Panel: RELIGION AND SPIRITUALITY ON THE FRONTIER OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES



31_2.6 - THE SYNTHETIC SACRED: AI, DEVOTION, AND THE CULTURAL INFRASTRUCTURES OF BELIEF

AUTHORS:
Vasudeva F. (University of Helsinki ~ Helsinki ~ Finland)
Text:
This research proposes the concept of the Synthetic Sacred to highlight an emerging configuration in which generative artificial intelligence becomes entangled with the mediation of religious life in contemporary India. Rather than approaching AI as a technological disruption external to religion, the analysis situates generative systems within longer histories of religious mediation, where sacred presence has always been produced through material, visual, and infrastructural arrangements. What is distinctive about the present moment is the increasing role of computational systems in generating, recombining, and circulating devotional forms that function as religiously effective media. Drawing on a diagnostic corpus of publicly circulating materials, the paper maps three interlocking operations through which the Synthetic Sacred becomes analytically visible. First, synthetic mediation of presence, in which sacred appearance becomes generatively reproducible and iteratively variable while remaining anchored in recognisable iconographic conventions. Second, synthetic circulation and creative labour, where devotional media production is reorganised through generative workflows and platform dynamics of repetition, engagement, and algorithmic visibility. Third, infrastructuralisation of devotion, as religious access, authority, and practice become embedded within computational systems ranging from institutional interfaces to commercial devotional applications. Taken together, these developments suggest a shift from the reproduction of sacred objects to the generation of sacred outputs within platformised media environments. The Synthetic Sacred, therefore, offers a conceptual framework for understanding how mediation, authority, and religious imagination are being reconfigured as devotional life becomes increasingly entangled with computational infrastructures.