The Power of AI
When it comes to technology, I am not a Luddite, but neither am I an early adopter. I did not have a cell phone until my senior year of college. I did not get a smartphone until several years after that. Even then, the purchase was prompted more by my poor sense of direction, which meant I craved a pocket-sized GPS that could also make phone calls. I do not describe any of this as a point of pride, but simply to demonstrate that the caution with which I approach the ongoing AI revolution is nothing new.
My late adoption of most technology is motivated not by a desire to live off the grid, but rather because I know that, once I engage with them, I will quickly and permanently become dependent on them. That pocket GPS? I still need it to get to even familiar places these days. If a new technology is going to be integrated into my life, I want to get to know a bit more about it first.
AI technology already exists in our lives in many ways. As it develops, it will continue to change our lives, as technology has always done, in ways good and bad. There will be no going back, which is why we have to consider so carefully how we want to go forward. I’m not pretending we can stem this tide, or even that it would be good to do so. But I am hoping, before we are fully immersed in it, we as Catholic communicators will do our best to prepare our hearts and minds for the types of ethical and professional choices a world integrated with AI will require.
Pope Francis wrote of new technologies in “Laudato Si’,” saying, “It is right to rejoice in these advances and to be excited by the immense possibilities which they continue to open up before us.” Indeed, the capabilities of my first iPhone were thrilling, and more recently, I rejoiced again when I bought a shiny, fully functional iPhone 16 to replace my old iPhone SE that had a failing battery and a cracked screen.
But Francis’ enthusiasm also comes with a warning. In “Laudato Si’,” he writes that new technologies have “given those with the knowledge, and especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we consider how it is currently being used. … The fact is that ‘contemporary man has not been trained to use power well,’ because our immense technological development has not been accompanied by a development in human responsibility, values and conscience. Each age tends to have only a meager awareness of its own limitations. It is possible that we do not grasp the gravity of the challenges now before us.”
“AI will kill us, but before then it will be really, really helpful.”
Retha Hill, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University
The CMA’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI has been working to develop a section on AI ethics for our Fair Publishing and Practices Code, which we hope will be one way to help Catholic communicators grapple with this new kind of power. These guidelines are not meant to be descriptive, sanctioning every current use of AI, but rather prescriptive, challenging CMA members to consider how it should be used. We hope they will help our members think deliberately about their own ethical use of AI, not only as professionals but as people of faith.
Retha Hill, a faculty member at the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, presented a workshop at the Catholic Media Conference in Phoenix called “Unlocking Creativity: How AI is Transforming Storytelling and Journalism.” She, too, rejoiced in the capabilities and possibilities AI offers our profession. She demonstrated technology that could turn the text of reported stories into animated videos with a fraction of the work it might take for a human.
But the questions she raised naturally went beyond how-tos and ventured into what’s next. And she, too, offered a warning: At the end of her presentation, she said, “Eventually, AI will kill us all. But before that it will be really, really useful.” She spoke with a laugh, but beneath that joke was a truth, not unlike what Francis was trying to say: AI is powerful and we do not yet fully understand its potential. As we integrate it into our lives and work, our approach to AI technology must be informed by an acknowledgement of that power, as well as an understanding of our own responsibility as humans.
Who better to grapple with these questions than Catholic communicators? Let us continue to facilitate the type of discussion and learning that will enable us to more fully understand the gifts, limitations and gravity of our time.