This historic divinity school is offering the first doctoral degree in ‘AI and Moral Agency’

(RNS) — At the end of the Civil War, a Union soldier and Baptist minister founded a school in Raleigh, North Carolina, to provide formerly enslaved people with religious literacy.

Now that same school — Shaw University — wants to provide literacy of a new kind: AI literacy.

Starting next year, Shaw’s divinity school plans to offer a new degree track : a Doctor of Education (or Ed.D) in Artificial Intelligence and Moral Agency.

As the AI spreads and performs more and more tasks traditionally done by humans, the divinity school wants to get ahead of the curve and probe its moral implications.

“We say Shaw was created to provide leadership in building literacy,” said Mark Harden, dean of Shaw University Divinity School. “We ( half)joke this is our second calling because we’re building AI literacy for vulnerable communities with an emphasis on social justice and ethics.”

In June, the divinity school secured the go-ahead from the regional accrediting body, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges. It is now working on receiving a seal of approval with the Commission on Accrediting at the Association of Theological Schools, a network of 280…