Generative AI Alignment with Hinduism's Theological Plurality and Sacred Representation

2026-08-28

AI Summary

本文探讨了印度教徒如何与生成式AI系统互动，通过15次半结构化访谈分析用户对AI生成的宗教内容的解读，提出AI需保持解释的多元性并避免模拟神圣权威。

Abstract

Generative AI systems are increasingly used to answer personal questions and mediate everyday practices, including religion. However, existing discussions around AI alignment and ethics have largely centered secular, Western, and Abrahamic assumptions about religion, offering limited attention to other faith-based traditions. In this paper, we examine how Hindu users engage with generative AI systems in relation to their religious knowledge, belief, and practice. Drawing on 15 semi-structured interviews with Bangladeshi Hindu participants, we analyze how users interpret AI-generated religious representations, scriptural explanations, devotional interactions, and synthetic religious media. We found that AI can be both accessible and ethically troubling. While AI supported scriptural inquiry, devotional visualization, and religious storytelling, our study also identified concerns about theological flattening, cultural misrepresentation, devotional manipulation, and the simulation of sacred presence and authority. We conclude by arguing that religious alignment in generative AI requires interpretive alignment: systems that disclose their limits, preserve plurality, and avoid simulating sacred authority and sycophantic personalization.

Problem

• Generative AI
• Hinduism
• Theological Plurality
• Sacred Representation
• Religious Alignment

Innovation

• Generative AI
• Hinduism
• Theological Plurality
• Sacred Representation
• Interpretive Alignment