Papers
11
Total Citations
475
H-Index
6
About
Robert M. Geraci is a pioneering scholar at the intersection of religion, technology, and culture, whose work has fundamentally reshaped how we understand the spiritual dimensions of artificial intelligence and robotics. Best known for his concept of "Apocalyptic AI," Geraci has compellingly argued that Western enthusiasm for mind uploading, machine transcendence, and robotic immortality draws deeply from Judaeo-Christian eschatological traditions — a thesis developed across his widely cited 2010 book and related articles that together have accumulated nearly 250 citations. His comparative analysis of American and Japanese robotics cultures, explored in his influential 2006 paper "Spiritual Robots" (165 citations), revealed how differing religious environments — Christian versus Shinto and Buddhist — shape divergent scientific and engineering priorities. Geraci has also examined how science fiction constructs robots as numinous, almost sacred beings, tapping into profound human anxieties and desires. His more recent work extends these inquiries into ethical AI, social robotics, and the provocative question of whether machines might one day participate in religious life. Across nearly two decades, Geraci has established himself as an essential voice for anyone seeking to understand technology not merely as engineering, but as a deeply human — and deeply spiritual — enterprise.
Research Focus
Key Achievements
Top Papers
- 1Spiritual robots: Religion and our scientific view of the natural world165 citations · 2006
- 2Apocalyptic AI103 citations · 2010
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- 5THE POPULAR APPEAL OF APOCALYPTIC AI41 citations · 2010
- 6Futures of Artificial Intelligence11 citations · 2022
- 7Robotics and Religion5 citations · 2013
- 8Martial Bliss: War and Peace in Popular Science Robotics3 citations · 2011
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- 10Religion among Robots: An If/When of Future Machine Intelligence3 citations · 2024