AI Agents Will Proliferate Religious Sects Rather Than Create New Religions
Tyler Cowen · Tyler Cowen Doesn't Think America Should Ban Chinese AI Models · Jul 20, 2026 · at 20:29
Economist Tyler Cowen discusses the long-term cultural impacts of AI when asked whether AI models will spawn new religious movements.
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“I think it'll be more like sects than new religions. So you could write your own version of Hindu sacred books or your own version of Shiite Islam with your own, you know, slate of who the true Imams are or should be. And we're just going to see proliferation. Like for a while in history, we had a proliferation of different versions of the LDS church, different kinds of Mormons. A lot, some are still around. And using an agent, you'll be able to whip up your own religion, I don't know, in less than a day, with rituals, sacred books, practices. Most won't catch on, but if you will, they'll have a few hundred, a few thousand adherents. That may sound trivial, but if, you know, half of one percent of the population does this, and some of these get some number of adherents, over time, the whole religious landscape looks quite different. I think it will be more diverse, And feel weirder, and be less centralized in religious authorities.”
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