Religion and technology futures

Religious communities are developing their own technological roadmaps—from Buddhist perspectives on AI ethics to Islamic frameworks for biotech—yet these rarely appear in mainstream future-casting. This 4S panel can center how religious traditions compete with secular techno-optimism to define what futures are actually desirable.

The 'whose future' framing directly challenges the assumption that technoscientific experts alone get to imagine tomorrow. By examining religious and technoscientific imaginaries in contest, panelists can expose how power operates when some groups' visions are treated as inevitable while others are marginalized or dismissed.

Toronto's religious and immigrant communities make this conference location ideal for exploring how different cultural-religious groups experience technology futures differently—from surveillance concerns among marginalized communities to how indigenous and faith-based land stewardship competes with tech industry environmental promises.