LDS Church leader addresses AI ethics at G20 Interfaith Forum

By Splitfeed EditorialLast updated Oct 19, 2026, 18:01 UTC

On October 18, 2026, Elder Gong of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints delivered remarks at the G20 Interfaith Forum, calling for artificial intelligence to serve the common good and urging that a moral compass guide the technology's development. The speech was reported by the church's own newsroom and by ABC4 Utah on October 19. The G20 Interfaith Forum runs alongside the G20 economic summit and is designed to bring religious and humanitarian voices into conversations typically dominated by finance ministers and heads of state.

The address matters because it marks a formal, high-profile entry by a major religious institution into a policy-adjacent debate about AI governance. The G20 Interfaith Forum is not a regulatory body, but its proximity to the G20 summit gives participants a platform to shape the normative language that eventually filters into policy discussions. Whether religious frameworks can exert meaningful influence on AI development, which is largely driven by private technology companies and national governments, is a live and unresolved question. The specific content of Elder Gong's remarks, beyond the phrases 'moral compass' and 'common good,' is not detailed in available reporting, leaving the precise proposals or principles he advanced open to interpretation.

None of the three camps, Pro-AI, Anti-AI, or Middle Ground, have published reactions to this story yet. Pro-AI voices would typically welcome calls for AI to serve broad human interests while cautioning against religious or institutional frameworks that might slow innovation or introduce doctrinal constraints. Anti-AI voices would likely argue that interfaith calls for ethics, however well-intentioned, are insufficient without binding regulations and that religious institutions should be pushing for stronger limits on AI deployment. The Middle Ground camp would generally support the involvement of diverse institutions in AI ethics conversations, viewing religious perspectives as one legitimate voice among many that can enrich governance debates without necessarily dictating outcomes.

The argument about whether interfaith appeals translate into concrete policy influence could sharpen as the G20 summit itself produces any communiques or working-group language on AI governance in the weeks following the October 2026 forum.