COMMENTARY: As we enter into this new world of AI technology, we will have to be ethically cautious and vigilant.

After reading the Register’s “The Rise of the Catholic Anti-AI Movement,” I thought I would introduce an important distinction to clarify statements made in this rather balanced article. 

I should state at the outset that the dangers mentioned by the Catholic anti-AI spokespeople should be taken seriously. There are inherent dangers with chatbots that simulate human beings and falsely portray personal human traits such as sympathy, empathy, care, friendship and morality. These human activities and interior states cannot be reduced to physical processes and structures, and so AI will never be able to genuinely produce them — nor will it ever be able to produce self-consciousness, abstract intellection, transcendental and spiritual awareness or free actions. AI will never be human.

Beyond the problem of inciting young and old alike to treat nonhuman, nontranscendent and nonmoral “simulation machines” as human beings, AI’s mimicry of human interpersonal relationships can even encourage immoral and suicidal behavior. Beyond this, there are other dangers mentioned by Pope Leo XIV in Magnifica Humanitas, such as autonomous AI weaponry, student indolence, AI oligarchies, privacy concerns, destructive effects on education and other problems. 

Notwithstanding these significant challenges, generative AI is notintrinsically evil (unlike abortion, fetal experimentation and physician-assisted suicide), because the very use of generative AI does notalways directly cause unjust irreparable harm or the negation of human dignity.

Yes, someuses of generative AI can cause irreparable harm, but by no means do alluses of AI cause such harm and evil. This means that Catholics are free to use generative AI so long as they prudentially exercise caution and restraint for themselves and their children about the uses of AI that can be evil or harmful. The Catholic Church has applied this ethical distinction and method to dozens of issues, from gun control to genetic engineering (many of which Pope Leo mentions at the beginning of Magnifica Humanitas). 

So what are some of the licit and good uses of AI? Beyond Pope Leo’s recognition of AI as a “valuable tool,” there are many uses of AI already positively affecting science, technology, business, communications and much more. AI is helping develop new materials and procedures for producing clean and abundant energy (such as fusion), potable water from the atmosphere and desalination, and food through gene editing and hydroponic farming. It is also helping develop new satellite technologies that will significantly improve communications. 

Indeed, AI is enabling scientific and technological breakthroughs that previously would have taken vastly longer to achieve. Additionally, generative AI can now do lengthy, tedious tasks that most people would find boring and undignified. Use of AI in business is increasing productivity and efficiency, with the potential to bring down the cost of products and services while increasing output. 

I don’t mean to create a Pollyanna scenario for AI in the future — far from it. Nevertheless, there are legitimate good uses of AI, and many of us, perforce, will have to use it to remain competent in the new AI-enhanced world of science, technology, communications and business. As we enter into this new world, we will have to be ethically cautious and vigilant, as Pope Leo has stressed, to ensure that the world does not become darker and less humane than it already is.

Pope Leo has provided excellent initial suggestions for how to prevent harmful systemic and personal uses of AI:

• Establish robust legal frameworks and independent oversight so that tech monopolies and dominant private actors do not unilaterally dictate societal values.
• Prohibit delegating irreversible life-and-death decisions, as in autonomous weaponry, to computer algorithms.
• Insist that automation and AI must not treat human workers as disposable or subordinate human dignity to maximum system optimization. 
• Protect children and the vulnerable from fake, hyper-sexualized or manipulated online content that distorts human desire and erodes democratic trust. 

Catholic AI developers and ethicists can also help meet the challenges of AI at more granular levels in several ways, including:

• Offering seminars and tailored advice for schools, parishes, businesses and individuals on how to properly use AI and avoid harmful AI practices.
• Creating Catholic AIs, such as MagisAI, that do not pretend to be human beings while advancing the cause of Catholic education and evangelization by presenting evidence and answering secular criticisms about God, Jesus, life after death, the Catholic Church, the Holy Eucharist, Mary, Catholic morality, Catholic Scripture interpretation, Catholic spiritual life and much more. 

These initiatives will have to be developed much further as we proceed into an increasingly AI-enhanced world.

In my view, Pope Leo and the Catholic Church have once again struck the right balance on the ethical evaluation and use of this new transformative technology that will have significant effects, positive and negative, in the world. Catholics may, of course, choose to avoid it completely, but should not call it “evil,” because it is not always unjustly irreparably harmful or negating of human dignity. 

Instead, I recommend that Catholics use AI wherever it will benefit society, education, culture and Catholic evangelization, and exercise leadership on how to avoid unjust and harmful uses of AI not only for themselves and their families, but also for society and culture.

This story originally appeared in In Vino Veritas, the newsletter of the Magis Center. It is reprinted by National Catholic Register with the center’s permission.