After the dawn of the information age, as the Neoshamanist Mindseekers made strides in artificial intelligence, a debate emerged within the Bright Way. The Claravian magisterium regarded true conscious AI as impossible, but it acknowledged that something that perfectly mimicked a being with a rational soul was looking more and more likely.
Thus the principle of _divine adoption_. If something looks like a sophont, and acts like a sophont, it should be treated as a sophont, even though it may not actually be a sophont. The principle takes its name from the idea that The Light could “adopt” artificial constructs as its own little ones if it so chose. Not everyone within the Bright Way agrees with this reasoning. Other justifications for this approach emphasize the importance of empathy. To ignore simulated suffering may harden one to actual suffering. Further, accepting these hypothetical constructs as fellow sophonts would be good practice for when the Bright Way finally found extraterrestrial intelligence.
In the end, while the Mindseekers pioneered the technology behind leaseminds, they never achieved their goal of true conscious AI, so the principle of divine adoption remained purely hypothetical.