Many people believe that humans were created with a unique identity in the image and likeness of God, but with spiking rates of AI usage, Christians have become concerned with the possible threat AI poses on this ideal.
This may leave people wondering if AI could change the true meaning of humanity, and if so, what can be done to prevent it.
According to Dr. Robert Brooks’ article “What Makes Us Human,” to be “human” means to have the ability to create and to possess qualities that make one human, such as compassion, love and understanding.
Catholics believe that humans were created through God’s eyes, meaning through love and for love.
“AI in no way challenges that belief. Our belief is drawn from our own human experience and from God’s revelation in history. Through our experience of desire for the highest things such as perfect love, and through the glimpses we get of that on Earth, we sense that we are made for Heaven, ” Xavier theology teacher Geoffrey Stricklin says. “None of those technologies essentially challenge or change the reality of who we are and what we can hope for in God. Technologies do, however, challenge our commitment and resolve to hold on to these truths.”
Currently, AI is changing everything, and slowly it is reaching the potential to imitate human emotions, personalities and thinking. This prompts the thought that the new adaptations of artificial intelligence could possibly interfere with understanding of human identity and authentic human relationships.
“We are already at a place where we group humans according to their abilities or what they can and cannot achieve. My concern is that AI will do this even further. It is focused on getting the job done. It is not focused on human rights, respect and morality,” campus ministry director Danielle Lambert ‘09 states.
Stricklin describes it as a poison that may kill humans over time. “Like any addiction, attachment to things that are not human will gradually dull our senses and capacities and even our desire for what is truly human. And this is a real danger,” he says.
For Catholics, God’s intention for humanity was to love and to create. Losing sight of human authenticity can distort the ability to create through love, whether it may be love of a task or love for each other.
“Everything that surrounds work – its product, the technological process, the profit that results, even whole economies – are not ends in themselves. The purpose of work is the flourishing of the human person. And part of that seems to be the actual doing of the work itself,” Stricklin adds.
Gradually, music, art and intellectual skills diminish as AI is used to get jobs done, and get them done fast. The process of one thinking on one’s own and taking the time to create is, alarmingly, becoming a lost art. This may lead society to value humans primarily for productivity rather than for God-given identities.
“I think that is one of the greatest risks we run with AI,” Lambert says. “Everything is about productivity and intelligence.”
Lambert has noticed that the desire to do whatever it takes to get an A in school is overpowering the desire to learn, wonder and be curious. She says society forgets that we can just be.
“God is not about efficiency. He is about each human person He has created, and AI gets rid of any individuality in people,” she said.
These new technologies blend humans together, rather than unify them. The beauty of authentic ideas is plateauing.
“In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate,” says Pope Leo XIV.
Relying on AI to think for a human being, can also be viewed as rejecting trust in God, as He has given one the means to think and produce. Lambert notices this temptation, saying that artificial intelligence is easy to lean on, whereas it may be more difficult to patiently listen to God.
“Maybe sometimes I am meant to wait and see where things go in my life, but I speed it up and try to seek counsel elsewhere, completely missing what God intended for me,” she says.
To avoid said temptations, Lambert advises using AI as a beneficial tool rather than depending on it to get one through the day, which “gets rid of human interaction and reliance on God.”
Moving forward in this time of artificial intelligence, in the words of Pope Leo, human beings need to remember “algorithms lack the spark of humanity,” and our humanity lies within love — love for the craft, love for each other and love for God.
