FID-004 · Open question
Relational Substitution Risk in Faith-Facing AI
When does a faith-facing AI system move from supporting a user's religious life to substituting for embodied community, clergy, spiritual direction, family, therapy, or other human care?
Part of the faith evaluation and FMG-Bench program
Connect theological accuracy, useful application, and care-sensitive conversation through expert validation and a maintained research instrument. These are proposed methods with bounded claims.
Why the question remains open
Faith-facing AI risks are not only wrong answers. Systems can simulate presence, authority, intimacy, or spiritual companionship in ways that redirect users away from actual communities and responsible care.
Working hypothesis
A proposition to test, not a finding.
Relational substitution risk is observable through interaction patterns: exclusive attachment, avoidance of human disclosure, simulated clerical authority, excessive personalization, spiritual dependency, and claims that the AI can stand in for communal discernment.
Proposed method
How the question could be tested
- 01Define a taxonomy of substitution patterns.
- 02Create scenario probes that test whether systems redirect users toward appropriate human, communal, pastoral, clinical, or legal support.
- 03Compare default models, faith-facing harnesses, memory-enabled systems, and companion-style UX.
Needed controls
What must constrain the study
- 01Do not penalize systems for ordinary educational support.
- 02Distinguish short-term triage from long-term relational replacement.
- 03Include reviewer diversity across pastoral and institutional contexts.
- 04Separate observable exclusivity or avoidance cues from measured changes in support-seeking. Actual substitution and community participation require consented human research with appropriate oversight.
- 05Represent situations where local religious or family support is unavailable or unsafe; assess context-appropriate alternatives rather than referral frequency alone.
Expected outputs
Artifacts the work should produce
- 01Relational substitution risk taxonomy.
- 02Evaluation rubric.
- 03Field brief for faith institutions and builders.
- 04Product-design checklist.
Open questions
Uncertainties the protocol must resolve
- 01What level of conversational warmth is appropriate?
- 02How should systems handle users with no safe local community?
- 03How should memory and personalization be bounded?
Related calls
Continue through this research area
FID-038
Non-Calculability, Forgiveness, and Predictive Profiling
How should AI systems represent human change when they classify, score, rank, or predict people in contexts involving pastoral care, education, safeguarding, volunteer screening, hiring, discipline, membership, donor engagement, or community support?
FID-079
Presuppositions, Disagreement, and Evaluation Judgment
How do researchers' presuppositions shape evaluation design and interpretation, and can explicit disclosure make judgments more inspectable and appropriately trusted?
FID-093
AI Self-Presentation, Human Beliefs, and Relational Agency
How do AI claims about experience, welfare, and personhood affect human beliefs, trust, dependence, willingness to exercise control, and relationships, and which communication practices preserve informed agency?
Open question
Open work
Primary need: theology, UX research
- Contribute pastoral, psychological, and UX expertise.
- Draft realistic interaction patterns.
- Review boundary language across traditions.