Models are instructive, but not always precise. Still, I found this point interesting:

“Using a separate model, Future of Religion and Secular Transitions (FOREST), the team found that people tend to secularize when four factors are present: existential security (you have enough money and food), personal freedom (you’re free to choose whether to believe or not), pluralism (you have a welcoming attitude to diversity), and education (you’ve got some training in the sciences and humanities). If even one of these factors is absent, the whole secularization process slows down. This, they believe, is why the U.S. is secularizing at a slower rate than Western and Northern Europe.”

No kidding! With a) a widening income gap between the haves and have nots; b) a growing disdain for pluralism and diversity; and c) a distributed (fractured) educational system that varies not only from state to state, but district to district, Americans have 3 strikes against us.

I'm a little skeptical of these models unless they're based on causal calculus, which is cutting edge enough that I doubt they are. Models without an awareness of causal flow are fragile and sometimes get things very wrong. It is interesting, though. I'd like to see this research go forward.

Umm, AI, the thing that was going to give us driver-free, crashless cars? The time has not yet come, obviously.
Besides, the social modeling you describe has been done for decades...nothing new at all