ERLC's Evangelical Statement of Principles

ERLC’s Evangelical Statement of Principles

(link)

This is an article from the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC). Quoting from Wikipedia, “The Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission is the public policy arm of the Southern Baptist Convention, the largest non-Catholic Christian denomination in the United States, with over 16 million members in over 43,000 independent churches.” There are some interesting observations to be made here due to the unusual context and interplay of religion and technology. I must note here that I am not here to promote any religious views in any manner and the inclusion of this article is for purely the sake of intellectual comparison to other reports from other sectors.

Despite the unusual origin of this article, there are common concerns and recommendations regarding AI technology, including Article 5: Bias, Article 8: Data & Privacy, Article 9: Security, Article 10: War and Article 11: Public Policy. However, these are often argued from a religious perspective, based on Christian concepts of God, sanctity of life and human dignity. In a sense, similar ends are achieved via quite different means. It is also interesting to note that every article is grounded in verses from the Christian Bible.

But there are several significant differences as well, presumably stemming from the nature of religion and Christianity.

On Inclusivity

AI should be designed and used in such ways that treat all human beings as having equal worth and dignity.

There is no explicit mention of inclusivity and diversity other than the above sentence in Article 5, unlike most other guidelines that explicitly consider diversity along racial, religious, ethnicity, sexual and nationality lines. It would be interesting to compare this against other religious organizations that release statements or guidelines on AI usage.

On Sexuality

We deny that the pursuit of sexual pleasure is a justification for the development or use of AI […]

Article 6 is rather unique in this article, since other guidelines do not explicitly mention, much less oppose, the use of AI for sexual gratification. Although the Montréal Declaration’s 4th Principle of Solidarity does refer to the prohibition of cruel treatment of robots that resemble humans or non-human animals.

On AI Rights

[…] nor should technology be assigned a level of human identity, worth, dignity, or moral agency.

We deny that AI will make us more or less human, or that AI will ever obtain a coequal level of worth, dignity, or value to image-bearers.

While some reports that take a long-term view propose the possibility of AI rights and consciousness, the article here explicitly denies such concepts.

On Privacy

We affirm that privacy and personal property are intertwined individual rights and choices that should not be violated by governments, corporations, nation-states, and other groups, even in the pursuit of the common good.

We further deny that consent, even informed consent, although requisite, is the only necessary ethical standard for the collection, manipulation, or exploitation of personal data […]

In this article, the authors appear to propose an even stricter definition of privacy, than what is present in other guidelines. In particular, this may be attributed to the frequent references to the concept of “dignity”.