Glossary

Agent. An AI system capable of pursuing a goal through multiple steps, often using external tools or taking actions rather than merely generating a response.

Artificial intelligence (AI). A broad category of computational systems that perform tasks associated with capabilities such as language generation, prediction, classification, perception, or decision support.

Confabulation. A confidently presented but erroneous or fabricated generative-AI output; used in this book particularly in connection with NIST terminology.

Data minimization. Reducing the amount and sensitivity of information collected, transmitted, or stored to what is actually necessary.

Digital colonialism. A diagnostic term for technological relationships involving patterns such as extraction, durable dependency, weak local control, externally imposed norms, or poor exit capacity.

Generative AI. AI systems designed to produce outputs such as text, images, audio, video, or code.

Great Commission. The Christian commission to make disciples, associated especially with Matthew 28:18–20 and interpreted within the broader New Testament missionary witness.

Human handoff. A designed point where an automated system transfers responsibility or interaction to an accountable person.

Imago Dei. The biblical and theological doctrine that human beings are created in the image of God.

Large language model (LLM). A computational model trained on large bodies of language data to predict and generate sequences of language.

Least privilege. The security principle that a system should receive only the permissions necessary to perform its intended task.

Local AI. AI processing performed primarily on a local device or locally controlled infrastructure rather than through an external cloud service.

Low-resource language. A language with limited digital or computational resources for a particular technological task; the term describes resource availability, not linguistic worth.

Missio Dei. A theological term referring to mission as originating in God’s own action rather than being invented or possessed by the Church.

Multimodal AI. AI capable of processing or generating more than one type of information, such as text, speech, images, or video.

People group. A contemporary missiological category used to describe a socially meaningful population for strategic analysis.

Prompt injection. An attack or failure mode in which instructions embedded in untrusted material manipulate an AI system’s behavior.

Provenance. Information about the origin, history, creation, or modification of content.

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG). A system design in which retrieved external information is supplied to a generative model as context for its answer.

Synthetic authority. Authority attributed to an AI system because of its apparent knowledge, responsiveness, or relational competence rather than through legitimate human or ecclesial accountability.

Synthetic media. Images, audio, video, or other media substantially created by generative systems.

Unreached people group. A strategic mission category used by mission-research organizations according to defined demographic and Christian-presence thresholds; definitions differ among organizations.

Verification. The process of checking an AI output or other claim against appropriate evidence or qualified judgment.