Growing in the likeness of God in an AI world

“…a highly technical society accustoms individuals to obtain all that they wish by clicking a button, so they avail themselves of this method [rather than God] in order to obtain responses to the more difficult questions.” (exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth 2016)

Much ado has been made about AI and for good reason, since it is an increasingly pervasive influence in our lives. There are numerous opinions on this. But do we need them?  

In this century a popular sentiment has been, “Everyone has a right to their opinion!” An opinion isn’t a right. It is a mental action that automatically takes place in humans as part of the process of assessing one’s environment. But we do have the freedom to select those ideas we wish to incorporate into our thinking; those that will lead us to understanding God’s truth. Opinions can range from being a sentimental and feeling-based view on one end, to (on the other end) a well-reasoned conclusion based in probabilities and data. It has always been wise to seek the viewpoint of the latter rather than the former. After all, our faith teaches that, as our emotions increase in a disordered way, our ability to reason decreases.  The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains passions “form the passageway and ensure the connection between the life of the senses and the life of the mind. (1764) … [and] are morally qualified only to the extent that they effectively engage reason and will.” (1767). Seeking opinions and commentaries based on our emotions will not lead us to truth nor form us in wisdom. These will not lead us closer to Jesus who Himself is the truth and the personification of wisdom. 

Living virtuously, that is choosing to act in accord with a true understanding of Scripture and Tradition, is precisely that which orders our emotions to ‘right reason’, reasoning that flows from God’s truth (CCC1804). This “dispose(s) all the powers of the human being for communion with Divine love” (1805). In other words, this is how we live out the one and only commandment given to us by Jesus: to love others as He has (first) loved us (John 13:34). By being selective as to whose ‘voice’ we allow into our ear, we exercise prudence and grow in virtue. 

Now we have before us the guidance of Pope Leo XIV’s recent encyclical on AI (Magnifica Humanitas, On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence). It is a comprehensive guidance for this most recent societal challenge. We are blessed to have many theologians, scholars, and others with appropriate expertise to provide commentary and explanation. Our Pope’s Encyclical intended to address AI from the societal view, with the fundamental principle being the preeminence of the human person. He says, “the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it” (para. 117).  Ultimately, though, the most important decisions on the use of AI rests with us, the individual user.  And the conversation on the goodness and badness of individuals using AI typically carries out as follows: I think it is ok to use an AI chatbot (like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, etc.) because… 

• I like how its ‘perspective’ enriches my experience in studying,
• it does my work for me so I don’t have to,
• it makes me feel less afraid knowing I can rely on it for support,
• I have ‘someone’ to talk to who understands me.

 Notice the many “I” statements in this thinking. God is excluded. In the conversation on using AI, we tend to be its beginning and end, centered in us. Additionally, the decisions are typically rooted in the desire to experience an emotional consolation or intellectual satisfaction. We don’t ask the Holy Spirit to enrich our minds as we study, convict us of sloth when getting ‘someone’ else to do the work for us, take away our fear and loneliness, or open our hearts to God who is already within us and understands us perfectly. 

Their idols are silver and gold, the work of human hands. Their makers will be like them, and anyone who trusts in them. (Psalm 115:4, 8)

Which begs the questions: Can non-humans even have a perspective? Can human relations be experienced with a non-human? At the core is that we project human qualities onto things to meet our needs for communion with people. We are created to desire this communion with God, yet look to things that cannot satisfy this desire. We cannot have human relations with a non-human, soul-less creation. For any Christian, especially Catholic, that should be the starting point of the discussion: who are we as human persons created in God’s image? As the only creatures on the planet made as such with intellect and will? And how can I use AI as a tool that can sharpen my intellect so I can grow in His likeness? Instead, the discussion becomes polarized based on what people are feeling and the faux-psychological or emotional consolation from their chats with an AI bot. We are out of touch with our own humanity. And the science has already shown that use of AI to conduct research, summarize, and write for us not only mitigates critical thinking, it atrophies. It’s illogical to believe that having something else do your thinking will somehow grow your ability to intellect, reason and know. If anything, you’ll grow in its likeness rather than God’s. And research is already uncovering this to be true too. 

“Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a “limit” — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them.” (Magnifica Humanitas para. 118, my emphasis added)

Pope Leo also explains that we live “this ambivalence between human greatness and limitation, interpreting it in the light of our original and fundamental relationship with God.” (para. 118). Seeking human relations through non-human beings, whether it be treating your dog as if he were your child or seeking comfort from a chatbot, may be appealing as it poses no demand for vulnerability and no commitment to the other. But it results in suppressing important aspects of our very humanity: vulnerability and commitment to one another through relationship. Creatures who were created to grow in likeness of God through life’s experiences instead risk stagnating in maturity as this exterior fancy diverts them from the interior experience of human-to-human relations.  

The person living the discerning life, that is a life attempting to know and follow God’s will for them, has a quite different engagement with AI. The Church through her saints teach us that God should be the center of our life. This manner of living is captured in St. Ignatius’ Principle and Foundation. We focus on God when we keep top of mind the purpose He created in us. Part of living in the grace of the present moment is surrendering worries and temptations as these occur during the day.  We desire to take and use from creation only what we need to serve our purpose, no more and no less. And that includes AI. God has made us to seek truth so that we can know Him. To know God is to love Him for God is love. So being made in His image and likeness precisely means that we know Him in our intellect so as to love Him with our will. If we have AI seek for us, we are not seeking Him. We are seeking a fast way to getting an answer, or a variety of opinions to choose from, or to do our thinking for us. To seek Him is to seek knowing Him; it is relational. We cannot grow spiritually, that is, to grow in relationship with God, by using AI without prudence and discernment. 

“Other ages of the Church have put a greater emphasis on the interior life than our own age. Hence the language of interiority can seem foreign to our world today, like unfamiliar territory. The language of interiority can even seem to be not real, when in fact it is the most real thing there is! It touches on our share in the very interior life of God, the life of the Triune God that always was, is, and will be forever. It touches on carrying out our actions in our day-to-day lives not just robotically but from a depth of love, a love alone that endures into Eternity. In the end, we need not just more information but more wisdom and more love. Perhaps a machine can do little things just as well as we can but it cannot do little things with great love.” (Fr. Ignatius Schweitzer O.P., AI vs. Interiority)

The debate on the use of ai agents centers in self. It never starts where it should begin, with God and the truth of our humanity. That should be the fundamental principle, the starting point to making everyday choices. Especially with AI.

Wisdom and a deeper share in the Word of God offers something different from just more information. And note that we share in the Word while we possess information. The former involves the communion of love in wonderment over something greater than ourselves and that we can possess. (Fr. Ignatius Schweitzer O.P.)

Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam 😊

(Image  by Tara Winstead from Pexels)