The Faculty of Theology and Religion at the University of Oxford is pleased to announce a research project funded by a grant from Scholar Leaders, the BiblioTech AI Research Initiative (BAIRI). The aim of the project is to support novel approaches for Majority World theological institutions, by developing AI-based solutions to long-standing issues of epistemic inequity and inaccessibility in relation to theological resources.
The key research question the project aims to answer is: how can Artificial Intelligence techniques be developed and deployed to transcend Western epistemological dominance in theological research and education and facilitate a genuinely polycentric, postcolonial theological discourse? This research work will help identify techniques and develop tools which draw on recent AI progress in human languages to make Majority World scholarship more visible and accessible, and to provide increased access to existing resources in Majority World theological institutions.
The BAIRI project is part of a wider research agenda for the Ian Ramsey Centre which reorients Science & Religion towards an interaction between scientific disciplines and theology. This reorientation paysattention to concerns arising in the Majority World (notably AI, health, and environment), and aims to include contributions from theology to scientific research and to integrate insights from science into theology.
Dr Lyndon Drake, Research Fellow in AI at the Faculty of Theology and Religion said:
"I am very grateful for the opportunity this grant provides for me to bring my long-standing research interest in postcolonial theology and background in AI science together. My hope is that the development of new theologically-precise translation and search techniques can together contribute to the algorithmic decolonisation of theology."
The President of Scholar Leaders, Christopher M. Hays (DPhil, Oxon 2010), said:
"Christian leaders in the Majority World often confront far more dire challenges than their Western counterparts — war, displacement, inter-religious conflict, extreme poverty —with far fewer resources. The BiblioTech project reduces this resource gap by lowering linguistic and access barriers, while platforming theologians from beyond the West. It's an idea whose time has come, so Scholar Leaders is thrilled to collaborate with Dr. Lyndon Drake to leverage advances in artificial intelligence in order to serve under-resourced communities and amplify marginalized theological voices."
