Catholics have an opportunity to help shape artificial intelligence while its design principles and business models are still taking form, Taylor Black told an audience at The Catholic University of America, urging individuals and institutions to bring a Catholic understanding of the human person into decisions about how the technology is used and built.
Black, founding executive director of Catholic University’s Leonum Institute for AI and Emerging Technologies, delivered the final presentation of the “AI and the Meaning of Work” symposium Sept. 27. The three-day gathering, organized by the Leonum Institute and the Word on Fire Institute, examined AI, work, human dignity and the common good through Catholic social thought.
Black, who also serves as director of AI and venture ecosystems in Microsoft’s Office of the chief technology officer, titled his presentation “Weather the Storm or Ride the Wave? Practical Advice for Workers in the Age of AI.”
He grounded that advice in the Catholic understanding of the human person, telling the audience that a person’s worth does not depend on productivity, intelligence, professional mastery or the length of a résumé.
“We’re just beloved,” Black said.
That conviction, he said, gives Catholics a starting point for approaching a technology that has generated anxiety over jobs, creativity and human purpose.
Black encouraged people to develop routines around AI use much as they might around phones or other screens, considering why they are opening a tool and what they hope to accomplish before asking it a question.
He described preparing to meet a friend for coffee because the friend had expertise he wanted to draw on, then realizing an AI tool could probably provide the information. Getting the answer immediately, he said, could subtly change the reason for having the conversation at all.
“Notice how these small interactions start changing the web in which we live, the relationships that we have,” Black said.
He said the same tools can also support human relationships when used deliberately. Black described using AI to help recall previous conversations and prepare for meetings, allowing technology to compensate for things he does not do particularly well, such as remembering names.
He encouraged Catholics to strengthen in-person community as AI becomes increasingly capable of filling conversational and social roles.
“Building that in-person communion is just the best way of breaking down this loneliness,” Black said. He called the parish “the best anti-loneliness organization in the world.”
Black also encouraged families, parishes and workplaces to create communities where people can openly discuss how they are using AI, share what works and question practices that do not serve them well.
Those conversations matter beyond individual users, he said, because many of the conventions surrounding AI products have not yet been settled.
Black pointed to a recent meeting he had with Catholic education customers in Australia, who represented a distinct customer segment for Microsoft. When they asked how they should use AI, Black turned the question back toward the relationship between customer and technology company.
“No frontier firm, including Microsoft, has any great idea about how design principles for AI should go,” Black said. “It’s new.”
Companies have ideas and experiments, he said, but are still learning how users will interact with AI systems and how those products should be designed.
That gives Catholic institutions an opening to tell companies what they need.
“Don’t take what we give you and say, ‘I wish it did this, but okay.’ No,” Black said. “Say, ‘Hey, my Catholic anthropology says that we need to think about design principles differently here, and as customers of you, you need to make those changes.’”
“Push back,” he added. “Ask for what you need from big tech.”
Black offered infinite scroll as an example of how a simple product-design decision can influence human behavior. A technology built around a narrow understanding of human flourishing, he said, can reward attention, consumption and repeated engagement.
He suggested AI products could make different choices. A system might tell someone that an important question deserves more thought before offering an immediate answer, he said, or suggest a user take a walk after spending hours interacting with it.
“How can we take our Catholic anthropology and turn it into better design principles for all of the technology that we work with?” Black asked.
Black said the opportunity extends to the business models that will eventually sustain AI.
Drawing on his experience as an entrepreneur and venture investor, he said business models suited to new technologies often emerge years after the technology itself. That leaves room, he said, to think about the incentives being created around AI before particular models become entrenched.
He pointed to advertising-supported websites and social media, where success is often measured in “eyeballs” and keeping people engaged.
“I can’t even read an article in a good newspaper anymore because everything’s flying out of the screen at me,” Black said. “That’s not human flourishing. But the business model depends on it.”
The challenge now, he said, is to develop models in which financial incentives and human flourishing can support one another.
“So what business models do we need to build and change so that the human person can flourish as a result of that?” Black asked. “I have some ideas, but so do you.”
Catholic organizations can also reconsider what they measure internally, Black said. Revenue, productivity and engagement are useful metrics, but institutions shaped by Catholic anthropology may ask additional questions about the effect work has on families, communities and the people doing it.
The technology also offers Catholic parishes, dioceses and nonprofit organizations opportunities to handle administrative work more efficiently, Black said. He emphasized that efficiency need not mean eliminating employees; many Catholic institutions already have more work than their staffs can accomplish.
Black compared the present moment with earlier periods when the Church made use of the technologies and institutions available to it. Roman roads and systems of government helped the early Church spread across the Mediterranean, he said, while Catholics later built hospitals, universities and cathedrals in response to the needs of their time.
AI, he said, presents another opportunity for the Church to decide what it wants to build.
“This time is no different,” Black said. “This is another time for our Church to use the technologies that have made this kind of information possible, take them back to ourselves and build cathedrals out of them.”
