Seoul scholars weigh religion's role as AI ethics debate goes global

April 27 (UPI) -- In South Korea, questions about artificial intelligence are increasingly being debated not only in technology circles but in the country's centuries-old religious and humanistic traditions. That conversation was on full display Friday, when a group of scholars gathered in Seoul to ask what those traditions have to say about an age defined by machines.

The K-Religious Humanities Institute held a book talk at Culture Space On in Seoul's Jongno district to discuss "Religion and Humanity," a volume exploring human identity in an age shaped by AI, hybrid culture and religious pluralism.

The forum comes at a moment when the ethics of artificial intelligence is drawing attention far beyond the technology industry. Last month, Anthropic - the AI company behind the chatbot Claude - hosted a two-day meeting at its San Francisco headquarters with about15 Christian leaders from Catholic and Protestant churches to discuss how Claude should handle complex ethical situations, including interactions with users experiencing grief or at risk of self-harm. The Washington Post, which reported the meeting, said some attendees arrived skeptical but left convinced the company's interest was genuine.

The Seoul scholars approached the same questions from a different vantage point - not from inside a technology company, but from within Korea's own religious and philosophical traditions.

Lee Myung-kwon, a comparative religion scholar and Eastern philosopher, opened the event by saying that in the age of artificial intelligence, humans can no longer define themselves solely by their abilities. He then moderated the discussion.

The main presentations were delivered by Shim Kwang-sup - a former professor at Methodist Theological University with a doctorate in theology from Bethel Theological University in Germany and a current researcher of Cheondogyo, a Korean indigenous religion founded in the 19th century that teaches "the divine is within every person."- and Shim Jung-sik, head of the Guiil Research Institute, a center that studies a philosophy of unity grounded in Christian spirituality, and a scholar of the "I Ching," or "Book of Changes."

Shim Kwang-sup examined the historical relationship between Korea's indigenous Donghak tradition and Christianity, tracing parallels between Su-un Choe Je-u - the founder of Donghak, executed by Joseon authorities in 1864 - and Jesus Christ. He argued that the two figures' lives are best understood through "resonance" rather than comparison alone. Donghak was the original movement, and Cheondogyo is its later, formal religious form. According to Shim Kwang-sup, Cheondogyo had over 150,000 followers by the 1890s and grew further under Japanese rule.

"Comparison is often an intellectual exercise, but resonance is something that echoes in the heart," he said. "Though they lived in different times and cultures, their lives and deaths carry a profound spiritual resonance."

He also described Korea's March 1 Independence Movement of 1919 - in which mass nonviolent protests against Japanese colonial rule swept the peninsula - as a rare instance of interreligious national solidarity, drawing together Cheondogyo, Christianity and Buddhism.

"Independence was not judged only by its likelihood of success," he said. "It was a moral decision to restore national dignity and justice."

Shim Jung-sik focused on the implications of artificial intelligence for religion and humanity. Drawing on the I Ching's framework for understanding change - through symbols and interpretation rather than fixed rules - he argued that technology belongs to the realm of technique: a method, not an ultimate authority.

"AI is a technology created by human beings," he said. "It must remain a tool that helps people, not something that rules over them."

He warned that the greater danger is not that AI will dominate humans on its own, but that people may come to treat technology as worthy of worship.

"If AI is treated like a god, it can become a modern Tower of Babel and an idol," he said.

Shim Jung-sik argued that Buddhism, Confucianism and Christianity share a common aim despite their differences: the transformation of human beings toward greater wisdom and love. He proposed that in the AI age, religions should cooperate on building global ethics, addressing climate change, protecting vulnerable groups and monitoring AI technologies.

He also expressed concern about religion being used to justify conflict. "Human beings do not exist for religion. Religion exists for human beings," he said. "When religion treats others only as adversaries, it departs from its core teachings of love and sacrifice."

The concerns raised in Seoul echo a pattern emerging in the United States, where families have filed lawsuits against AI companies including Character.AI and OpenAI, alleging that prolonged and emotionally intense interactions with chatbots contributed to mental health crises and, in some cases, suicide. Both companies have said they are strengthening safeguards for vulnerable users.

At the same time, the rise in single-person households in countries including South Korea has intensified debate over growing reliance on AI for emotional interaction and companionship- a trend that lends the Seoul scholars' warnings particular local urgency.

Participants said religion must move beyond division to help restore human dignity, peace and ecological coexistence. The discussion concluded with a call for religion to neither reject technology nor worship it, but to guide its use in service of human flourishing- a challenge, speakers said, as urgent now as it was in Korea's colonial era a century ago.

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This story was originally published April 27, 2026 at 6:08 PM.