I was speaking on Generative AI to a large number of curious students and their slightly worried teachers at one of the most prestigious schools in the country last month. My host there, a very learned gentleman, asked me a question that set me thinking: "In this world fraught with divisions along religious and ideological lines, can Al help us create a new kind of religion or faith which every other faith could embrace and believe in?" It is a lofty goal for any intelligence, artificial or not, but then isn't AI supposed to solve problems that human beings seem to have given up on-like global warming, world hunger, and the divisions of faith?
There have been many other attempts. Deen-e-illahi, or 'the Religion of God,' was proposed as a new syncretic religion or spiritual programme by Mughal Emperor Akbar in 1582. The Bahá'ís tried to integrate elements from Islam, Christianity and other religions. There was Unitarian Universalism, which embraced theological diversity (GPT4 amusingly described this as the blockchain of religions-decentralized and open-source, but not universally accepted). So was Theosophy, and even Sikhism the Holy Granth has elements of Hinduism, Islam and the dohas of Kabir.
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