Trust, Authority, and Human–AI Mediation in Digital Dharma: An Exploratory Mixed-Methods Study of the Trúc Lâm Zen Tradition

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) and generative language models are increasingly reshaping religious communication, multilingual knowledge dissemination, and meaning-making within digitally mediated environments. While existing scholarship on Digital Religion has examined online authority, technological mediation, and networked religious participation, limited empirical attention has been devoted to how AI-mediated systems influence trust formation, interpretive authority, and engagement within Buddhist communication. This study addresses this gap through an exploratory mixed-methods investigation of Digital Dharma communication in the contemporary Trúc Lâm Zen tradition. The study employed a mixed-methods design combining a survey of 308 Buddhist practitioners and Digital Dharma users with 22 semi-structured interviews involving monastics, lay practitioners, retreat participants, and active users of AI-assisted religious platforms. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression, while qualitative data were examined through thematic analysis. The findings indicate that doctrinal consistency, authority perception, technological mediation, and transformative experience are positively associated with trust in AI-mediated Dharma communication. Regression analyses identified doctrinal consistency as the strongest predictor of trust, while authority perception, technological mediation, and transformative experience significantly predicted Digital Dharma engagement. Qualitative findings further revealed recurring themes of expanded accessibility, doctrinal reliability, contemplative depth, and negotiated authority. Building on these findings, the study proposes the Integrated Human–AI Digital Dharma Mediation (IHDDM) Framework, which conceptualizes Digital Dharma as a dynamic ecosystem shaped by doctrinal integrity, technological mediation, transformative practice, trust negotiation, and distributed authority. The study contributes to emerging discussions on Digital Religion, Human–AI communication, and Buddhist Studies by providing an empirically informed framework for understanding religious meaning-making in the age of generative AI.