Latter-day Saint apostle Gerrit W. Gong proposes ‘Humanity’s First Exam’, a benchmark for AI moral reasoning, at the G20 Interfaith Forum
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- 19 October 2026
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Key facts
- Speaker: Elder Gerrit W. Gong, member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; Church News says he has given AI keynotes in Rome, Athens and Istanbul and discussed AI with Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah
- Venue: 2026 G20 Interfaith Forum keynote, Salt Lake Institute of Religion, Salt Lake City, Sat Oct 17, 2026
- Proposal: ‘Humanity’s First Exam’, a benchmark for evaluating and promoting AI systems that are trustworthy and guided by human-centred values, as a counterpart to Humanity’s Last Exam (a test of AI reasoning)
- Quotes: ‘AI will not fulfill its full potential until we make it as morally good as we make it powerful’; ‘The gap between AI reasoning and AI moral compass is widening’; AI should answer questions about faith ‘accurately, honestly and respectfully’ and ‘know when not to answer personal questions’; ‘As a creation of God, man can create AI, but AI cannot create God’
- No benchmark design, dataset or partner was announced in the Church News report
What happened
Elder Gerrit W. Gong, one of the twelve apostles who lead The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, gave a keynote at the G20 Interfaith Forum in Salt Lake City on Oct 17, 2026. He proposed “Humanity’s First Exam”, a benchmark that would test whether AI systems reason morally and treat questions of faith accurately and respectfully, as a counterpart to Humanity’s Last Exam, the hard-knowledge benchmark. He argued that AI’s reasoning is advancing faster than its moral grounding.
Why it matters
Faith leaders are moving from general statements to concrete asks of AI labs, here an evaluation. Gong is one of the religious figures Anthropic has met (the Latter-day Saint church was among the groups in its faith-leader meetings). Only a proposal so far; no design or partners were reported.
Sources
1 source from 1 site. Numbers match the chips in the text.
1 source: 1 press
Press
- Church News: Elder Gong proposes a new test for AI: Humanity’s First Examthechurchnews.com, press
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