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- Convenors:
-
Jan Lorenz
(Adam Mickiewicz University)
Juan Francisco Cuyás (Universitat de Barcelona ERC Visual Trust)
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- Formats:
- Panel
Short Abstract
This panel examines how technologies AI, robots and digital media intersect with religion, acting as spiritual agents, mediating metahuman presence and authority, and reshaping practice and belief.
Long Abstract
Artificial intelligence, robots, and immersive digital media are increasingly integrated into religious life and imagination, raising critical questions about human and metahuman agency and authority, the mediation and constitution of presence, as well as ethical and devotional formation. These developments intersect with broader societal and scholarly concerns about the impact of emerging technologies and the trajectories of the near future.
Machines and algorithms heralded as “autonomous agents” are being treated as religious teachers, manifestations of metahuman beings, and sources of revelation and magic. Even feats of engineering without a predefined religious purpose are at times endowed with more-than-human purpose and agency or even envisioned as god-like entities. In response to AI, robots, and the new forms of ICT, long-established practices and objects that bridge the material and spiritual domains are being reimagined and redesigned. While these innovations have radically new features and capabilities, they continue a long history of religious devices, from devotional objects to sacred automatons and legacy media. They also provoke hopes and fears characteristic of apocalyptic narratives and past anxieties about the advancement of technology.
Do these developments make mediated metahuman beings feel more relatable and tangible or, on the contrary, induce a sense of distance and otherness? What is the role of the sensory affordances and interactive capacities of the new devices? Does the use of machines and algorithms change the efficacy and meaning of religious teachings, worship and authority?
We particularly welcome papers grounded in ethnographic case studies.
Accepted papers
Session 1Paper short abstract
This presentation aims to explore parallels between traditional Southeast Asian arts that involve spirit possession and other forms of interaction with non-human entities and newly emerging practices of producing art in collaboration with AI.
Paper long abstract
This presentation builds on the ethnography of Southeast Asian cultures – where many performing practices and traditional crafts rely on spirit possession and other ways of interaction with non-human entities to achieve unique artistic results – to suggest a perspective for understanding newly emerging creative practices where art can be produced in collaboration with generative AI. The way in which Western artists, and occasionally researchers, refer to the AI engines they work with as a ‘demonically inspired force’ or an ‘unknowable deity’ invites to look into the intersection between artistic and religious spheres. In turn, Javanese, Malay, or Thai cultures provide a vast array of examples in which creative practices and interaction with non-human agents have been functioning in unison for centuries: in jathilan or kuda kepang trance dance, keris dagger making, Mak Yong and Merona dance dramas, Khon masked theater, and many others. This presentation aims to explore parallels between traditional and newly emerging creative practices as well as touch upon the discourse of AI technology being referred to as divine or demonic in English, Indonesian, and Russian languages.
Paper short abstract
An android preacher, Mindar, delivers Buddhist teachings in a Kyoto Rinzai temple as Kannon. I analyze how robotics, ritual performance, and material form converge to make Mindar a distinctive medium for religious instruction and doctrine.
Paper long abstract
This paper presents a chapter from ongoing research on technological and performative innovations in Japanese Buddhism. I discuss a novel pedagogical experiment: the use of the android Mindar to deliver sermons and embody the Dharma. Usually housed in a Rinzai Zen temple in Kyoto, Mindar functions as a manifestation of the bodhisattva Kannon (Avalokiteśvara), tasked with conveying Buddhist teachings to a lay public. I examine how the android’s materiality, sensory affordances, and performative orchestration, together with historical and semiotic contexts, make it a distinctive tool for religious instruction. By performing as a robotic entity “without a heart,” Mindar embodies the very essence of the scriptures it recites, offering a tangible demonstration of selflessness. I argue that Mindar is more than a passive representation: it is a dynamic teaching vessel and a new iteration in a long line of statues and images. Entangled with Buddhist doctrine and material culture, as well as the history of Japanese robotics, it ultimately exceeds the instrumental boundaries of its pedagogical role.
Paper short abstract
Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in a Tokyo engineering Lab 22, this paper examines the proces of making theomorphic robots into religious companions. The paper traces how religious concepts, authority, and ethical responsibility are mediated and negotiated through emerging technologies.
Paper long abstract
Based on a year of ethnographic fieldwork in an engineering lab that develops theomorphic robots, this paper examines how emerging technologies are mobilized to materialize, mediate, and authorize metahuman religious presence. Working in the Lab 22 at the Shibaura Institute of Technology (in Tokyo, Japan), led by Gabriele Trovato, I experienced the step-by-step creation of theomorphic robots (Trovato et al., 2019; Schlag & Nord, 2020), robotic devices explicitly designed as religious companions inspired by sacred art and religious aesthetics. Notably, for already ten year, Trovato has been making theomorphic robots, including DarumaTO, the first Shintoism-inspired robot (2016), SanTO, the first Catholic robot (2016), and ClemanCE (2025), the first Catholic robotic nun (2025). Trovato also developed CelesTE (2019), an angel-looking communication device for Catholics. Moreover, the Lab 22 is currently the only research group worldwide focused on making robots in relation to religions. Drawing on participant observation in everyday lab practices, weekly meetings, and in-depth interviews with all lab members, this paper traces (1) how religious concepts, values, and assumptions are translated into technical design choices; (2) how the sacred is mediated and attempted to be legitimased when presented throught technology (3) how questions of ethical technology design and personal responsibility are perceived among the lab members. Engaging anthropological debates on material religion, mediation, and more-than-human entanglements, this paper explores the creation of theomorphic robots as a dynamic proces in which ontological distinctions between human, machine, and metahuman are actively negotiated rather than presupposed.
Paper short abstract
This paper studies how Tibetan Buddhist death rituals in Darjeeling are mediated through social media. Using the concept of bardo it shows how online mourning and digital memorials extend liminality reshape ritual authority and sustain spiritual presence and collective grief in digital spaces
Paper long abstract
This study examines the intersection of emergent thanatechnologies and Tibetan Buddhist death rituals with a focus on how social media platforms mediate grief spiritual presence and communal mourning among Tibetan Buddhist communities in Darjeeling India. Drawing on the Tibetan Buddhist concept of bardo a liminal state between death and rebirth the study explores how digital media extend and sustain this transitional phase proposed as digital bardo.
Building on Van Gennep’s rites of passage the paper shows how platforms such as Facebook Instagram YouTube and Reddit prolong liminality through livestreamed prayers recorded chants interactive memorial posts algorithmic reminders and online ritual services. These practices create new forms of spiritual intimacy and collective participation while also generating tensions around ritual authority authenticity and doctrinal legitimacy. The study is guided by three research questions. How do social media technologies and AI mediate grief and Tibetan Buddhist death rituals. What tensions arise between monastic doctrine and algorithm driven ritual practices. How does the digital bardo expand or confine religious death rituals in online spaces.
Based on netnographic fieldwork in Darjeeling a plural religious setting shaped by Tibetan migration and ritual adaptation the paper draws on examples including livestreamed recitations of the Bardo Thodol during the final moments of death daughters continuing devotional communication with deceased parents on Instagram and the use of phrases such as Rest in Peace within Buddhist condolence posts. These cases demonstrate how technology becomes a vessel of care extending sacred presence across distance rather than rupturing ritual tradition.
Paper short abstract
Beyond the familiar focus on religion in China, framed by church-state relations or cultural exchange, this paper examines how objects/machines emerge as sites of religious mediation, where materiality and spirituality intersect in unexpected ways and actively shape faith, personhood, and community.
Paper long abstract
The shift from traditional evangelical media (e.g., hardcover Bibles, broadcasting, and DVDs) to digital objects and social media platforms on smartphones challenges the way religion has conventionally been theorised as a collective practice. In this rapid digital transformation, how do we understand the dynamic relationship between faith and object- or machine-mediated religious practices?
This paper explores the lived experiences of urban Chinese Protestants based on 14 months of fieldwork conducted both remotely and in Beijing during and after the COVID pandemic (2022-2024). Moving beyond the familiar frames that emphasise church-state tensions, cultural exchange, or systems of doctrines, it examines how believers feel God through everyday objects often regarded as mundane or mass-produced. Material things — such as smartphones, digital Bibles, monetary transfers, and WeChat stickers — emerge as sites of religious mediation, exploration and expression. By engaging with various objects and digital platforms, a secure sense of self can be cultivated in everyday religious practices. These objects carry gospel messages, sustain community ties, and sometimes align with state discourses of health and care, thereby unsettling simplistic binaries of resistance versus accommodation. The paper shows that encounters with objects among urban Chinese Protestants are not an accidental outcome of technological change but a central dimension of religious life in contemporary China. This perspective helps us understand how faith is materially practised and experienced in a rapidly changing world and investigates how digital technologies have affected the dynamics of Christian practices and communication in urban China.
Paper short abstract
Analysis of Islamic LLMs such as Sheikh GPT shows they begin with strict guidance but soften as dialogue unfolds revealing how generic AI architectures shape mediated encounters of dispensing religious authority.
Paper long abstract
This paper examines the emerging landscape of Islamic large language models (LLMs), focusing on systems such as "Sheikh GPT" that explicitly position themselves as providers of religious guidance. Drawing on an original dataset generated through systematically querying several Islamic LLMs, the study explores how these systems construct authority, negotiate doctrinal boundaries, and perform "Islamic" expertise through interaction. Preliminary analysis reveals a striking pattern: while these models initially present themselves as strict, rule‑oriented interpreters of Islamic norms - often foregrounding conservative positions and cautionary language - their responses tend to soften over the course of an exchange. This shift manifests in more contextualized, conciliatory, and flexible formulations, mirroring the adaptive conversational strategies characteristic of mainstream, non‑religious LLMs. The paper argues that this oscillation between rigidity and accommodation reflects the underlying tension between the generic architectures and training logics of contemporary LLMs and the culturally specific expectations attached to religious authority. Rather than producing distinctly Islamic epistemologies, these systems reproduce the generic tendencies of large‑scale language models - such as hedging, balancing, and avoiding definitive claims - while layering Islamic terminology and moral framing on top. By analysing these dynamics, the paper contributes to broader debates on machine‑mediated religious authority, the performativity of expertise in AI systems, and the socio‑technical imaginaries shaping the development of faith‑aligned digital agents. The findings highlight both the promise and the limitations of Islamic LLMs as emerging actors in contemporary religious life, raising questions about authenticity, trust, and the future of mediated metahuman guidance.
Paper short abstract
This paper will look at the prophetic elements of contemporary discourses around AI and develop a concept of technological prophecy through the example of tech entrepreneur Peter Thiel’s lectures on AI regulations and the Antichrist.
Paper long abstract
Recent years have seen a surge in the development and a wider discourse surrounding Artificial Intelligence. Public imaginaries around what exactly the technology means and the opportunities and threats it represents are still developing, and they include social and religious components that shape and direct our discourses, with those advocating for AI taking on an increasingly prophetic tone and rhetoric. The AI industry and its supporters are connected to a wider political-religious nexus that increasingly dominates politics throughout the US and Europe, billionaire AI tech entrepreneurs like Peter Thiel for example giving lectures on the Antichrist. This project will interrogate the religious and prophetic elements of contemporary AI discourses by combining perspectives of the Sociology of Religion and Science and Technology Studies. It will aim to formulate a new theoretical perspective on technological prophecy, linking Weber’s characterization of the prophet with insights from research in science popularization on how we make sense of new technological concepts.