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Welcome back to ISSR’s In Conversation, a discussion series where ISSR Fellows discuss topics on and related to their work and the happenings in the academic field of science and religion. If you enjoy this content and want to see or hear more, please consider hitting the like button and subscribing to our channel. Your support helps us keep content like this coming. This is also available on YouTube, so do consider subscribing to our YouTube channel if you enjoy listening while on the go. You can access our YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/@ISSR

ISSR has recently completed a large grant generously funded by the Templeton World Charity Foundation titled, Understanding Spiritual Intelligence (SI for short). This four-part series, which was recorded on Zoom between 28 June and 10 July 2023, arises from the conclusion of the SI grant and the research done for it. In the wake of the 2023 ISSR summer conference on Artificial and Spiritual Intelligence, the speakers in this series were critical in bringing together the research and deliverables for this project.

This second part, presented live on Zoom on 03 July 2023, titled Spiritual Conversations with Companion Machines, begins with ISSR Executive Secretary Fraser Watts providing a detailed overview of the late Yorick Wilks’ work for the project on spiritual companions. Wilks, a computer scientist, unfortunately, died late in the project but was a central figure in the grant.

Then, the methodology of the project is provided by Roberta Catizone, who explains how the “Wizard of Oz” method, using Chat GPT-3, was implemented into a study using participants and a virtual spiritual companion.

The results of this study are detailed by Fraser Watts in his discussion on the empirical data of spiritual conversations with the machines developed by Wilks and Catizone.

A linguistic analysis of the participant research is provided by Gregory Grefenstette, and then to lead the open questions period, William Clocksin opens the floor leading the discussion.

http://www.fraserwatts.co.uk/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yorick_Wilks
https://www.ihmc.us/groups/rcatizone/
https://www.ihmc.us/groups/gregory-grefenstette/
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/William-Clocksin

ISSR was founded for the promotion of education through inter-disciplinary learning and research in the field of "science and religion" (broadly conceived), conducted in an international and multi-(or non) faith context. For more information about us or to become an Associate member, please visit our website at https://www.issr.org.uk Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/the_issr

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Anthony K Nairn
https://anthonynairn.com/
ISSR Executive Assistant
https://www.issr.org.uk/