AI Cannot Know God; AI Cannot Love Truth

Recently I was rather chilled to note a piece of “art” on the Internet misrepresenting  Michelangelo’s fresco of God reaching out to touch the finger of Adam, as a symbol of the gift of life.  Instead of a human finger, a contemporary artist depicted a robotic finger extended towards  God.  

But Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a thing…not a human being; it is made by man, not by God.  AI cannot pursue the good, the true, and the beautiful.  It cannot love or be confused with love.  In the hands of the ill intended, foolish, or ignorant, AI could be weaponized and turned on its maker.

Still, beyond some obvious truths about AI and numerous cautionary movies like Walle-E, it was not until Pope Leo XIV’s explanation of his chosen name, and that AI is akin to the crisis of his predecessor’s Industrial Age that the subject spurred me to explore the concept and consequencesI in more depth.

 
I discovered Antiqua et Nova (Ancient and New), a deeply insightful exploration of artificial intelligence and its sweeping influence over the human person.   The doctrinal note, co-issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education (Jan 14, 2025), offers numerous reflections on the “anthropological and ethical challenges raised by AI.”  

 
With over two hundred citations from Aristotle to Saints such as Augustin and Aquinas, to several Popes such as Pope Paul VI, Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis, to the First and Second Vatican Councils, inclusive of the Catholic Catechism, the document spans many areas Artificial Intelligence (AI) does or could deeply influence.    

 
These include society, human relationships, the economy and labor, healthcare, education, personal rights, protection of our common home, warfare, and perhaps, most fundamentally our relationship with God including Truth.  Examining AI requires  acknowledgement of its good if used in service of the individual person and for just stewardship of the world but by wisdom to recognize its pitfalls and potentiality to be manipulated for evil in the wrong hands.   Moreover, even well intended persons can employ AI poorly if they lack knowledge, understanding and embrace of Truth in accordance with the Magisterium of the Catholic Church.

 
For example, two years ago, Elon Musk correctly asserted that AI has the potential of “civilization destruction” (Interview with Tucker Carlson—CNN reporting April 17, 2023),  putting the brakes to any misplaced expectations about AI and ringing the alarm bell.  He proposed a “TruthGPTChat” to rein in any manipulative forces that could lead to catastrophe.  He appropriately identified the risks of AI and touted an ethical solution, but the question left hanging was still:  Who determines truth?

 
In another piece by Fortune (Tristan Bove, March 29, 2023), giant tech conglomerates like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon were criticized for cutting their AI ethics teams in what Elon Musk and Steve Wozniak called an “out of control race” roll out of AI products. Several technologists and independent AI researchers signed an open letter for a six month pause to better study the potential effects and consequences.

 
In his Inauguration Mass Homily (May 18, 2025), Pope Leo XIV, stressed love, unity, and peace, and “to build a church founded on love, a sign of unity, a missionary church that opens its arms to the world, that proclaims the Word, … and becomes a leaven for humanity.”   Also, in his earliest remarks, Pope Leo XIV self identified as the leader for that AI challenge,  and should we not hope for a commission to pursue holy guidance in the matter of AI?

Catholics, particularly the Catholic Church provides the world with the best guidance system to monitor the development and application of AI.  Most importantly, relying on timeless love and truth, its oversight can best steer the optimum uses of AI and help the world reject the most threatening ones.  Too,  if AI is misused or abused, the greater peril is to the salvation of souls. 

Among the immediate attention grabbers in Antiqua Et Nova were those sections that raised the reality of AI’s gross limitations and disconnect from Creation, and most importantly the Love of our Creator.  AI is a product of man’s intelligence, not a replacement for it.  AI cannot think but merely mirrors, in the best or worst ways,  human intelligence.  Per Antiqua Et Nova “human intelligence is ultimately God’s gift fashioned for the assimilation of Truth (21).”

 
AI cannot fathom, let alone contemplate, the depths of theology.  I pondered at one point of my research that AI cannot mediate on “I thirst,” Jesus Christ’s words from the Cross.  Upon hearing such words, a robot would most likely retrieve a glass of water from a kitchen sink.   

 
For those tempted to replace human relations with it,  AI cannot recognize the peace of Jesus Christ or be in Communion with the Holy Trinity or relational with other persons.  Whether machine, robot or phantom ghost, AI cannot be imbued with sanctifying grace or grow in virtue and genuinely love a person.  Under the worst circumstances, if designed by evil programmers, an AI figure could do real damage to many people.

 
Though potentially a valuable tool, these realities make AI a danger to the salvation of souls in myriad ways.  To the affluent, it can become an idol that seems to bend to the will of the person using it in all environments. To the average worker, AI becomes threatening competition without need for salary or a benefits package—as in the time of the Industrial Revolution.  The weakest among us could be eventually discarded, all together,  as being inferior to machines.  Per Antiqua Et Nova, “AI risks succumbing to a functionalist perspective, where people are valued based on the work they perform.” (shades of the Industrial Age).  However a person’s worth is in his or her “inherent dignity,” grounded in being created the image of God”  and recognizing the “fullness of the human vocation.”  This is regardless of the person’s health condition.   

 
At its best AI is a entity that can serve human interests, but still is disconnected from the human experience, mimicking only that which its designers permit.

 
Antiqua Et Nova notes the Church’s moral and social teaching that envelops justice and prudence, even while using AI to alleviate suffering in rightful ways.  In other words, the innovators of AI require oversight most by well grounded Catholics than engineers to attain maximum contribution.   

 
Evidently Pope Leo XIV has been musing on these realities for considerable time and clearly sees the threads of the Industrial Revolution leading to where we are today.  How much time he likely spent in prayer over that which would kill billions of souls if left unchecked or ignored?  As a ponderer of Truth, the links obviously materialized in the Pope’s inspired  intellect.  Thus his Papal name signals the reality that the downside to human nature, in all its woundedness, stretches across all space and time. 

 
From the invention of the wheel and other simple tools, there is ever the temptation that transverses many areas and circumstances, from work to home, to tinker with creation in self serving and self willed ways.   Pride makes man “little gods” living in the delusion that they can master the world and any creature—even manufacture life.

 
Most critically, it would seem that Pope Leo XIV understands very well that since St. Pope Leo XIII, many have not heeded the encyclical Rerum Novarum sufficiently to ward off the dangers of the  “child” of the Industrial Revolution, known as AI. 

 
What are those insights from hindsight that could be the foundation of a public treatise on Artificial Intelligence?

 
Since at least the mid 1800’s, persons and whole groups, including nations, have been increasingly divorced from the land and moved into into mechanized environments subject to the authority of scientists and engineers, producing insidious opportunities for depersonalization.  

 
Despite St. Pope Leo XIII’s exhortations in the latter 19th century for balanced social justice, especially in our relationship with God,  we still too frequently, selfishly politicalize or individually apply his entreats.    Today’s “working man” remains subject to exploitation because there will always be the greedy, excessive capitalist opportunists and power hungry.  However, if we are to be honest, the “poor” are not always so deprived and pursue their own agendas.  Enticing ideologies, like communism advanced despite spiritual respites by saints and holy persons, and some martyrs.

 
Furthermore, our “Age of Convenience”  spawned by the Industrial Revolution, provides more leisure time, with a different set of lures entrapments for the weary:   visual stimulants (popular music and films), increased cross communication (phone), faster transportation (cars, trains), and other conveniences.   

The final outcomes today include depopulation, population redistribution, and designer embryos by gene and DNA manipulation. The latter may be a select cohort for future domination or submissive minions.  Throw in mass produced, soulless machines and enlivened but abstract figures like Siri, and you could have a world ruled by atheistic elites. 

 
These simultaneous assaults on the dignity of the human person are ever more evident as the introduction of artificial intelligence portends to actually replace people born naturally in authentically formed families headed by a father and a mother.  By benign integration of robots into daily life,  people are becoming accustomed and acclimated to be emerged in mechanical connectivity.  Note the cute robotic servers in restaurants, the sweeping mechanical inventory checkers at major retail outlets, and the dancing robots for our amusement.  Do they not resemble real people?

 
Moreover, they do not argue, talk back, or threaten.  Likely they can be turned off…for now.  Even some people are choosing these artificial companions—which began with mechanical pets—as friends, roommates, and likely partners in the near future.  Is it difficult to imagine a world whereby “children” are manufactured and according to the specifications of the purchasers?  

 
Pray and sacrifice for Pope Leo XIV and his wisdom following the Holy Spirit.  However, like the Church of 2,000 years ago, as well as the Church in the 1800’s, he is the Shepherd, not the field hand, the servant of servants, but not the sole subject in the Kingdom of  God.  He can lead, but we must follow.  Has that not been his plea so far in his Papacy?

We must do our part.  This requires prayer, strong catechetical formation, community reflection,  cross sector discussion, and understanding AI’s impact on the individual person foremost and then society at large.  Most of us can start with studying Antiqua Et Nova, along with the documents that support its premise.

(In gratitude to Mary Sobel Ott for her review, content contribution, and edits.  However, any errors in the final draft are my own.)