Magnificent Complexity: 9 Quotes from the ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ Faculty Panel

Artificial intelligence (AI) has far-reaching implications. The culture, economy, academia, science — you name it, and AI crosses paths with it. But as much as it will affect each of those areas, what it holds the weightiest and most intimate implications for is our understanding of the human person.

To explore those implications, the Center for Technology and Human Dignity at Benedictine College held two student-faculty discussions on Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, co-sponsored by the Center for Integral Ecology. This year’s Symposium for Transforming Culture also focused on that question.

The discussions culminated in a Sept. 15 faculty panel on the subject (watch it here), including brief talks from Benedictine professors Dr. Matthew Ramage, the theologian who directs the Center for Integral Ecology; Dr. Joshua Cole, a mathematician; Dr. Mindy Montemayor, assistant professor in education; and Dr. Mariele Courtois, the theologian who directs the Center for Technology and Human Dignity promoting Catholic digital and biomedical ethics.

Each professor presented on what Magnifica Humanitas means for their disciplines. Nine quotes from the panel follow.

1: The End and the Beginning

Dr. Courtois closed the panel with guiding thoughts on “how we can draw insights from the encyclical, hopefully to magnify the glory of God but without magnifying the algorithm. AI language models, as well as other technologies, are not neutral tools. All tools necessarily have an intentionality built into them, are attached to a given social environment, and adhere to a particular perspective of life.”

2: Creator and Created

Dr. Ramage asked, “All this world is made good by God, and then the question is: Does this technology help me become more fully human, which ultimately means more like Christ, or does it take me out of my body?”

3: Knowledge, Math, and Human Understanding

“A bunch of mathematicians got together earlier this year to talk about the problem of AI and math. And in June they came up with something called the Leiden Declaration on AI and Mathematics. They raised some of these questions and they said that we need to rethink how we’re using AI and math: We need to realize that math is fundamentally a human activity. It’s meant to increase human understanding. When the AI comes in and proves something, unfairly scoops the mathematics, and leaves someone else to explain it, maybe the math isn’t working right,” Dr. Cole said.

4: Learning in the In-Between

“When we talk about something being easy and efficient—ease has never been a defining characteristic of learning,” Dr. Montemayor explained. “We have something we know, something we want to know. Somewhere in between, that’s where the learning happens.”

5: Communion and Covenant

“Nehemiah [Pope Leo] says is the quest to have piece-by-piece rebuilding, not through homogenization but through communion. I never really thought beyond how they build the walls and kind of hurried up and got something put down. But it was a community event; it wasn’t just a top-down event. And so, I think he’s saying we need to do the same thing. Now, this structure of ‘covenant between glory and fragility’—that’s what characterizes the human person, what we need to safeguard.” Dr. Ramage said, quoting Pope Leo in part.

6: Language, Relationship, and Human Vulnerability

“Though there is certainly human agency involved in the use of technologies,” Dr. Courtois said, “we cannot simply blame users alone for the suffering we know results from broad types of technology uses. Likewise, users are not left to be passive, powerless recipients of any technologies that corporations unfold. One of the confusing aspects of language models is that they deploy a capacity of language-wielding that we have evolved to trust as emanating from an embodied, empathetic human person that has personal agency.”

7: The Heart of Education

“We want to keep human connection at the heart of education,” Dr. Montemayor said. “We are the builders of community. So with every tool that you use, every piece of technology, every book, every resource, you need to ask yourself, ‘What kind of community am I being a part of? How am I transforming culture?’ AI is going to continue to grow. Technology is going to continue to advance. But what should stay the same is our resolve to respect the human dignity of all students and all learners.”

8: A Promise of Mercy

“I’m suggesting we should ask some of these difficult questions even if we don’t think there’s much of a chance that they’ll be answered. I’m given comfort by the emphasis on weakness in the encyclical that Dr. Ramage mentioned. Even if I try to ask questions and I feel weak and that it will fail and I hate dealing with AI,” Dr. Cole said, “somehow salvation comes through that weakness when we’re open to how God’s working through our own apparent failures.”

9: The Beginning and the End

“God formed the original design of our hearts, and then in light of our own movements he offers his fortifications, revisions, restorations, and renewal,” Dr. Courtois said. “We are to hope that each of our own souls may magnify the glory of God like Mary’s and that our own humble work in the world become a submission to God’s design, and as a result, a celebration of collaboration in God’s handiwork. Mary’s Magnificat is a reminder that God has already won on our behalf. There is nothing that further technological innovation can add to the finality of the story of redemption.”

Watch the full panel here.

By Emma Fuentes