Modeling the Sacred: Considerations when Using Religious Texts in Natural Language Processing (2024)

Abstract: This position paper concerns the use of religious texts in Natural Language Processing (NLP), which is of special interest to the Ethics of NLP. Religious texts are expressions of culturally important values, and machine learned models have a propensity to reproduce cultural values encoded in their training data. Furthermore, translations of religious texts are frequently used by NLP researchers when language data is scarce. This repurposes the translations from their original uses and motivations, which often involve attracting new followers. This paper argues that NLP’s use of such texts raises considerations that go beyond model biases, including data provenance, cultural contexts, and their use in proselytism. We argue for more consideration of researcher positionality, and of the perspectives of marginalized linguistic and religious communities.

## introduction despite the use of religious texts in nlp, the ethical considerations of such use have not previously received much attention. religious texts have generally been treated as just data, overlooking their sacred dimensions, their cultural significance, and their histories, which are sometimes entwined with colonial projects. this position paper contends that responsible secularism demands engaging with the ethical considerations of the use of these texts. we take the position that it is important to contextualize religious texts within not just their religious but also their broader cultural and historical contexts. we argue that it is important to acknowledge the motivations, goals, and positionalities of researchers using religious texts, particularly as it is difficult to have intimate first-hand knowledge of the moral and cultural concerns of a religion beyond one's own (if any). section 2 provides relevant background material, including discussing the relationship between academic linguistics and missionary linguistics. in section 3, we present an empirical study of nlp papers using sacred texts. section 4 discusses various ethical considerations when using sacred texts in nlp. in doing so, we consider a range of approaches to the topic, including ethical theories, indigenous perspectives, foot_2 human rights, and the ai ## the use of sacred texts in nlp this section presents empirical data on the use of religious texts in the field of nlp. ## considerations around sacred texts having demonstrated above that religious texts have been used in thousands of nlp papers, we now discuss some of the ethical considerations. this topic has not received much prior attention, although it is touched upon by @xcite ) and pratap et al. (2023, sec. 8). our goal is not to critique the works identified in the previous section, but rather to provide a toolbox for assisting critical thinking in the future. in this section we lay out our positions that relevant considerations include not just technological outcomes, but also cultural standpoints, cultural inclusion, and relationships between global and marginalized cultures. with this in mind, we now consider the use of sacred texts in nlp from a range of lenses. ## discussion and recommendations we take the position that the acl should strive to be aware of risks of harms to religious communities, including dignitive harms, that nlp research may cause or be complicit with. it is beyond the scope of this paper to weigh possible benefits of nlp technologies developed using religious texts against the ethical considerations of such use, and any such benefits may be context-and applicationspecific. however, we note that benefits are often asserted for languages for which nlp has few resources, and we advocate that such claims of benefits should be evaluated paying attention to comment no 23, un doc. ic-cpr/c/21/rev.1/add.5 (1994), para. 6.2. local language ecologies @xcite , to the roles of technology in supporting minority languages @xcite , and to the real technology needs of communities (e.g., @xcite . we now suggest five specific actions for the nlp community to mitigate the risks of consequential, procedural, and dignitive harms. ## conclusion thousands of nlp research papers have used religious texts, due to their availability, convenience, and multilinguality. however these papers rarely acknowledge the religious significance of these texts, nor their cultural contexts, and the ethical considerations of such use have not previously been explored. this position paper presented the first detailed study of the use of religious texts in nlp research, finding that common scenarios include machine translation and dataset creation. we have argued that responsible secularism requires the nlp community to engage with concerns about how such nlp activities might impact religious communities-especially the most marginalized ones-or might be complicit with projects which do. we provided a detailed account of some of the considerations, with a focus on ethical theories, ai principles, cultural considerations, and marginalized communities. we suggested that the field of nlp would benefit from more discussion of the diverse and specific concerns around using religious texts. we proposed that the nlp community engage more with questions of researcher positionality and cultural standpoints, especially with regards to marginalized cultures.