I might say that this is infused is that the studies are showing that if people stop taking medications, that the food noise linger returns and that weight is regained without having significant light changes or dietary changes being made. So the idea being that it can help us, it can be an infused form of virtue that can then allow us to acquire more temperance on our own, but it doesn't necessarily re stable disposition itself. And GLB1 medications are also having the influence on reducing other types of impulsive behavior. So people have talked about reductions in desire to drink or reductions in gambling. So it seems that it isn't just food, but it can be a number of impulsive things that applied to what we might consider the virtue of temperance to be.

SPEAKER_03 34:54

Let's talk talk for a few minutes about the AAAS grant that you got. And that's uh American Association for the Advancement of Science. If you could tell our listeners about the AAAS grant and uh how uh that related to the intersection of technology and environmental issues.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

So, in in her first conference that we had as part of the Templeton grant, I was really struck by a paper that Maureen Erzfeld, who's a computer scientist who also did her PhD at the Graduate Theological Union, a longtime friend of the center, that she really wrote about the environmental impact of AI and data centers. So electricity, water, very concrete. And it really had me thinking that that's not something that has been brought into the conversation enough. And it really struck me as something that I think needed more attention. And I was really happy and glad that she was able to sort of push that part of the conversation forward. And that's when I learned about uh the AAAS grant that was being done by Dozer, which is the program within AAAS that's the dialogue on science, ethics, and religion. And they had a grant project on climate science in theological education. And they had finished up their first cohort of theological schools, and they were looking to do a second round. So I reached out to them and I said, Well, we're currently working on this project about AI and virtue. And I think that there's some really good synergy here with this sense of okay, well, it's not just the technology, but it's also the technology's impact on the wider world, including the natural world. So it isn't it isn't necessarily climate science in and of itself, but is this something that could be could be explored in the grant? And they they said that yes, it's absolutely at that intersection of uh climate science, uh, environmental concern, and theological education. So the grant was really to try and bring in these types of insights into the classrooms and communities of these theological schools. So what we tried to do was try to incorporate aspects of this conversation into courses, uh, teach a master's level course on ethics and technology. So I had when I taught it in 2025, I had three weeks out of the term devoted to these topics, while two of those weeks were about just sort of technology and the environment in general. So anything from the devices that we have in our pockets and the the where earth elements that are part of those and the injustices that come up environmentally and economically in terms of things like mining cobalt to the carbon footprint of the internet and cloud storage and things like that. Last month we actually just wrapped up the grant with an event that we had with co-sponsored with New College Berkeley, which is a G2 affiliate that is often focused on engaging Christian audiences in the Bay Area to theological topics, academic topics. And we looked at uh it was called AI and Creation Care, Friends, Foe, or Future. So the the goal was really to try and raise additional awareness about these topics. And I was very thankful for the grant because I think that since we started it, the topic has received a lot of attention in terms of public interest with the rapid expansion of the data centers and all the issues that are coming with that, that I feel like it it is now receiving significantly more attention than it had previously.

SPEAKER_03 38:29

Let me ask you in your capacity as the CTNS director, I think it's a special role in it. Maybe gives you the ability to take a bird's eye view that is a broad overview of science and and faith and and the dialogue. What do you see and think about in terms of the current state of the science and spirituality or science and faith dialogue?

SPEAKER_00 38:54

No, one thing I really appreciate about the director, it's not just teaching or it's not just research. And that I get to talk with people all over the world who are doing really interesting things. I get to hear what other organizations are doing. We get a glimpse into scholarship through our journal, Theology and Science. We can look at the types of submissions we're getting, lots of opportunities that I wouldn't have without CTNS. But that being said, I think that a lot of the things we've started to discuss are a part of that. Questions about our place in the world, how much power and the scope of change that we can exhibit in the world, and what does that say about creation? What does that say about our future as a species? What does that say about God are important questions. You touched upon neuroscience, but I think that given the questions that are being raised by reflection on artificial intelligence, this idea of how do we define intelligence, how do we define agency, how do we define consciousness, those are philosophical and theological questions that transcend just the conversation about AI itself. So I think that we're continuing to delve deeper into the sense of what does it mean to be human and how do we define relationship? Yeah, I think the interconnectedness of the world in terms of ecological issues, I see being brought more into the conversation than maybe traditional discussions of cosmology or evolution had on their own. I think that helps because out of the out of the evolution discussion, there was the question about the unic. Well, if we take evolution seriously, how do we make sense of all the suffering, pain, and death that exists in Greenland? And I think that those compensations naturally flow into this lucration of systems and ecosystems and the wider planet and other species. I think that those are going to continue to be a lot of important questions. That's what I'm looking forward.

SPEAKER_03 40:53

Thank you. I would like to thank Dr. Braden Molhu, Director of the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences, for appearing on this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious. Braden, it was an honor and a privilege to have you as our guest, and I wish you continued success as the director of CTNS. Again, let me provide for my listeners the web addresses for GTU and CTNS. Their respective web addresses are https colon forward slash forward slash www.gtu.edu and https colon forward slash forward slash www.ctns.org. Also a reminder that CTNS publishes a peer-reviewed academic journal called Theology and Science. For more information about their journal, click on their publications tab. Thanks for listening to this episode of Science and Spirituality for the Curious, the podcast series of the Science and Spirituality Institute. To find out more about SSI, check out our website at www.scienceandspirituality.org. I hope that this episode has stimulated your thinking and perhaps raised some new and interesting questions to think about further. Please send your comments, questions, and suggestions to me using the comment link. Also, I really want to hear what subjects you'd be interested in for future episodes. If you have a suggestion for a future podcast topic, please put that in the comment link as well. Please share this podcast with people who would be interested in the science and spirituality interface. You can significantly help grow our audience by simply sharing this podcast through your network of friends and acquaintances. Thanks again for listening. This is Richard Randolph, the founder and director of SSI, and your host for this podcast. So long for now, and let's continue to explore the interface between science and spirituality together.