About

I am Octavian M. Machidon, a computer scientist and scholar of artificial intelligence working at the intersection of AI systems, ethics, human formation and the philosophy and theology of technology.

I am an Assistant Professor at the University of Ljubljana, Faculty of Computer and Information Science, and a member of the University’s Centre for Human-Centred Artificial Intelligence and the Ethics of New Technologies. From October 2026 I will also be a John Paul II Postdoctoral Fellow at the Pontifical University of Saint Thomas Aquinas — the Angelicum — in Rome, where my work focuses on artificial companionship, agentic AI and the crisis of human relation.

My technical research grew out of embedded and reconfigurable computing and now includes adaptive and resource-efficient AI, mobile and edge intelligence, context-aware systems, federated learning, digital health, remote sensing and on-device machine learning. I am interested in systems that respond intelligently to changing conditions while remaining efficient, controllable and deployable outside the laboratory.

Alongside this technical work, I study what increasingly capable and pervasive AI systems do to human agency, moral judgment, cognition, education, relationships, spiritual life and dignity. My recent research examines moral alignment in large language models, cognitive and intellectual deskilling, artificial companionship, recommender systems, human control over advanced AI, and the ways digital technologies shape persons rather than merely serve them.

A question connecting these strands guides much of my work:

AI is changing what we can do. What is it changing in us?

I currently lead Moral Red Lines, a Future of Life Institute-supported international initiative developing morally grounded boundaries for advanced AI from the perspective of Catholic moral thought and human dignity. I also serve as institutional Principal Investigator for UL FRI in the interdisciplinary project Theology and Digitalization: Anthropological and Ethical Challenges.

My academic formation spans engineering, computer science and theology. I received a PhD in Electronics and Telecommunications from Transilvania University of Brașov and later completed formal university studies in theology. Before joining the University of Ljubljana, I held academic roles in Romania and worked in semiconductor and embedded-systems engineering, including ASIC/FPGA verification.

I regularly speak to academic, professional and public audiences on AI ethics, education, digital wellbeing, human dignity, moral alignment and the societal consequences of advanced AI.