{"slug": "philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing", "title": "Philip Reed-Butler, Black AI and the future of healing", "summary": "Philip Reed-Butler, a scholar and technologist at Iliff School of Theology, directs the AI Institute and teaches Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems. He founded the Seekr Project, a Black conversational AI focused on introspection, healing, and mental health, challenging the dominant narrative of AI as a tool for productivity and profit.", "body_md": "# Philip Reed-Butler, Black AI and the future of healing\n\n**(RNS) — What if AI’s deepest promise is not better answers, but better questions — the kind that help us become whole?**\n\nFor the last few weeks, we’ve been talking about artificial intelligence. We’ve talked Vatican positioning, Silicon Valley philosophers, Catholic ethics, corporate power, doomsday language, all circling the question of who gets to shape the future these machines are confining us in.\n\nBut most of those conversations begin from the same assumption: AI is a tool built somewhere else, by someone else, to give us answers.\n\nProductivity. Efficiency. Surveillance. Profit.\n\nToday’s conversation starts somewhere else.\n\nPhilip Reed-Butler is a scholar, theologian and technologist at Iliff School of Theology, where he directs the AI Institute and teaches Theology and Black Posthuman Artificial Intelligence Systems. He is also the founder of the Seekr Project, a distinctly Black conversational AI project designed around introspection, healing and mental-health capacities.", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing", "canonical_source": "https://religionnews.com/2026/06/16/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing/", "published_at": "2026-06-16 15:25:29+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-06-16 15:49:53.835373+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-ethics", "ai-research", "ai-products", "ai-tools"], "entities": ["Philip Reed-Butler", "Iliff School of Theology", "Seekr Project", "AI Institute"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/philip-reed-butler-black-ai-and-the-future-of-healing.jsonld"}}