Centre for Technology and Human Futures

Human approaches to AI, emerging technologies, and the futures we create.

The Centre for Technology and Human Futures (CTHF) hosts humanities-grounded research on AI and emerging technologies intended to enhance human capacities and advance human flourishing, exploring their implications for how we work, teach, play, understand ourselves and relate to one another. Our researchers have expertise in philosophical, theological, ethical and social scientific approaches to these critical questions, and we host a number of externally-funded projects in these areas. We publish research at the intersection of religion and technology in leading academic journals and book presses, supervise research Masters and PhD students, host events and visiting scholars, and collaborate with Australian and international partners in our research projects.

Our research strengths

• Philosophical and theological approaches to technology: exploring how emerging technologies interact with our understanding of being human, personhood, creativity, morality, responsibility, flourishing, and our relationship to God.
• Ethics of AI: using moral philosophy to discern ethical, just, and responsible applications of AI and related technologies.
• Imagining human futures: engaging science fiction and popular science writing to explore possible technological futures and their consequences for human being and society.
• Technology and our common life: investigating the social implications of AI and other emerging technologies for communities, institutions, and the common good.

2026 International Visiting Fellow

2026 International Visiting Fellow Professor Meghan Sullivan (Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good at the University of Notre Dame USA) delivers the Inaugural Public Lecture of the Centre for Technology and Human Futures, on the topic of AI and the Good Life.

Watch now

Meet our people

Associate Professor Victoria Lorrimar
Director, Centre for Technology & Human Futures
Senior Research Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Society

Professor Eamonn Conway
Professor of Integral Human Development, Laudato Si’ Initiative

Professor Stephen Bullivant
Professorial Research Fellow in Theology and Sociology
Institute for Ethics & Society

Dr Tim Smartt
Senior Research Fellow
Institute for Ethics & Society

Dr Adam Piovarchy
Research Fellow, Institute for Ethics & Society
ARC DECRA Fellow

Meet our partners

University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good (USA)

We have a research partnership with the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. With the Institute, we sponsor joint academic events, pursue joint research projects, and host reciprocal visiting scholars. Institute Director, Professor Meghan Sullivan, will deliver the inaugural lecture at our Centre launch in March 2026.

Professor Meghan Sullivan

University of Technology Sydney’s Human Technology Institute

We have partnered with researchers from the Human Technology Institute to deliver professional development programs on AI with community stakeholders.

Professor Nicholas Davis

Externally funded projects

Self-enhancement, 'Biohacking' and Spiritual Yearning

This project combines conceptual and qualitative research to explore the motivations and practices of everyday biohackers in relation to spirituality and meaning-making.

Principal investigator: Stephen Bullivant and Victoria Lorrimar
Funded by: John Templeton Foundation
Funding: $370,000

Harnessing Greed for Knowledge: The Ethics, Epistemology and Politics of Prediction Markets

This project looks at the current and future impacts of prediction markets. It examines their ethical, informational, and political dimensions, and how they should be structured to best contribute to society.

Principal investigator: Adam Piovarchy
Funded by: The Philosophy, Politics and Economics Society
Funding: $179,000

Publications

Read books published by our researchers on technology, religion and society.

Contact us

If you would like to know more about what we do at the Notre Dame Centre for Technology and Human Futures, we encourage you to contact us at cthf@nd.edu.au.