AI, Cyborgs, Robots and Religion I

Abstract

Eurocentric theories of humans and societies that inform the design of AI/ML systems, cybernetic organisms, and robotics, often draw upon religiously-rooted universalizing norms and assumptions. Scholarly work has examined the ethics and potential impacts of AI, Cyborgs, and Robots on society, but less has been done to examine the assumptions of world religions that inform such innovations and whether such assumptions lead to outcomes that promote human flourishing or not. This panel explores the influences of religious paradigms of the human and religious visions of the future on the design and use of intelligent technologies.

This panel includes papers examining religious aspects of AI, Cyborgs, and Robots broadly construed and imagined, as well as the social and ethical implications and paradigms for understanding how these technologies reconfigure assemblages of humans and more-than-humans (and design and create new ones).

Individual Presentations

• Ram-Rajya At The Time of AI: The Statistical Turn In Technoscience - Ravi Shukla, Jawaharlal Nehru University

• The Stars in our Algorithms: Speculation and Divination from Astrology to Artificial Intelligence - Leona Nikolić, Concordia University (Montreal, CANADA)

• The Allahgorithm: When ‘Suggested Content’ Becomes Deified Colonial Whiteness: Perceptions Amongst Young Professional British Muslims - William Barylo, University of Warwick, UK

Discussant

• Damien Patrick Williams, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Chair

• W.E. King, University of Washington

Session Organizer

• W.E. King, University of Washington