Artificial intelligence is fast becoming one of the most pressing preoccupations in the Jungian world. The coming weeks bring three very different opportunities to think about it.
Artificial Intelligence and Deep Psychology (Belloc Abbey, France, May 23–24)
The most distinctive of the Espace Francophone Jungien conference taking place at Belloc Abbey in Urt, in the French Pyrénées-Atlantiques, on May 23 and 24. The setting alone makes it worth noting: a working abbey, with generous breaks for walks, informal conversation, and quiet reflection with a request to participants to set aside their electronic devices during shared sessions. It is a deliberate and quietly pointed choice for a conference about technology.
The program is rich and multidisciplinary. Saturday opens with Jean-Pierre Robert tracing the profound shift from the analog to the digital world and what it means for our relationship to reality, images, and the psyche. Sophie Braun then asks the question that sits at the heart of many such discussions: can a machine that lacks lived experience, corporeality, or the conscious-unconscious dialogue, ever truly accompany a living psychological process? Dragana Favre follows with a presentation on the uncanny dimension of AI — the familiar-yet-strange quality of digital spaces and AI-generated human speech, which she reads as a mirror testing our capacity to symbolise, dream, and transform.
Sunday brings Rachel Huber’s Jungian reading of AI as a mirror of the collective psyche’s quest for transcendence, including a case study in ethical and spiritual discernment and an opening onto what she calls cybertheology. Peggy Vermeesch draws on episodes of Star Trek to explore what happens when we outsource our inner figures to programmable AI companions. Yury Li-Toroptsov closes with a workshop inviting participants to collect and draw a personal symbol, then confronting it with an AI-generated equivalent. A final roundtable moderated by Jean Carlioz brings all speakers together for open discussion.
The conference is accessible both in person and by videoconference for plenary sessions. Full details and registration are available here.
Digitalization and Analytical Psychology (IAAP-IAJS Conference, UCL Institute of Education, 27-29 August)
We have covered the International Association for Jungian Studies conference on digitalization and analytical psychology previously, but it bears a reminder. Broader in scope than its title suggests, the conference takes in AI, online gaming, the unconscious meanings of digitalization, and how technology used for political purposes exacerbates cultural complexes. It is one of the more scholarly engagements with these questions currently on the Jungian calendar. Full details and registration available here.
Archetypes in the Machine (AJA Half-Day Conference, online, June 27)
Also previously covered, the Association of Jungian Analysts’ half-day online conference on June 27 brings together four speakers — Stephen Garratt, Patrycja Jackson, Orsolya Lukács, and Richard Jenkins — to explore AI through the lens of analytical psychology, from an accessible account of what AI actually is to an astrological reading of the moment, explorations of archetypal and imaginal resources, and Jung’s own encounters with non-human intelligences in the Red and Black Books. Tickets are £30 for AJA members and £45 for non-members. The event will be recorded and made available to registered participants.