Pauline Hope Cheong

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About

Pauline Hope Cheong is a pioneering communication scholar whose research sits at the fascinating intersection of religion, technology, and artificial intelligence. Best known for her groundbreaking work on spiritual robotics and human-machine communication, Cheong has carved out a distinctive niche examining how AI and robotic systems are being designed and deployed within religious contexts — a field she has helped define. Her most-cited work, "Religion, Robots and Rectitude" (2020, 50 citations), challenges predominantly pessimistic narratives surrounding AI by illuminating how spiritually oriented robotics may offer constructive, humanizing visions of technological futures. Complementing this, her study on "Bounded Religious Automation at Work" (26 citations) critiques reductive, flat ontologies in human-machine communication scholarship, advocating for frameworks that preserve the complexity of human authority within AI networks. Her chapter "Robots, Religion and Communication" further consolidates her expertise by historically contextualizing religious actors' engagement with mechanization and emerging technologies. Across her body of work, Cheong consistently pushes scholars to reconsider assumptions about AI's social risks, demonstrating through carefully theorized research that technology and spirituality need not be in opposition — a contribution that is increasingly vital as AI reshapes human communities worldwide.