With its Speaker Series, the TUM Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence invites experts from all over the world to talk about ethics and governance of AI. These events serve as an important platform for sharing new research and exchanging knowledge.

We are pleased to announce that the speaker for this session is Prof. Patrick Hung.

Patrick Hung is a Professor at Ontario Tech University, Faculty of Business and Information Technology. He is an Honorable Guest Professor at Shizuoka University, Hamamatsu, Japan. He was a Leverhulme Visiting Professor at Aston University, England; a Distinguished Visiting Fellow at Abertay University, Scotland and a Visiting Researcher at the University of São Paulo, Brazil. Hung collaborated with Boeing Research and Technology in Seattle on aviation services-related research, resulting in two US patents for the mobile network dynamic workflow system. Before that, he was a Research Scientist with Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization.

The topic of this session will be “Meditating With Machines: When Spiritual Symbols Meet Augmented Reality”.

This talk reviews the convergence of spiritual symbols and emerging artificial intelligence (AI) technologies by exploring how augmented reality (AR) may transform meditative practices. Specifically, Hung’s ongoing research work investigates immersive meditation environments where theomorphic objects, such as theomorphic robots and divine symbolic entities, are reimagined within AR spaces. Drawing from Buddhist iconography and ritual, these virtual embodiments act as interactive focal points that enrich spiritual engagement and deepen contemplative experiences. The integration of gesture-tracking interfaces enables the real-time recognition and response to Mudrā (Buddhist hand gestures), fostering a more responsive, dialogic and culturally grounded form of meditation. This talk presents the experiences and future directions in this work.

This TUM IEAI event will take place on July 16th, 2025 at 5:00 pm (CEST) at Marsstr. 20, Room 607.

This event is being photographed and/or video recorded for archival, educational, and related promotional purposes. We also video stream many of these video recordings through the IEAI website. By attending or participating in this event, you are giving your consent to be photographed and/or video recorded and you are waiving any and all claims regarding the use of your image by the Institute of Ethics in Artificial Intelligence. The IEAI, at its discretion, may provide a copy of the photos/footage upon written request.