Spiritual Misfits Podcast · Meeting Ground

Can AI be ethical? Can it make us wise? (with Simon Buckingham-Shum)

·1 hr 12 min·4 clips

Simon argues these tools are qualitatively different because people have conversations with them, and they can push back.

Will Small begins by naming the long trail of faith crisis and purity-culture damage, then frames the way forward as honesty with kindness rather than denial or panic. He welcomes Simon Buckingham Shum back to Spiritual Misfits for the show’s first episode of the year. The conversation opens wide, moving into AI, anxiety, and possibility, and asking what this moment means for ordinary people trying to live wisely. Simon is invited to describe his work and day-to-day focus, and the discussion stays close to the gap between information and wisdom. That gap matters here: Will reflects on how many voices fill the information age and how few of them are actually wise guides. The two lean into the challenge of finding people who can diagnose the present moment without feeding panic. Physical exercise, listening, and other grounded practices come up as part of that search. The episode also names the current turbulence as polycrisis and metacrisis, not as buzzwords but as ways to describe what people are feeling. The conversation does not treat AI as a simple threat or a miracle. Instead, it asks what happens when technology becomes both seductive and unsettling, and encourages listeners to go in with open minds and ethical defenses up. Near the close, the episode widens into a practical invitation to join the community around the show, including the discussion group, the website’s survival guide, and ways to support the podcast. The closing note stays warm and plainspoken: be kind, and remember that you are not alone.

As heard by us

A reflective conversation about AI, wisdom, and the ethics of staying open without losing your footing.

The episode opens on a faith crisis shaped by purity culture and church harm, then widens into AI, wisdom, anxiety, and the search for better guides in a noisy information field.

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Why you'd press play

If AI leaves you curious and uneasy, this conversation gives you room to think.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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