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Remedy or Replication: Al Companions and Relational Trauma

Dr. Kate Ott event
Date and time
Tuesday, April 21, 2026
6:30pm - 8:00pm
In-person:
A reception will be hosted from 6 - 6:30pm and the lecture will begin at 6:30. Location: BU Hillel House, 213 Bay State Road, (River Room 4th floor) Boston, MA 02215
In-person
Free
Register

A.I. companions increasingly replace human romantic, erotic, social, educational, therapeutic, and collegial relationships. Whether interpersonally or society-wide, we are ill-equipped to engage in moral discernment about the ethical implications of this shift. The turn to A.I. companions reveals fractured expectations, systemic pressures, and misaligned desires troubling human-to-human relationships misguided by echoes of religiously inflected sexual and gender-based historical trauma embedded in hierarchies of material embodiments and on-going abuses. Our response to this unveiling must reshape relational ethics. What are the possibilities for creative, morally grounded A.I. companion design and use to promote human and agentic flourishing rather than diminishment? What resources might religious communities offer that remedy historical wrongs and promote moral formation? Is theological education be a place for this work?

A white woman with shoulder-length brown hair smiles at the camera while wearing a blue undershirt and black blazer/
Dr. Kate Ott is an author, professor and parent. As an author, she blogs, designs curriculum for churches, and writes academic publications including articles, book chapters, and books. She also work as the Jerre and Mary Joy Stead Professor of Christian Ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary. There are Sunday school participants, youth groups around the country who welcome her into their space to share wisdom and guidance as they make sense of this world.
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