Using AI for Immersive & Educational Religious Guidance: Evaluation of Messiah.AI App | Kashan Amar

Kashan was the former Head of Human Rights at the Ministry of Justice with over 20 years’ experience in counter-terrorism and international relations. He holds a BA in Psychology and an MA in Criminology. An activist and a practitioner, he is the founder of several impactful initiatives, including the Upstanding Neighbourhoods Network, which consists of over 100 civil society organisations delivering United Nations National Action Plans across Member States, and RedSpace PVE, a digital repository of over 20 TACT Offender biographical profiles.

Kashan’s areas of specialism include countering the misuse of technology for mass influence campaigns including disinformation warfare and election interference. He is currently researching the post-lockdown “global loneliness epidemic” and the upward trend of ‘AI Spiritual Companions’.

His current interests include crimes committed by AI; mapping the rise of generative AI for religious indoctrination and radicalisation; and documenting the weaponization of AI systems. His pioneering research into the Eliza Effect demonstrates the first real-world study of sentiment data that explains the innate mechanism by which humans anthropomorphize and are influenced by, AI chatbots.