Cura Personalis and AI

By: Dr. Stephen Chanderbahn, Contributing Writer

In an address at Santa Clara University in October 2000, Fr. Peter–Hans Kolvenbach, then Superior General of the Society of Jesus (The Jesuits), said, “The real measure of our Jesuit universities lies in who our students become.”

Not in how much our students make, what jobs they land or even in what they know. The standard is the person — the whole person — and the better they become, the better those entrusted with their care have done.

Kolvenbach’s statement is a resounding endorsement of the ideal of Cura Personalis. And it’s through this lens that I think it would be helpful to reflect on the use of artificial intelligence (AI). 

Who does it make us become? Does it make us better? I propose that part of who we become is defined by the habits of mind that we develop. Habits of mind refer to skills and typical ways of acting that are one’s second nature regarding the pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.

What habits do I think are helpful to this, to apprehending and grasping the objects of knowledge? I contend it extends far beyond memorization. It includes identifying, asking and confronting questions about fundamental realities, underlying popular claims and debates, searching for and constructing logical connections between those realities and those claims and debates and caring about doing this work.

If this is true, does using AI help, let alone encourage, one to identify and ask the right questions, including the most fundamental questions about what is real, true and valuable underneath — literally anything? Or does it allow one to comfortably avoid such thinking?

Does using AI cultivate the internal discipline necessary for developing habits of questioning and investigating reality? Or does it cultivate “cognitive surrender” and an over–dependence on outsourcing our capacity for vetting knowledge?

Does using AI cultivate curiosity — not only about trivia and how to cook, but about what justice is, the diversity of human experiences and the transcendent and Divine, which defies algorithmic characterization? Does it cultivate creativity, wonder and an appreciation for the purely human pursuits thereof?

Underneath it all: is using AI a reliable way for you to come into contact with reality — the objects of knowledge? How often is it wrong? And can it know the reality of humanity itself? 

Pope Leo XIV has weighed in on this last question with a resounding “no.” In paragraph 99 of his encyclical, “Magnifica humanitas,” he writes, “So–called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of ‘learning,’ their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity.”

If the Pope is correct, using AI cannot help, but trend toward making us miss the forest for the trees, as it were, by modeling the claim that the reality of humans. By extension, so many other things are reducible data that can be scraped. To the extent that it is more, this undercuts our capacity for appreciating, understanding and valuing the true, the real, the good and the beautiful in general, especially about humanity.

Can this be solved by making the algorithms better? Or should we make intentional choices to forego its use in certain places — maybe even most places? I hope we continue to investigate these questions together as a Canisius community.