Technology and artificial intelligence

What does the Church say about machines that think?

That they do not think. In January 2025 two Vatican dicasteries, with Francis’s approval, published _Antiqua et Nova_, a note on artificial intelligence and human intelligence, Antiqua et Nova 117 and its first answer is that AI’s advanced features give it “sophisticated abilities to perform tasks, but not the ability to think”. Antiqua et Nova 12 Calling it intelligence at all “can prove misleading”: AI “should not be seen as an artificial form of human intelligence but as a product of it”. Antiqua et Nova 35

That does not make the machines neutral. “It is an illusion to claim moral neutrality in scientific research and its applications”, and what is right “cannot be inferred from simple technical efficiency”. CCC 2294 Like anything people make, AI “can be directed toward positive or negative ends”, and its moral evaluation turns on “how it is directed and used”. Antiqua et Nova 40 The test it sets is that AI “always supports and promotes the supreme value of the dignity of every human being”, and it addresses that test to the technology’s users as well as to its developers, owners and regulators. Antiqua et Nova 43

Nor is the Church against it. “The Catholic Church is in no way opposed to progress”, and the results of science and technology “are, in themselves, positive”. CSDC 457

The danger it names is of putting the machine in God’s place. A tool that “can ‘speak,’ or at least gives the illusion of doing so” may be more seductive than the idols that have mouths and do not speak; yet “it is not AI that is ultimately deified and worshipped, but humanity itself—which, in this way, becomes enslaved to its own work”. Antiqua et Nova 105 So “AI should be used only as a tool to complement human intelligence rather than replace its richness”. Antiqua et Nova 112

Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel, 1563. Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Gn 11:4

2293

Basic scientific research, as well as applied research, is a significant expression of man's dominion over creation. Science and technology are precious resources when placed at the service of man and promote his integral development for the benefit of all. By themselves however they cannot disclose the meaning of existence and of human progress. Science and technology are ordered to man, from whom they take their origin and development; hence they find in the person and in his moral values both evidence of their purpose and awareness of their limits.

2294

It is an illusion to claim moral neutrality in scientific research and its applications. On the other hand, guiding principles cannot be inferred from simple technical efficiency, or from the usefulness accruing to some at the expense of others or, even worse, from prevailing ideologies. Science and technology by their very nature require unconditional respect for fundamental moral criteria. They must be at the service of the human person, of his inalienable rights, of his true and integral good, in conformity with the plan and the will of God.

456

The biblical vision inspires the behaviour of Christians in relation to their use of the earth, and also with regard to the advances of science and technology. The Second Vatican Council affirmed that man “judges rightly that by his intellect he surpasses the material universe, for he shares in the light of the divine mind” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 15: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1036.. The Council Fathers recognized the progress made thanks to the tireless application of human genius down the centuries, whether in the empirical sciences, the technological disciplines or the liberal arts Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 15: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1036.. Today, “especially with the help of science and technology, man has extended his mastery over nearly the whole of nature and continues to do so” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 33: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1052.. For man, “created in God's image, received a mandate to subject to himself the earth and all that it contains, and to govern the world with justice and holiness, a mandate to relate himself and the totality of things to him who was to be acknowledged as the Lord and Creator of all. Thus, by the subjection of all things to man, the name of God would be wonderful in all the earth. [The Council teaches that] throughout the course of the centuries, men have laboured to better the circumstances of their lives through a monumental amount of individual and collective effort. To believers, this point is settled: considered in itself, this human activity accords with God's will” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 34: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1052..

457

The results of science and technology are, in themselves, positive. “Far from thinking that works produced by man's own talent and energy are in opposition to God's power, and that the rational creature exists as a kind of rival to the Creator, Christians are convinced that the triumphs of the human race are a sign of God's grace and the flowering of His own mysterious design” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 34: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1053.. The Council Fathers also emphasize the fact that “the greater man's power becomes, the farther his individual and community responsibility extends” Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 34: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1053., and that every human activity is to correspond, according to the design and will of God, to humanity's true good Cf. Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes, 35: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 58 (1966) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1966), 1053.. In this regard, the Magisterium has repeatedly emphasized that the Catholic Church is in no way opposed to progress Cf. John Paul II, Address given at Mercy Maternity Hospital, Melbourne (28 November 1986): L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 9 December 1986, p. 13., rather she considers “science and technology are a wonderful product of a God-given human creativity, since they have provided us with wonderful possibilities, and we all gratefully benefit from them” John Paul II, Meeting with scientists and representatives of the United Nations University, Hiroshima (25 February 1981), 3: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 73 (1981) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1981), 422.. For this reason, “as people who believe in God, who saw that nature which he had created was ‘good', we rejoice in the technological and economic progress which people, using their intelligence, have managed to make” John Paul II, Meeting with employees of the Olivetti workshops in Ivrea, Italy (19 March 1990), 5: L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 26 March 1990, p. 7..

460

Man, then, must never forget that “his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his own work ... is always based on God's prior and original gift of the things that are”. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 37: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 840. He must not “make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray”. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 37: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 840. When he acts in this way, “instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him”. John Paul II, Encyclical Letter Centesimus Annus, 37: AAS — Acta Apostolicae Sedis (official gazette of the Holy See)Volume 83 (1991) at vatican.va — scanned PDF (1991), 840. If man intervenes in nature without abusing it or damaging it, we can say that he “intervenes not in order to modify nature but to foster its development in its own life, that of the creation that God intended. While working in this obviously delicate area, the researcher adheres to the design of God. God willed that man be the king of creation”. John Paul II, Address to the 35th General Assembly of the World Medical Association (29 October 1983): L'Osservatore Romano, English edition, 5 December 1986, p. 11. In the end, it is God himself who offers to men and women the honour of cooperating with the full force of their intelligence in the work of creation.

Antiqua et Nova Jan 28, 2025
Laudato si’ May 24, 2015

From the Catechism

From the Social Doctrine

From the Magisterium