Online Seminar: Faith & Artificial Intelligence

In this eight-week online course, we will consider how Catholics might approach the age of AI with dignity. Participants will learn how Leo is continuing a robust Catholic intellectual tradition of engagement with modern technology, a tradition that included the previous Pope Leo and other pontiffs, the French Dominican friar Dominique Dubarle, the media theorist Marshall McLuhan, and other dynamic thinkers. We will consider how AI intersects with spiritual concerns about cybernetics and posthuman visions of the world.

The course is designed to meet learners where they are, whether or not you have experience or knowledge about AI or any of these subjects. Participants will write short responses and reflections and will receive instructor feedback. You will also share your thoughts with group members to generate discussion.

Our course will run asynchronously online on the Wet Ink writing and workshop platform, which was designed for online instruction. Each week we’ll start with a posted lesson that prompts reflection through a narrative lecture focused on the topics and themes of that week, as well as course material. As a way to cultivate community, you may participate in two informal and optional Zoom meetings.

Week 1: Why Catholics Should Think About AI
Readings: Pope Leo XIV’s statements on AI

Week 2: Is It OK To Be a Luddite?
Readings: Thomas Pynchon on historical and contemporary Luddites; Adam Smith and Ralph Waldo Emerson on work; Pope Leo XIII on the dignity and labor

Week 3: Are We Machines?
Readings: Meghan O’Gieblyn and Georges Bernanos on automation

Week 4: Cybernetics
Readings: Fr. Dominique Dubarle, Hannah Arendt and Marshall McLuhan on cybernetics

Week 5: A Posthuman World
Readings: J.D. Bernal and Julian Huxley on what comes after us

Week 6: AI and Art
Readings: Christian Wiman, Paul Schrader and Guillermo Del Toro on how AI affects art

Week 7: AI and Spirituality
Readings: Susan Liautaud, David Ellis and Jag Bhalla on how AI affects spirituality

Week 8: How Should Catholics Respond to AI?
Readings: Revisiting papal statements on technology and AI, from Francis to both Leos

Nick Ripatrazone is an author, editor, writer and teacher. His new book, “The Habit of Poetry: The Literary Lives of Nuns in Midcentury America,” is the story behind a midcentury renaissance of nuns and sisters who wrote poetry (Fortress Press 2023).

His other recent books include “Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction” and “Wild Belief: Poets and Prophets in the Wilderness,” both from Broadleaf Books, and “Digital Communion: Marshall McLuhan’s Spiritual Vision for a Virtual Age,” from Fortress Press.

Nick is the culture editor for Image Journal, a quarterly magazine that seeks to publish the best writing and artwork informed by or grappling with religious faith.

He has written regular columns for Literary Hub and The Millions about literary magazines, teaching and poetry.

Nick has written for Rolling Stone, GQ, The Atlantic, The Paris Review, Esquire, Outside, The Sewanee Review, America, Commonweal, The Christian Century, Christianity Today, The Kenyon Review, The Iowa Review, The Mississippi Review, The Poetry Foundation, the Catholic Herald (UK) and elsewhere.