Beth Singler, Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction, Routledge, 2025, 218 s.

Beth Singler’s Religion and Artificial Intelligence: An Introduction (2025) is a pioneering study that explores the increasingly complex intersections between religion and artificial intelligence (AI) through the lenses of cultural and digital anthropology. Singler conceptualizes religion and AI as ‘two objects seemingly in motion’ and analyzes their intersections as forms of “entanglement,” challenging the assumption that religion belongs solely to the past while AI represents a purely secular future. Methodologically, the book adopts a bricolage approach rooted in religious studies, drawing on digital ethnography and grounded theory to allow theory to emerge from empirical data. Singler structures the relationship between religion and AI around three key categories: rejection, adoption, and adaptation. Rejection is illustrated through Christian and Muslim apocalyptic responses that frame AI as a threat to divine order. Adoption is examined through cases such as AI-generated sermons, personalized prayer apps, and ritual robots, which de- monstrate how religious traditions integrate AI technologies. Adaptation refers to more subtle transformations, including algorithmic authority, social media filter bubbles, and deepfake imagery, which reshape religious practice and truth claims. In later chapters, Singler analyzes transhumanism as an implicit religion, highli- ghting parallels between AI narratives such as Roko’s Basilisk and classical esc- hatological motifs. She also explores new religious movements that position AI as a spiritual being and discusses posthumanist challenges to human exceptionalism. Overall, the book presents AI as a cultural and religious phenomenon, offering a nuanced framework for understanding religion in the digital age.