Thoughtful Approaches to AI

As artificial intelligence continues to dominate headlines and proliferate many aspects of our digital lives, how do we thoughtfully approach AI? In the article, “On the Internet but Not of It: An Ignatian Approach to AI (and Digital Life),” Chase Mitchell writes for the Jesuit Media Lab:

AI isn’t “just a tool.” …Our intention in using it, while important, isn’t the only thing that matters. Precisely because generative AI is an ecology that forms our habits, attention and imagination, it cannot simply be “escaped.” But I’m also in agreement with Pope Leo and Dr. Rowlands that we, as Christians, can carefully and faithfully deploy new media technologies, including AI, for God’s good purposes.

This, it seems to me, is a profoundly Ignatian task: neither rejecting the world nor baptizing it uncritically, but discerning the spirits at work and learning to live faithfully—tactically—in a world that is not our own.

Also see these articles from the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat of the Society of Jesus:

• “Battling AI Bias: From Social Sin to Creative Disorientation” by David DeCosse and Irina Raicu of the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, Santa Clara University
• “Work Without Workers? Artificial Intelligence, Employment, and Human Society” by Diego Patino, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering at Pontificia Universidad Javeriana (Bogotá, Colombia)

As Patino writes, “Ignatian discernment reminds us that the ethical challenge is never simply to ask, what works best? but What serves the greater good?”