Uriah Y Kim

Uriah Y. Kim is a Korean American biblical scholar, educator, and President of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Throughout his career, he has been interested in how people understand themselves, interpret their traditions, and navigate the moral challenges of their times.

Trained as a biblical scholar, Kim has spent decades studying ancient texts and the communities that produced and interpreted them. Over time, his intellectual interests have expanded from questions about the ancient world to the challenges confronting humanity today, particularly the emergence of artificial intelligence. For him, these seemingly different fields share a fundamental concern: what it means to be human and how we become the people we ought to be.

His latest book, Human Becoming in the Age of Artificial Intelligence: The Asymmetry Between Human Formation and Machine Constraint, brings together his lifelong interests in religion, philosophy, ethics, and education. Written for a broad audience, it challenges the assumption that intelligent machines are humanity's greatest threat. Instead, Kim argues that humans have always been morally fragile and that the real challenge is to design relationships with AI that support our capacity for moral growth and responsible living.

Kim earned his PhD from the Graduate Theological Union and has devoted his professional life to scholarship, teaching, and academic leadership. His work reflects a conviction that ancient wisdom and emerging technologies can illuminate one another as we confront the enduring questions of human existence.