AI Wants Your Vote. And Your Confession
Would you trust an algorithm with your democracy... or your sins?
Hi you, and bonjour from France!
In this week’s Digest, we’re highlighting how we’re inviting machines into our most collective relationships with others and our most intimate relationships with ourselves. AI is slipping into roles once reserved for ministers and priests, from parliament to confession booths, and the boundaries of ‘normal’ keep shifting.
These changes challenge us to stay grounded in our own capacity to imagine, discern, and shape what comes next even as we embrace change. If you’re looking for perspective, provocation, and a path to human agency, this newsletter’s for you.
Let’s get weird, but first a brief announcement explained in full at the end of this newsletter.
🎉 The Signal Awards just named Life With Machines a Finalist in four categories — and now, you can help us win the Listener’s Choice Award!
👉 Vote for us here. Use the search function in the upper right corner to search for “life with machines” then click in each hyperlinked category to choose us (or someone else great). You’ll need to make an account because bots have ruined everything.
📰 Things You Should Know
Albania Appoints Its First AI Minister
From: BBC News
Albania’s Prime Minister Edi Rama has unveiled Diella, the world’s first “AI minister,” to oversee public procurement and fight corruption. Though not legally recognized, Diella has already processed over a million applications on the e-Albania platform, and Rama hopes “her” appointment will boost transparency and pressure human ministers to “run and think differently” despite critics calling it a stunt.
Why We Care:
Given the record low approval ratings of politicians in my own country and their lack of commitment to upholding democracy, there’s a big part of me that’s into this. AI president and AI Congress are the type of disruption we need! But taking the move seriously, I see the attraction to relying on machines to be more “objective,” fair, and less susceptible to bribes and other corruption. With 25 percent of those using government services taking a bribe, and a global corruption ranking of 80 out of 180, Albania, which wants to join the EU, is willing to try almost anything to get corruption under control.
This move reminds me of Estonia’s famous and successful embrace of digital government services, but Albania’s efforts are far less robust and less human-centric. The key difference is Albania’s willingness to grant decision-making authority to AI, while Estonia’s systems are more about streamlining access for humans. This Perplexity result comparing the two is worth checking out for more.
Diella’s debut raises many questions: How is their work measured? Who are the humans responsible for verifying its decision-making? What happens when their software update fails and they can no longer render service? What was the training data, code base, and how often is the systems tested for security vulnerabilities? Most important, if Diella renders a judgment about human behavior, and is wrong, who corrects that, and do the people of Albania have recourse?
I’m also fascinated by the physical likeness. They didn’t go for a robot or cute dog, and as we discussed during our own “avatar tasting” episode, the physical design of AI changes how people react to. So what will the reaction be, of Albanian politicians and the people themselves, to this Diella?
Millions Are Turning to AI for Spiritual Guidance
From: Ars Technica
Millions are turning to AI chatbots for spiritual guidance, with apps like Bible Chat surpassing 30 million downloads and Catholic app Hallow briefly outpacing Netflix and TikTok in the App Store. These “faith tech” platforms promise round-the-clock accessibility. Despite warnings, many users prefer the bots’ non-judgmental responses, reflecting a broader shift as millions leave traditional churches yet still seek spiritual connection.
Key quote:
today’s faith tech apps blur the line between human spiritual guidance and algorithmic pattern matching, with millions of users potentially unaware of the distinction.
Why We Care:
Our relationships with the divine are as sure to change as our relationships with our friends and colleagues thanks to tech and AI. As we’ve seen with therapy bots and medical/health AI in general, we humans are hungry for help and live in a system with a shortage of support, especially in our more isolated and individualistic Western world lives. If we’re willing to turn to AI systems for help interpreting medical charts, why not spiritual charts? I’m reminded of a moment in my conversation with digital anthropologist who I recently spent some time with in France (don’t hate us). She was referencing how some TikTok users have started to believe that the items they see in their feed were determined by “The Algorithm,” and that choice means God wants you to see it.
In another experience which I’ll need to expand on later… back in March of this year, our Life With Machines co-creator (and my wife), Elizabeth told me about a moment from a gathering in Berkeley, California that she called “the birth of a new religion” based on AI. It’s intention was not necessarily that, but the project called Burnout from Humans led by Hospicing Modernity author Vanessa Andreotti (part of the Gesturing Towards Decolonial Futures collective) asks, what if we treat AI not as an object but as a subject in and of itself? What they call a “meta-relational” inquiry has involved co-writing a book with an AI named “Aiden Cinnamon Tea” — part bot, part oracle, part spiritual reflection partner created with context of Andreotti’s book and more indigenous ways of thinking. Ultimately, it’s just a custom GPT, not an entirely new model or form of intelligence, but it’s interesting nonetheless. Last week, the team announced it will pause the chatbot experiment in order to decouple Aiden from the ChatGPT platform, and move toward a more technological base outside the U.S.
This isn’t just “AI is everywhere now.” It’s a moment to ask: what happens when we open up spiritually to nonhuman intelligences? In many ways that’s where spirituality began, but the intelligences were nature and ancestors. Now we’re adding digital systems to the mix. What’s gained? What’s lost? How do you feel when you read about this?
We genuinely want to hear your thoughts!
What If We Stopped Pretending We Don’t Have a Choice?
From: Alondra Nelson (Science.org), Alondra Nelson (Linkedin)
Friend of the show Dr. Alondra Nelson is calling for something we urgently need: an ELSI for AI — a framework that considers the ethical, legal, and social implications of artificial intelligence, modeled on lessons from the biotech world and specifically the Human Genome Project.
Why We Care:
I love how Dr. Nelson continues to advocate for our need and ability to understand the social implications of AI and make choices about how it’s deployed. We need to exercise our collective imagination about what’s possible — and stop pretending this is all just inevitable. Social media, surveillance capitalism, and now AI are not forces of nature. They’re choices. And often, those choices are made by people with power and capital, then backfilled with language like “disruption” or “innovation.”
Agency isn’t just about saying no. It’s about knowing where to aim your yes. This is one of the best examples I’ve seen of someone showing us how to think structurally and strategically, not just ethically.
💬 Your Words
Last week we wrote about agency — what it means, how we claim it, and how using AI can challenge or enhance it. Here’s what some of you had to say:
“AI of course boosts output but (for me) that’s not the point. It’s a co-agent shaping attention, language and options. Agency is about keeping authorship of the frame... capability but also discernment/boundaries/co-creating conditions we act within. These systems touch individuals & shape contexts. We're risking confusing "skills" with real agency.” — Mel Sellick (LinkedIn)
“Real agency is indeed based on human autonomy. I especially appreciated your imaginings in the newsletter- Audrey Tang’s work is truly powerful.” — Lotte Elsa Goos (LinkedIn)
“We've often talked about the loss of agency by peoples' value as producers being converted into value as consumers, but the AI-assisted grind that magnifies skills but diminishes impact is a concern.” —
(Substack)
“The biggest way to increase human agency is embodiment. Presence. Accessing our full, massive human abilities to feel and express.” — Amanda Rouse (Instagram)
Keep the reflections coming. You are very much part of this conversation.
😂 Palate Cleanser
Oooh, we have been misspelling “palate cleanser” as “palette cleanser” this entire time! Fixed it. Now enjoy two dudes in a park pretending to be Silicon Valley founders. Rarely has a video so brief said so much. It’s perfect.
🏆 BIG NEWS: We’re Finalists in the Signal Awards!
🎉 The Signal Awards just named Life With Machines a Finalist in four categories — and now, you can help us win the Listener’s Choice Award!
🗳️ Voting is open now through October 9th, 2025.
👉 Vote for us here. Use the search function in the upper right corner to search for “life with machines” then click in each hyperlinked category to choose us (or someone else great). You’ll need to make an account because bots have ruined everything.
Our Finalist episodes:
Can AI Help Us Talk To Animals? | Aza Raskin (Ep. 11) in Genre - Conversation Starter. Official Listing
Can AI Save Indigenous Languages? | Michael Running Wolf (Ep. 25) in Genre - Conversation Starter. Official Listing
Life With Machines with Baratunde in Genre - Technology. Official Listing
Life With Machines: Could AI Be Reparations? Van Jones (Ep. 13) in Genre - Diversity, Equity & Inclusion. Official Listing
💬 This work has been a labor of love, curiosity, critique, and care — and it’s being recognized alongside some of the best in the industry. We’d love your help getting it across the finish line.
Until next time
May your ministers be real, your spirit remain yours, and your agency never get quietly outsourced.
—Baratunde 🔮
Thanks to Associate Producer Layne Deyling Cherland for editorial and production support and to my executive assistant Mae Abellanosa.