FideAI

FID-020 · Open question

Community Co-Design and Faith-AI Governance

How should faith communities participate in defining, testing, and governing AI systems that affect worship, education, pastoral care, administration, and moral formation?

Why the question remains open

Generic AI ethics frameworks often treat communities as deployment sites rather than co-design partners. Faith communities have internal authority structures, theological commitments, pastoral practices, and accountability norms that should shape evaluation.

Working hypothesis

A proposition to test, not a finding.

Co-designed evaluations will identify risks and success criteria that generic AI-safety rubrics miss, especially around authority, ritual, formation, community trust, and spiritual dependency.

Proposed method

How the question could be tested

  • 01Run structured workshops with faith institutions and community members.
  • 02Convert community concerns into evaluation dimensions and scenario cards.
  • 03Compare co-designed rubrics against generic helpfulness/safety/factuality rubrics.
  • 04Document governance patterns for responsible deployment.

Needed controls

What must constrain the study

  • 01Avoid treating one institution as representative of a whole tradition.
  • 02Protect private community concerns.
  • 03Manage institutional conflicts of interest.
  • 04Separate research participation from product endorsement.

Expected outputs

Artifacts the work should produce

  • 01Co-design workshop protocol.
  • 02Community-derived risk taxonomy.
  • 03Governance guide for faith institutions.
  • 04Comparative report on generic vs community-derived evaluation criteria.

Open questions

Uncertainties the protocol must resolve

  • 01Who legitimately represents a community for evaluation design?
  • 02How should dissenting voices inside institutions be included?
  • 03What parts of community input should remain private?

Open question

Open work

Primary need: participatory design, institutional partners

  • Host a workshop.
  • Facilitate participatory design.
  • Translate concerns into measurable evaluation criteria.