The chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom has told Premier that artificial intelligence (AI) is being used as a tool to persecute people for their faith.
Professor Stephen Schneck was speaking ahead of the International Ministerial Conference on Freedom of Religion or Belief which is being held in Berlin this week.
The conference which is held annually in different global cities, is focused this year on how AI is being used by authoritarian regimes to monitor and repress Christians and those of other faiths. Professor Schneck told Premier:
“Some of these new technologies used by countries like Iran and China, create brand new ways for the repression of religion or the control of religion around the world. So it's a very concerning development, and something that we want to keep an eye on.
“In China facial recognition techniques allow the Chinese Communist Party to monitor those who attend religious ceremonies, and so it enables them to track them and to repress them at a level that wasn't available to them before. And similar technologies are available around the world.
“It's truly Orwellian, and it is I fear, the shape of the world to come. So now is the time for us to begin developing mechanisms to respond to it within the faith communities around the world.”
The conference comes as the number of believers being persecuted for their faith around the world continues to rise. The anti-persecution charity Open Doors says in 2023 more than 365 million were suffering for their faith, that’s one in seven Christians worldwide. Professor Schneck added:
“It's a tremendous concern, and something the commission follows closely. Around the world, persecution of religion is spiking for a variety of reasons, for the most part because of rising authoritarianism and maybe a bit of erosion in democracy.
“The truth is that authoritarian governments don't want their citizens to have appeal to any source of right or truth or authority outside the state or outside the party. And so religion, fundamentally, is an inherent challenge to authoritarian regimes.”