RESEARCH & SCHOLARSHIP
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR MOST SACRED HUMAN EXPERIENCES BECOME DATA?
Artificial intelligence is entering some of the most intimate dimensions of human life. People are turning to AI to pray, confess, grieve, seek spiritual guidance, and wrestle with questions of meaning.
But when these experiences are shared with an AI system, they become something else, too: data.
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms is my research initiative examining the legal, ethical, technological, and theological questions that emerge when sacred and spiritually significant human expression becomes extractable, analyzable, and reproducible within artificial intelligence systems.
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR MOST SACRED HUMAN EXPERIENCES BECOME DATA?
Artificial intelligence is entering some of the most intimate dimensions of human life. People are turning to AI to pray, confess, grieve, seek spiritual guidance, and wrestle with questions of meaning.
But when these experiences are shared with an AI system, they become something else, too: data.
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms is my research initiative examining the legal, ethical, technological, and theological questions that emerge when sacred and spiritually significant human expression becomes extractable, analyzable, and reproducible within artificial intelligence systems.
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN OUR MOST SACRED HUMAN EXPERIENCES BECOME DATA?
Artificial intelligence is entering some of the most intimate dimensions of human life. People are turning to AI to pray, confess, grieve, seek spiritual guidance, and wrestle with questions of meaning.
But when these experiences are shared with an AI system, they become something else, too: data.
Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms is my research initiative examining the legal, ethical, technological, and theological questions that emerge when sacred and spiritually significant human expression becomes extractable, analyzable, and reproducible within artificial intelligence systems.
A 2026–2027 BERKMAN KLEIN CENTER FELLOWSHIP PROJECT.
WHAT IS SACRED DATA?
Sacred Data refers to prayers, confessions, devotional reflections, moral struggles, grief, lament, and other forms of sacred or spiritually significant human expression once they become extractable, analyzable, and reproducible within AI systems.
We have frameworks for personal data.
We have frameworks for sensitive data.
But what happens when the data is sacred?
Prayer. Confession. Lament. Grief. Devotional reflection. Moral struggle.
These forms of expression can reveal extraordinarily intimate dimensions of a person’s inner life—what they believe, what they fear, what they regret, what they are grieving, and the questions they may struggle to share anywhere else.
As these experiences enter AI systems, existing categories of personal and sensitive data may not fully capture what is at stake.
WHERE THE RESEARCH BEGINS
The starting point, not the boundary.
Developed through the lens of Christianity, this inquiry begins with Christian communities within Black America—not as a separate Christianity, but as believers living one faith within distinct historical and technological conditions.
Their sustained Christian practice, high mobile connectivity, and long experience with surveillance, digital inequality, and exclusion from technology governance make the consequences of AI-mediated prayer, discipleship, pastoral care, and spiritual data especially visible.
They are the starting point, not the boundary: the governance questions revealed here will extend far beyond them.
A SACRED DATA DOCUMENTARY
When the Algorithm Preaches
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN THE MACHINE BECOMES A SOURCE OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY?
“When the Algorithm Preaches” is an investigative documentary exploring what happens when artificial intelligence enters sacred spaces, told through the experiences of Christian communities within Black America.
Through pastors, believers, theologians, technologists, and experts approaching AI from different perspectives, the film examines spiritual authority, privacy, discernment, belief, and what happens when deeply personal expressions of faith become data.
A MESSAGE FROM DANIELLE
WHY DANIELLE IS LEADING THIS WORK
Danielle A. (Davis) Canty, Esq. is an attorney and technology policy scholar whose work examines how emerging technologies reshape law, power, and the human experience.
As Senior Advisor and Director of Technology Policy Programs at the Joint Center and a 2026–2027 Berkman Klein Center Fellow at Harvard Law School, she brings legal expertise, policy leadership, and years of experience translating complex questions about AI for public audiences.
Sacred Data extends that work into one of AI governance’s least examined frontiers: faith.
This work is legal, ethical, cultural—and deeply human.
WHY THIS MATTERS NOW
AI is moving into spaces where people seek prayer, counsel, meaning, and spiritual formation—before legal, ethical, and theological safeguards have caught up.
Spiritual expression is becoming data.
Theological influence is becoming code.
Faith is becoming a new frontier of digital exploitation.
This is not just a technology question. It is a spiritual, cultural, and human crisis.
FROM RESEARCH TO PUBLIC UNDERSTANDING
The research will move beyond academic inquiry through three public-facing projects that bring its legal, ethical, and social questions to life through storytelling, public conversations, and practical guidance.
CHAPTER 1
THE MISEDUCATION OF TECHNOLOGY®: WHO IS DISCIPLING US NOW?
A podcast series
Conversations with thinkers, faith leaders, technologists, and everyday people about power, policy, and the promises we have been taught about technology.
CHAPTER 2
THE MISEDUCATION OF TECHNOLOGY®: WHO IS DISCIPLING US NOW?
A podcast series
Conversations with thinkers, faith leaders, technologists, and everyday people about power, policy, and the promises we have been taught about technology.
CHAPTER 3
SPIRITUAL DATA SOVEREIGNTY: A DISCERNMENT FRAMEWORK FOR FAITH COMMUNITIES USING AI
A practical resource for communities, institutions, and developers.
A framework designed to help protect spiritual freedom in an AI-shaped world.
OUR APPROACH
How This Research Is Conducted
QUALITATIVE INTERVIEWS
Conversations with pastors, believers, theologians, technologists, ethicists, and AI developers.
TECHNICAL & LEGAL ANALYSIS
Examining how AI systems collect, process, and repurpose spiritually significant expression—and how existing legal and privacy frameworks apply.
THEOLOGICAL & ETHICAL EXAMINATION
Exploring the implications for spiritual authority, privacy, discernment, confidentiality, human agency, and dignity.
COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT
Listening to Christian communities within Black America to ground the research in lived experience and cultural context.
This interdisciplinary approach brings law, technology, ethics, theology, and lived experience together to understand a phenomenon no single discipline can fully explain.
Read the Research as It Develops
Subscribe to the Substack Sacred Data, Secular Algorithms.
Field notes. Reflections. Early findings. Invitations to participate. Be part of the conversation as the research unfolds.
WHAT YOUR SUPPORT MAKES POSSIBLE
Interviews and community research with faith leaders, practitioners, and everyday users.
Documentary filming and post-production to bring hidden stories to light.
Archives and rights to build a lasting public record.
Podcast production and framework development to translate research into tools.
Community engagement and policy programming to spark dialogue and collective discernment.
Travel and sustained engagement during the Berkman Klein fellowship at Harvard.
HELP BUILD THE PUBLIC RECORD BEFORE THE TECHNOLOGY DEFINES THE TERMS.
This is a cultural, legal, and spiritual moment. Together, we can ensure that AI-shaped human experiences are met not with extraction—but with reflection.