Keynote Speeches

Opening Keynote

Speaker: Rumee Ahmed, The University of British Columbia

Talk Title: The Secular Human in Human-Computer Interaction

Talk Abstract: Theorists in the human-computer interaction space have been understandably hesitant to engage the subject of religion. Stakes and passions are high, and taking a stand on one side nearly ensures a swift backlash from the other. Yet, as citizens, state actors, and users regularly express religious motivations and use religious language in their social and virtual interactions it has become increasingly clear to policy makers, social theorists, and researchers working in the HCI space that religion is an abiding and prevalent component of social life. In building frameworks that can contend with and incorporate religion, however, researchers often find themselves operating within a discourse that defines ‘religion’ and ‘religiosity’ in narrowly secular terms – terms that rarely accord with lived experience. This talk will attempt to describe some of the inherited secular boundaries of ‘religion’ and ‘religiosity’, examine how these boundaries affect HCI, and consider ways that researchers might move within and beyond them.

Brief bio: Dr. Rumee Ahmed is the Canada Research Chair in Theology and Ethics and Professor of Islamic Law at the University of British Columbia. He is the author of Sharia Compliant: A User’s Guide to Hacking Islamic Law (Stanford University Press, 2018) and Narratives of Islamic Legal Theory (Oxford University Press, 2012). He is the co-editor of The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Law and The Objectives of Islamic Law, and has published widely in Religion, Law, and Philosophy. As far as computer science goes, he is old, so he cut his teeth on True Basic, spent an unreasonable amount of time programming in Think Pascal, then pretty much topped out in C++. In the late-90s he launched a highly unsuccessful e-commerce business, and his first full-time, grown-up job was as a software analyst for the US Social Security Administration where he worked on designing the first Social Security Number Verification Service. He apologizes to anyone who actually had to use that verification service.

Closing Keynote

Speaker: Robert Geraci, Manhattan College

Talk Title: Religious Values and the Culture of AI

Talk Abstract: Cultural and religious values play a role in the development of AI, though these are often camouflaged; and the future deployment of AI technologies will benefit from drawing resources from a wider array of cultural and religious voices. Secularized forms of Christian salvation have percolated through AI futurism for decades, and now pervade global conversations. Often, such views obfuscate alternate visions of what AI could bring to public debate. Nevertheless, the transnational AI community is well-positioned to derive values beyond the capitalist marketplace (with its own religion of short-term efficiency) and futurist dreams of technological transcendence. A few examples from global value systems will provide the launching point for broader conversation.

Brief bio: Dr. Robert M Geraci is Professor of Religious Studies at Manhattan College and author of Apocalyptic AI: Visions of Heaven in Robotics, Artificial Intelligence, and Robotics (Oxford University Press, 2010), Virtually Sacred: Myth and Meaning in World of Warcraft and Second Life (Oxford University Press, 2014), Temples of Modernity: Nationalism, Hinduism, and Transhumanism in South Indian Science (Lexington 2018), and Futures of Artificial Intelligence: Perspectives from India and the United States (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2022). His work has been funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the National Research Foundation of Korea, the American Academy of Religion, and twice by Fulbright-Nehru Professional Excellence (Research) Awards. His research and writing flows out of his interest in how we use technology to enchant and give meaning to the world. To study this, he uses ethnographic fieldwork, methods from science & technology studies, literature (science fiction) studies, and what he calls “the hodgepodge of methods that all of us in ‘religion and science studies’ put to use.” He is a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.