Most of the discussion about emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and large language models focus on the advantages or disadvantages of technology. Questions about safety, data protection, ownership of material, misinformation and bias, the impact on the job market, are all problems to be solved, perhaps even by more technology. The Church recognises that these questions are important.
However, in Church teaching, challenges related to emerging technologies are not simply technological. Rather these challenges are anthropological because they relate specifically to what it means to flourish as human persons, to human creativity and freedom, and in the context of unprecedented technological change, what is authentic human progress. These challenges are closely tied to safeguarding human dignity and they ask us to think deeply about human beings and what it is to be truly human.
Theologically we know that our very humanity is significant. Not only are human beings made in the image of God, but also in His incarnation Jesus assumed our human nature and took that nature back to God through His resurrection and ascension. Each one of us is unique and unrepeatable with our own human story and called to eternal life with God. No one can be reduced merely to cognitive functioning. Nobody can be replicated or replaced or digitally created or deemed redundant, and nothing can replace the care that we have for each other. God loves human beings. He loves each of us for our own sakes and by name. Each one of us is precious in His eyes. Post-human technologies that seek to go beyond our human nature forget that God loves each one of us in our human fragility and our human limitations. Our yearning for transcendence is found in becoming more truly human not in fleeing from our humanity. Our fragility and limitations open us up to caring relationships, to compassion and empathy. Above all, our fragility is a real sign of our dignity, and it opens us up to God and the workings of grace.
Our yearning for transcendence is found in becoming more truly human not in fleeing from our humanity.
Reflecting on God as Trinity reminds us that we have full human dignity as individuals and that we are also called to true relationships with the world, others and with God. Our relationships with other human beings cannot be reduced to virtual realities: our relationships are always person to person. Moreover, the danger with some technologies is that they persuade us that we can grasp all there is to know through amassing more and more data. This leads to the temptation of forgetting to reflect on deeper and higher questions, and of closing down our openness to the mystery of our existence.
Authentic human progress is related to our call to exercise dominion, good stewardship over the world. Dominion is frequently equated with power, but irresponsible power leads to poverty in relationships and disregard for others, especially the vulnerable. Dominion as a creative aspect of our human dignity and part of God’s plan for us means that our scientific and technological activities are signs of God’s grace when our activities are in harmony with the genuine good of all humanity. Dominion also involves freedom. Many people recognise the dangers of digital slavery, especially for young people. However, authentic freedom is not a licence to do whatever we like. Authentic freedom ensures that we make free and deliberate choices directed towards the common good and to make such choices we also need grace.
The Church has always been concerned with anthropology and human dignity because the Church’s mission is to bring people to Christ. The Church’s social teaching, with its emphasis on human dignity, subsidiarity, solidarity, care of the marginalised, and the common good, reflects this concern. Insights from the Church’s social teaching offer an anthropological context on emerging technologies that take account of the dignity of the human person, centred on Christ, true God and true man, reminding us that technologies have their place at the service of human beings and in pursuit of the common good where no one is left behind.
