Staying Human: VCSJ Lecturer Unpacks the Catholic Response to AI

If the first Industrial Revolution forced the Church to confront the dignity of workers, the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution demands something even bolder: a renewed defense of the human person. 

That was the message from Joseph M. Vukov, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Philosophy and Associate Director, The Hank Center for The Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University, Chicago, IL, during his lecture, “The Catholic Intellectual Tradition in an Era of AI.”

Dr. Vukov was the third speaker in the 2025–26 Vincentian Chair of Social Justice Lecture Series, and his talk, held November 17 in the D’Angelo Center on St. John’s University’s Queens, NY, campus, continued the series theme, “The Catholic Intellectual Tradition.”

Dr. Vukov is a leading voice in the intersection of AI, ethics, and Catholic thought. He firmly believes that the Catholic intellectual tradition is up to the challenge of meeting the ethical, anthropological, and spiritual challenges posed by artificial intelligence. He quickly dispels what he sees as the misconception that the Catholic tradition fears technology.

“Catholic intellectual tradition is not, nor ever has been, antitechnological. Cathedral architecture is about as cutting-edge as you can possibly imagine,” he said. “Catholics were not only okay with technological development, but in fact leading it.” 

He added, “The Church encourages the advancement of science and technology and views them as part of the collaboration of man and woman with God in perfecting the visible creation.”

He stressed that Pope Leo XIV chose his name to honor Pope Leo XIII, a pontiff who shepherded the Church through the growing pains associated with the Industrial Revolution. “He has leaned into AI,” Dr. Vukov observed.

Catholics and the Catholic approach to technology have always embraced it with “open arms,” he stressed. “The Church has explicitly endorsed, recommended, and even led the way in technological development.”

Dr. Vukov believes many of the challenges and problems posed by AI come from a misunderstanding of precisely what it is. “Artificial intelligence is, above all else, a tool. The use of our tools, however, is not necessarily always directed solely to the good. In fact, when our ancestors sharpened flint stones to make knives, they used them both to cut hides for clothing and to kill each other.”

Dr. Vukov explained that AI is not an intelligence. It is predictive, trained on human data, and has inherited human bias. “There’s all sorts of things that turn out to be absolutely central to human intelligence that AI, either obviously or not so obviously, just doesn’t do,” he stressed. 

“Human intelligence includes embodiment, relationality, and an orientation toward the truth. Human intelligence wants to get things right, and wants to line up with reality and a capacity for willing, choosing, and desiring. Those are all things human intelligence does that a predictive tool simply isn’t doing. Do the limitations of AI mean that it’s a tool that we simply can’t use? Is the fact that it’s prone to bias and misinformation, and the fact that it doesn’t exactly replicate human intelligence, give us reasons not to use it? I don’t think so.”

Dr. Vukov offered, “We’re already living in technologically rich classrooms. There are a lot of tools being pitched to us. I imagine the administrators in the room get pitched even more than the professors in the room new AI tools meant to enter the higher education space and make our lives better. I want to suggest that some of those might actually be correct pitches. There might be some applications in higher education spaces that do, in a substantive way, make our lives better.”

However, in practice, AI and other digital tools are often misaligned to promote not human dignity, but efficiency and profit. As it becomes deeply integrated into daily use, in crucial areas such as medicine, education, and business, Dr. Vukov noted it must be guided by a set of values. “The problem comes in when our value alignment gets off, and when we pursue in such an efficiency to the detriment of more human-aligned values.” 

He added, “I think this idea of value alignment is a helpful way of thinking about where we’re going right and where we’re going wrong.”

The challenge of precisely who gets to use these tools is most directly connected with social justice issues. “The Church has had a lot to say about that over the years. In one sense, of course, it’s true that we all get to use these tools. ChatGPT is free. If you haven’t used it, you can pull it up on your phone right now and go for it. In a different sense, AI tools are inevitably distributed unequally, and in ways that often are unjust.”

Discussing the Church’s preferential option for the poor, Dr. Vukov said, as we make decisions, both personally and especially at a social and political level, not only do we have to pay attention to the poor and the vulnerable—we must first consider marginalized populations.

“We have moved forward with AI integration without really giving an option at all to the vulnerable, let alone a preferential option,” he said.

“Dr. Vukov’s lecture came at a crucial moment when artificial intelligence is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and it was fascinating to hear his perspective on how the Church is engaging with this rapidly evolving technology,” said doctoral student Miriam E. Prever. “I truly appreciated him taking the time to address students and listen to our thoughts, especially as we navigate how AI is beginning to alter our very sense of what it means to be human.” 

“As a research assistant exploring the use of AI within homeland security, I found Dr. Vukov's lecture to be very informative,” explained Matthew E. Sroczynski ‘25CCPS. “It was a great opportunity to learn from an expert in the field of AI. Specifically, I found interest in hearing about how AI can be detrimental to our environment because of how much power and energy it consumes when a search or video is made. I appreciate Dr. Vukov taking the time to sit down and speak with myself and other students, opening my mind to how AI is growing and being utilized.”

The Catholic intellectual tradition can help chart some of the contours of the questions we are facing right now and offer strategies to deal with them, Dr. Vukov offered. “That is a gift the Church can offer to Catholics and non-Catholics alike. We need to confront this era with both cultural and spiritual responses,” Dr. Vukov stressed.

“Dr. Vukov’s lecture was a tour de force,” noted Rev. Patrick J. Griffin, C.M. ’13HON, Executive Director, Vincentian Center for Church and Society. “He proposed four basic questions around the relationship of artificial intelligence to human dignity as understood in the Catholic and faith-based traditions. Drawing a line from Pope Leo XIII in the Industrial Revolution to Pope Leo XIV in our emerging digital revolution, Dr. Vukov offered a foundation for much further reflection and discussion as we seek a just response in today’s world.”