Hope and Despair in an Algorithmic Age: Feminist Comparative Religious Ethics of AI Futures

As the world shifts through climate crisis, war, and technological upheaval, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become an issue and topic where despair and messianic hope converge. This roundtable, convening feminist theologians from Christian, Jewish, and Muslim traditions, explores “hope in a time of despair” and related questions of moral judgment and human agency regarding AI. Engaging the 2026 AAR theme of “future(s),” participants ask how feminist religious ethics might form responsible technological futures grounded in ethical reasoning and theological insight rather than naïve optimism or paralysis. Incorporating Black Protestant, white/mainline Protestant, Jewish, and Muslim feminist perspectives, the session models comparative religious ethics as a framework for navigating apocalyptic narratives, religious and secular alike. We ask: what counts as faithful hope or truthful despair in AI‑shaped futures? By reasserting theology’s role in confronting technological power, we seek resources for justice‑serving, life‑affirming responses amid our algorithmic age.