{"id":87122,"date":"2025-08-16T11:36:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-16T11:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87122\/"},"modified":"2025-08-16T11:36:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-16T11:36:06","slug":"catholic-bioethics-expert-on-ai-its-not-too-late-to-put-the-genie-back-in-the-bottle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/87122\/","title":{"rendered":"Catholic bioethics expert on AI: \u2018It\u2019s not too late to put the genie back in the bottle\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n \"Kate
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

By Kate Qui\u00f1ones<\/a>\n <\/p>\n

CNA Newsroom, Aug 16, 2025 \/
\n 07:00 am<\/p>\n

As artificial intelligence (AI) has become more widespread, a Catholic bioethics expert is warning against the dangers posed by it, saying it’s \u201cnot too late\u201d to \u201cput the genie back in the bottle\u201d and avoid the worst effects of the new technology.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV has already warned that AI could have negative effects<\/a> on the development of young people and contribute to a \u201closs of the sense of the human.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took the name Leo XIV to connect himself to Leo XIII, who himself was dealing with the Industrial Revolution of the late century, which totally transformed culture,\u201d moral theologian Charles Camosy, a bioethics professor at the Catholic University of America and an acclaimed author, told \u201cEWTN News In-Depth\u201d Anchor Catherine Hadro on Aug. 15.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re undergoing right now a similar technological change that is going to totally transform the culture,\u201d Camosy said. \u201cHow do we respond?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Camosy recently wrote a story for the Atlantic<\/a> in which he argued that addressing artificial intelligence \u201ccould be the most ambitious and enduring project of Pope Leo XIV’s legacy.\u201d<\/p>\n

AI is \u201cgoing to impact nearly every part of our culture,\u201d Camosy noted, adding that \u201cpeople often can’t tell the difference when they’re talking to a human being or a chatbot.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTo the extent that we have any confusion about that, that’s really super worrisome, because we need to hold on to this idea that we’re fundamentally different from a large language model,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are flesh and blood made in the image and likeness of God with a soul that reflects a relationship that can’t possibly be present in a chatbot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

With an ongoing loneliness epidemic<\/a>, people are already vulnerable, he noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Camosy remarked that if individuals are living in a world where, \u201caddicted to their smartphones,\u201d they are unable to communicate authentically and lack friends who can respond genuinely, they can become \u201cvulnerable to a very articulate chatbot.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said AI chatbots are not just \u201cstepping in to fill the void, but doing so in ways that at least imitate the need that all of us have for intimacy, for somebody to care about us.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

It is something that the Church has been addressing for some time via working groups on AI, Camosy noted.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could argue that the Church has been ahead of the broader culture on AI because these groups have been around for some years,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Camosy referred to the Vatican document Antiqua et Nova: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence<\/a> as a Catholic resource on AI.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI suspect, but don’t know for sure, that our current Holy Father is at least in the early stages of putting something like that together,\u201d he continued.\u00a0<\/p>\n

(Story continues below)<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt’s not just AI,\u201d he said, noting that the AI discussion ties into the \u201cadvent of transhumanism<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Transhumanism is a scientific and cultural movement proposing the modification of human biology through technology, potentially blurring the lines between the artificial and the real.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re in this really important cultural moment where this second industrial revolution is right on the cusp of happening. Thank God we have someone like Pope Leo\u201d to lead the Church through it, Camosy said.<\/p>\n

He pointed to grand claims that AI will eventually help human beings move away from work altogether. But work, he pointed out, is “an integral part of the human experience.”<\/p>\n

“We need protections for work. We need protections for workers,” he said. “It’s not too late to put the genie back in the bottle on this one. We have to create a culture that shapes AI to serve human beings, not the other way around.”<\/p>\n


\n \"Kate
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

Kate Qui\u00f1ones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix. She has been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register, and CatholicVote, and she graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kate Qui\u00f1ones CNA Newsroom, Aug 16, 2025 \/ 07:00 am As artificial intelligence (AI) has become more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":87123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,43265,60003,1929,19431,74,25],"class_list":["post-87122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-catholic-news","tag-charles-camosy","tag-labor","tag-pope-leo-xiv","tag-technology","tag-us"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/87123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}