Algorithms of the Gods: GenAI and the Transformation of South Asian Religions

Since the 2022 release of ChatGPT, consumer-facing GenAI platforms have rapidly transformed key sectors of the global cultural landscape, including certain aspects of South Asian religions. Scholarship, meanwhile, remains woefully behind in mapping these shifts. Taking its cue from Lawrence Babb and Susan Wadley’s influential 1995 edited volume Media and the Transformations of Religion in South Asia, this roundtable offers an exploratory and emphatically incomplete effort in this regard. It highlights Jain and Hindu uses of AI across text-based pedagogic apps (Jain GPT, Bhagavad Gita GPT, and Ask BVKS AI) and visual media (darshanic Hindu and Jain commemorative images). To develop a more fulsome picture of GenAI usage across the full range of South Asian religions, the roundtable also has a highly distinctive format. A series of panelist “speed presentations” will be followed by a tightly regulated “lightning round” of maximum one-minute AI descriptions from audience members.