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The Tzu Chi Foundation is an international organization of volunteers doing relief work among migrants, immigrants, and others in need across many nations.

Anwar Khan speaks about Islamic understandings of responsibility toward Migrants, and the ways in which Islamic Relief fulfills those obligations.

Julie Rayman, Senior Director of Policy and Political Affairs of the American Jewish Committee helps us understand how Jews relate through their history to migrants and immigrants, and what this means today. Since January 2012, Julie Rayman, Senior Director of Policy and Political Affairs, has served as the lead legislative advocate for AJC’s policy priorities. On behalf of AJC, she has supported the launch of congressional caucuses such as the Bipartisan Taskforce for Antisemitism, the Congressional Caucus on Black-Jewish Relations, and the Congressional Hellenic-Israel Alliance. Regularly on Capitol Hill to advocate for AJC priority legislation, she has helped position AJC as a thought and policy leader in combating global antisemitism and hate, promoting Israel’s place in the world, promoting pluralism, and advocating for strong, principled American global leadership. In addition to spearheading AJC’s outreach on Capitol Hill, Rayman also fulfills a variety of senior political liaison responsibilities for AJC, engaging with candidates and elected officials, crafting and promulgating policy position papers and Party platform suggestions, and spearheading AJC’s events on the sidelines of the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Before coming to AJC, she was senior advisor to Congressman Heath Shuler, covering foreign policy, human rights, defense, and homeland security. Rayman holds a B.A. from American University as well as a Master’s from the National Defense University in Strategic Security Studies, with a concentration in counterterrorism. She also holds an M.A. from Georgetown University in Religious Studies.

In this episode we explore what constitutes human authenticity and how AI challenges our human authenticity. AI appears human because it's trained to imitate humans. That doesn't make it human. But it sure challenges us to understand and be more fully authentic in our humanity. Are we redefining ourselves as humans.

In this episode we explore human consciousness, and self consciousness, and ask if that makes us distinctly human. And we ask whether in the future we'll understand AIs to be self conscious.

AI could be laying the foundation for a new way of understanding human immortality? Are we ready to be virtual humans, living forever in a virtual world? We explore different possibilities for human immortality and what AI brings to the table in giving us the hope of living forever, changing our understanding of what it means to be human

Do you know your place in the world? Is it fixed, or changing? Is it God-given or do you get to choose? In this episode we look at the changing ways we understand our place in the world - and how AI is making finding our place even more complex.

What's going on in your head today? Thoughts? Feelings? Dreams? A ceaseless flow of hormones driving and inhibiting electrical impulses? Do you have a mind or a computer in your skull? In this episode we explore how we came to think of our brains as computers, and thus how a computer could become a brain!

For most of Western History intelligence has been understood as a distinctive mark of being human. But what does that mean? And we unique in being intelligent? Our human self-understanding is challenged from two sides. On one hand we are discovering that animals are intelligent. And on the other we are building intelligent machines. What will make us unique?

Are you a biological machine? What does science tell you? What does your religion tell you? What does you culture tell you? that you are an animal, a pile of living tissue, a collection of cells? And if we remove the biological really all that is left is machine. Is that what we are?

Whether you realize it or not, you are part of an experiment in the creation of a new humanity. Whether you are Christian, Muslim, Jew, Jain, Sikh, Hindu, or Buddhist you are involved. In this episode Robert Hunt looks at how our understanding of what it means to be human is changing in a world of AI.

Welcome to Interfaith Encounters, the AI edition. In today's episode, titled "True Humanity in an Age of Artificial Intelligence," we delve deep into the world of AI, exploring its mechanisms, advancements, and impacts. I'll demystify the complexities of artificial intelligence, what it is and where it comes from, right here on Interfaith Encounters. In future episodes we'll explore in more depth how AI may change our understanding of what it means to be human. [Key Search Terms: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Neural Networks, Algorithms, Data Processing, Pattern Recognition, Big Data, AI Ethics, Automation, Future of AI]