Digital technology, including artificial intelligence, is having a dramatic impact on the professions of medicine, law, journalism, finance, and others. Some suggest that clergy will also be affected. We describe recent progress in designing artificially intelligent systems, suggesting that this is possible, perhaps even likely. We investigate ways in which technology currently is affecting ministry and outline some plausible scenarios in which digital systems could supplement or supplant clergy in some areas, specifically preaching and pastoral care. We also raise some (...) theological issues raised by the use of digital systems in ministry. (shrink)

Much work has been done on specific instances of residuated lattices with modal operators . In this paper, we develop a general framework that subsumes three important classes of modal residuated lattices: interior algebras, Abelian ℓ-groups with conuclei, and negative cones of ℓ-groups with nuclei. We then use this framework to obtain results about these three cases simultaneously. In particular, we show that a categorical equivalence exists in each of these cases. The approach used here emphasizes the role played by (...) reducts in the proofs of these categorical equivalences. Lastly, we develop a connection between translations of logics and images of modal operators. (shrink)

This paper presents empirical data which allow us to examine how ethical aspects influence ethical consumers’ brand choices on technology-based products,such as washing machines, fridge freezers, and cars. Predicted by the literature review, the majority of our interviewees did make their brand choice based onreliability. However, we found that ethical consumers’ concept of reliability includes not only functionality but also ethical values. The results suggest that we have to reconsider whether considerations of companies’ ethical standards are the only indicators of (...) brand choice as a shortcut of the assessment of business ethics or whether various forms of ethical considerations including ethically reconstructed reliability can also a contribute to this. (shrink)