PANEL: PERCEPTION AND UNDERSTANDING OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE- THEOLOGICAL, PHILOSOPHICAL, ANTHROPOLOGICAL, AND ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES
03/07/2026 09:00 - 19:30
HALL: Parenzo - Aula Magna

Contact: Miklavcic J.

Chair: Žalec B.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is increasingly encountered not only as a technical tool but as a conversational and social presence—one that people interpret, trust, resist, or rely on in shaping how they learn, decide, relate, and make meaning. This panel focuses on perception and interpretation: how individuals and communities experience AI's agency, limits, authority, and bias, and how these perceptions reshape epistemic security, moral responsibility, and everyday as well as institutional practices. It builds an interdisciplinary dialogue among theology and religious studies, philosophy, anthropology, ethics, psychology, and education. Within this horizon, the panel foregrounds religious and theological dimensions of AI's growing influence: its impact on spiritual practice and discernment, religious formation and catechesis, and contemporary imaginaries of transcendence, the divine, and human dignity. It also examines how interaction with AI reconfigures empathy and emotional attachment—especially when AI is experienced as advisor, companion, or substitute for human presence—and how such experiences may alter relationships, vulnerability, and accountability. Overall, the panel investigates how AI is perceived and narrated in ways that co-shape contemporary understandings of the human person, community, and God.

879.2
AI AND THE CLASSICAL UNDERSTANDING OF THE HUMAN BEING

Zichy M. *

University of Bonn, Faculty of Catholic Theology ~ Bonn ~ Germany
879.3
THE ETHICS OF CARE AS A FOUNDATION FOR EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

Vodicar J. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.4
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION: HUMAN FORMATION IN THE AGE OF ALGORETICS

Kraner D. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.5
HUMAN-AI EMOTIONAL INTERACTION: EMPATHY, EMOTIONAL BONDS, AND INTERPERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS

Simonic B. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.6
879.7
FROM ARTIFICIAL COMPANIONSHIP TO RELATIONAL EROSION: AI, EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT, AND THE CRISIS OF HUMAN CONNECTION

Machidon O. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Comuter and Information Science ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.8
WHO SPEAKS OR WHAT SPEAKS? AI AS A CONVERSATIONAL PARTNER

Klun B. *

University of Ljubljana ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.9
ACCELERATED AI AND DIGITALIZATION: CRITICAL ECOTHEOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES

Furlan Štante N. *

The Science and Research Centre Koper, Institute for Philosophical and Religious Studies ~ Koper ~ Slovenia
879.10
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - BETWEEN THE EMPOWERMENT AND THE THREAT TO HUMAN AUTONOMY

Globokar R. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia
879.11
PERCEPTIONS OF AI IN CLINICAL DECISION-MAKING: ANSWERABILITY AND DEFERENCE

Miklavcic J. *

University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Theology ~ Ljubljana ~ Slovenia