Steven Umbrello is the Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and a research fellow at the University of Turin, where he directs the Ethical Research Center on Anthropology and Technology. His work applies the theology of Bernard Lonergan to artificial intelligence, asking what machines can and cannot do to human knowing, judgment, and dignity. He is also an associate researcher at the Collège des Bernardins, where he works on digital humanism, sits on the steering committee of the Catholic Turing Test Initiative (Builders AI Forum), and holds the Italian national scientific habilitation (ASN, 11/C3).
He is t…
Steven Umbrello is the Managing Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies and a research fellow at the University of Turin, where he directs the Ethical Research Center on Anthropology and Technology. His work applies the theology of Bernard Lonergan to artificial intelligence, asking what machines can and cannot do to human knowing, judgment, and dignity. He is also an associate researcher at the Collège des Bernardins, where he works on digital humanism, sits on the steering committee of the Catholic Turing Test Initiative (Builders AI Forum), and holds the Italian national scientific habilitation (ASN, 11/C3).
He is the author of Vigilant Hope: Preserving Human Dignity in an Age of Artificial Intelligence (Ascension Press, 2026), Can AI Ever Be Human? Consciousness Explored (The Catholic University of America Press, 2026, with Paul O'Hara), Mediated by Meaning: Consciousness and Conversion in the Thought of Jordan Peterson (Pickwick, 2026), L'etica di Bernard Lonergan (Città Nuova, 2026), and Technology Ethics: Responsible Innovation and Design Strategies (Polity, 2024).
He edits the International Journal of Technoethics and co-edits Etica & Politica / Ethics & Politics. Previously he was a postdoctoral fellow at Delft University of Technology (TechEthos, H2020), a researcher at the Center for Religious Studies of the Bruno Kessler Foundation, and a Stiftung Südtiroler Sparkasse Global Fellow at Eurac Research.
