Constructing an AI Moral Agent

AI systems currently act autonomously with ethical implications, and agentic AI is exploding in deployed applications. However, religious arguments based on deeply held beliefs about the human person often dismiss the possibility that AI can act with the experience and agency it appears to already have. Theological and philosophical clarity is needed between human characteristics and the appearance of those characteristics occurring in AI, but so are religious scholars providing wise guidance in developing AI moral awareness and agency. By demonstrating how to construct an AI moral agent, I demonstrate the value of science-engaged theological anthropology and how a more complete understanding of AI can incorporate deeper moral insights into guiding AI development. Developmental psychology can guide plausible understandings of AI moral development, and an AI moral agent can use awareness of human suffering to motivate a virtuous response, which with its stable dispositions, can make it a moral agent.