Building Babel or Jerusalem: AI, Human Dignity, and the Common Good. Juliana Griffith, Texas Christian University
Babel or Jerusalem?
When asked for her biggest takeaway from Magnifica Humanitas, Argentine Catholic Theologian Emilce Cuda highlighted the call for humanity’s choice in the age of artificial intelligence. We will choose to either build a new Tower of Babel or build the walls of Jerusalem.
The metaphor comparing the formation of Babel to Jerusalem provides a framework for understanding the implementation of artificial intelligence rooted in Scripture. In the Bible, Babel symbolizes individual pride and power, creating a divided, ultimately weaker community. Conversely, Jerusalem represents peace and working in community towards the common good.
This opposition resonated with me because it parallels the question at the core of Creative Investment Research’s mission: Should innovation be evaluated primarily on the potential for financial return, or by its potential to improve human quality of life? With this question in mind, the debate surrounding the morality of AI is not truly about the abilities of a new technology, but rather about the values of its users in guiding development and deployment of its abilities.
Human Dignity in the Age of AI
Meghan Sullivan, Founding Director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good at the University of Notre Dame, emphasized that technological advancement must not ever come at the expense of inherent human dignity. She went on to describe the rise of “dehumanizing work,” work in which people are expected to adapt their own actions and beliefs to machines rather than designing the technologies to adapt to human needs.
Connecting “dehumanizing work” to Catholic social teachings, Sullivan called upon the importance of human agency. Human agency involves free will and the process of moral judgement and is central to human dignity as taught by the Church. The speakers wrestled with tradeoffs between improving efficiency and maintaining human agency. The central problem with machines taking partial agency, is that the moral and social responsibility remains in the hands of humans.
Sullivan’s discussion is especially relevant as AI increasingly infiltrates nearly every sector of our modern society. The challenge is ensuring technological progress stays aligned with human ethical responsibility to the common good. Thus, we all must constantly check our use of powerful technologies, both on a personal level and in our work.
Healthcare Access and Social Return
My favorite discussion from the livestream focused on AI and healthcare, an area of particular interest to me.
Daniel Daly, executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health, provided powerful insight to how artificial intelligence could potentially expand access to essential healthcare services. This could look like telehealth, translations to cater to language barriers, and assistance in navigating government health programs like Medicare and Medicaid. Daly emphasized his careful use of the word “could”.
Barriers to truly expanding healthcare access lie not in the technological capabilities, but in economics. The populations that would benefit most from the expanded access services are primarily low-income and publicly-insured patients. Therefore, healthcare organizations have little financial incentive to cater to such populations. This pulls back to the central question of prioritizing social return over financial return.
Once again, the conversation returned to a choice between Babel and Jerusalem: Will AI be used in uplifting human health needs or will it be streamlined to operations that generate the highest profits.
Implications for Black Maternal Health
Throughout Daly’s discussion of AI in healthcare, I immediately connected my research on the public health crisis of Black Maternal Mortality in the United States.
The factors contributing to the failing maternal health landscape involve significant barriers to access, including healthcare deserts, difficulty navigating government assistance programs, transportation limitations, and inadequate access to preventive care including health education.
The choice of businesses to integrate AI for use of the common good, and not solely catering to accumulation of wealth, is vital to lowering Black maternal mortality in the United States as well as improving the overall quality of maternal healthcare.
A Young Professional’s Take on AI
Lastly, I wanted to share a personal perspective on AI use as a young professional.
Moderator Kim Daniels opened the livestream by commenting on recent online responses of booing college graduates during speeches praising artificial intelligence. I related to the graduates’ pushback, especially when AI is currently being put on a pedestal above human capacity.
I remember the moment in my sophomore year of high school when a peer pulled me aside to show me this thing called ChatGPT that would write my papers for me. Despite my initial skepticism, ChatGPT quickly replaced Quizlet as my study partner of choice. At first, it was a great resource, I embraced the help and efficiency that AI offered.
Now, five years later, AI has become a large nuisance in my academic career. In group projects, peer contribution is oftentimes primarily AI writing. Professors use AI to formulate their lesson plans, leaving out personal anecdotes and insights from their extensive and successful field careers. And research papers that took weeks of effort are graded by a machine in less than 30 seconds.
Most relevant to the booing crowd in the AI discussion is the post-grad job market. Finding an entry-level position has never been more difficult. Applications are reviewed by an AI bot, completely skipping human judgement often used to sift through candidates. Furthermore, entry-level positions are being replaced by those same bots. This is an issue for me, but will have an even larger impact on minority communities. As seen in the latest Beige Book report, economic shifts including shifts in the labor market affect vulnerable populations more quickly and more severely than the rest of the market.
The efficiency is still a perk, but development of human capabilities are dwindling class by class and genuine feedback is being lost. The professors that I look up to the most prioritize showing students the objective beauty and goodness of human-produced work.
Seeking objective beauty in thoughtful human creativity, as Pope Leo XIV calls us to do, is something I will continue to push myself to do more and more as AI is more integrated into my personal and professional life. As Meghan Sullivan said in the livestream, when we are exposed to such genuine beauty, it “hits you in the gut”, “calls to the soul” and “cultivates the desire for truth” in all of us.