Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab Program Chair Paul Scherz is a bioethicist and moral theologian who is interested in virtue ethics, the ethics of precision medicine, and the ethics of artificial intelligence. Scherz serves on a Vatican AI working group, sponsored by the Centre for Digital Culture within the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. In this edition of the Tech Ethics Lab Blog, Scherz discusses his work with the group and their new book, Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.
Q: Tell us more about the Vatican’s AI working group. What are the group’s aims, and how did you first get involved with this group of scholars?
A: Over the past decade, there have been many efforts within the Vatican to address AI. In 2020, what was then the Pontifical Council for Culture decided to assemble a group of scholars from theology, philosophy, law, and other disciplines that would address the fundamental theological and ethical issues at play in AI. Because of work that I had been doing on technology in medicine and science, I was invited to join the group. We were supposed to meet in person, but because of the pandemic we ended up meeting monthly over Zoom for several years. Those meetings led to our first book, Encountering Artificial Intelligence, two years ago.
Q: What did the process of co-authoring this new volume look like? How did the group conduct its research and what was your approach to organizing and synthesizing the work of all the collaborators?
A: This was a truly co-written volume, not just a collection of independently produced essays. After the release of our first book, we decided there was a lot more we needed to say about human agency and AI. A group of 13 of us met for a year over Zoom to discuss different ways that AI affects human action. Those conversations helped us to determine the topics we wanted to address and what arguments we would make. After jointly developing an outline, we assigned three or four people to write each chapter. Then my co-editor, Brian Patrick Green, and I edited these chapter drafts and assembled them into a manuscript. All the authors then commented on the manuscript, suggesting edits, which were completed by a mix of authors. It was quite a process, but we were able to draft the book in about nine months.
Q: What unique contributions do you think the field of theology has to make in today’s conversations about the ethics of artificial intelligence?
A: Many of the questions raised by AI are about the human person. What makes us different from a machine? Are we free or is our action determined in some way? What does it mean to think? Theology has been considering such questions for two millennia, so the Christian tradition has resources that can help us all to address emerging problems around AI.
Q: What is one main takeaway you hope readers come away with after reading the book?
A: I hope readers realize both that AI can profoundly affect our ability to act freely and virtuously through mechanisms like nudging, addiction, governance, and rapidification but also that, by taking action in both our personal lives and in our communities, we can ensure that it promotes rather than undermines responsible agency.
Q: Now that this volume has been published, what comes next for the working group?
A: The group is currently finishing a book on AI and education that should be released later this year. Our next major projects are looking at AI’s effects on work and at the cultural and philosophical influences on the technology industry, like transhumanism, effective altruism, and effective accelerationism. This latter effort aims to evaluate the worldviews that are shaping technology design.
Scherz’s insights underscore the working group’s core message: responsible AI development begins with a clear understanding of human agency. Their new volume offers a theologically grounded framework for navigating the ethical challenges posed by rapidly evolving technologies. Learn more about the project in this recent feature. As the group moves on to explore AI’s impact on education, work, and the cultural forces shaping the tech world, their research continues to invite deeper reflection on how AI can genuinely support human flourishing.