Silicon Valley Wants to Give AI a Soul. How About Starting With an Audit?

Opinion · October 25, 2026

Silicon Valley has found another thing it would like to turn into a feature: moral wisdom. After selling us systems that can imitate a person, the next pitch seems to be that a selection of humanity’s spiritual traditions might help the product behave. Before anyone puts a halo on the chatbot, we have questions.

The consultation is real

AP reported October 25 that AI companies are seeking input from philosophers and religious leaders. Scholars warned that extracting an assortment of ethical rules can flatten traditions shaped by ritual, doctrine, culture and relationships. The report describes consultation, not evidence that a machine has acquired faith or a soul.

Listening to religious thinkers is not the problem. Pretending consultation settles a product’s moral status would be. A company can invite an impressive panel and still make lousy choices about design, incentives and disclosure.

Whose morality gets the microphone?

Any attempt to combine moral viewpoints makes choices about whose views matter and which disagreements disappear. That is an exercise of power. It should be visible to users, especially when a product speaks with the smooth confidence of a person who has never once had to defend the answer at a family dinner.

There is no neutral blender setting that makes incompatible beliefs compatible. Nor should a business be able to borrow the prestige of a faith community while quietly retaining every consequential decision about the product. A listening session is not a transfer of accountability.

The halo does not replace the paperwork

Ask companies how they test harmful behavior, correct failures, handle personal information and disclose limitations. Ask who can challenge their decisions. Those questions remain necessary even if every adviser leaves the meeting impressed.

People are entitled to their spiritual lives, including the freedom to distrust a corporate version of them. Companies are entitled to seek thoughtful advice. What they are not entitled to is automatic moral authority because they have added theology to the advisory-board slide. Less synthetic sainthood. More answers about how the thing actually behaves.

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