Cardinal  Felipe Arizmendi, Bishop Emeritus of San Cristóbal de Las Casas and responsible for the Doctrine of the Faith at the  Mexican Episcopal Conference (CEM), offers Exaudi readers his weekly article.

FACTS

On my computer, when I want to write something in Word, this message immediately appears:  Describe what you would like to write with Copilot.  In other words, I provide some ideas and the machine does the work for me. And when I open a long document that I want to read, this other message appears:  This document looks long. Save time by reading a summary using the AI ​​assistant.  That is, the machine can give me a summary so I don’t have to read the entire document. I don’t intervene at all; it’s all done by a machine that someone programmed. The machine replaces me, and I no longer have to think much. This has its advantages and disadvantages.

If this happens to all of us with our electronic devices, imagine how much  Artificial Intelligence  can do in all fields: medicine, aviation, communications, education, entertainment, information, politics, economics, and so on. How much it helps us get to a specific place! The machine tells you which way to go, and you no longer have to worry or ask for directions.

This has its pros and cons. Because this extraordinary tool can be used for good, but it can also be used for perverse purposes, allowing others to think and decide for you. The problem isn’t the scientific and technological advancement this represents, but rather how it’s used. It can be very helpful, but it can also depersonalize and dehumanize you. You’re no longer the one building and deciding; it’s a machine. Some countries are already beginning to legislate to protect minors from what the internet offers, because it can harm their brain development and personal abilities.

LIGHTNING

Pope Leo XIV, in his Message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications 2026 (24-I-2026), warns:

“Digital technology, when not properly managed, risks radically altering some of the  fundamental pillars of human civilization, which we sometimes take for granted. By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, conscience and responsibility, empathy and friendship, systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also invade the deepest level of communication: the relationship between people.”

The challenge, therefore, is not technological but anthropological. Safeguarding faces and voices ultimately means caring for ourselves.  Embracing the opportunities offered by digital technology and artificial intelligence with courage, determination, and discernment does not mean hiding from ourselves the critical points, the ambiguities, the risks. 

Added to this was a naively uncritical trust in artificial intelligence as an omniscient friend, dispenser of all information, repository of all memory, oracle of all advice. All of this can further erode our capacity for analytical and creative thinking, for understanding meanings, and for distinguishing between syntax and semantics.

Although AI can provide support and assistance in managing communicative tasks, bypassing the effort of thinking for ourselves and settling for artificial statistical compilation, in the long run it risks eroding our cognitive, emotional, and communicative abilities.

The question that concerns us, however, is not what the machine can or will do, but what we can or will be able to do, growing in humanity and knowledge, with a wise use of such powerful tools at our service. Humankind has always been tempted to appropriate the fruits of knowledge without the effort that commitment, research, and personal responsibility entail. However, to renounce the creative process and surrender our mental functions and imagination to machines means burying the talents we have received to grow as persons in relationship with God and with others. It means hiding our faces and silencing our voices.

The risk is great. The power of simulation is such that artificial intelligence can also deceive us by fabricating parallel realities, appropriating our faces and voices. We are immersed in a multidimensional world, where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish reality from fiction.

ACTIONS

Pope Leo XIII himself proposes:  “The challenge that awaits us is not to halt digital innovation but to guide it, and to be aware of  its ambivalent nature. It is up to each of us to raise our voices in defense of human persons so that these tools can truly be integrated by us as allies; to increase our personal capacities for critical reflection; to evaluate the credibility of sources and the possible interests behind the selection of information that reaches us; to understand the psychological mechanisms that are activated in response; and to enable our families,  communities, and associations to develop practical criteria for a healthier and more responsible culture of communication.”

As Catholics, we can and should make our contribution so that people, especially young people, acquire the ability to think critically and grow in freedom of spirit.”