Approaching AI with Ethical Evolution and Holy Hesitation

As the school year commences, every educator I know is talking about artificial intelligence (AI). No matter where they stand on the continuum from bemoaning to worshipping, the time has come when we are all forced to confront this new era of the human-tech interface.

Each week, both inside and outside of higher education circles, I hear all the new ways people are celebrating avenues of efficiency of which we once only dared to dream—recipes appearing out of thin air (that only require the ingredients already sitting in our pantry), first drafts of anything from recommendation letters to family eulogies, and complicated moral inquiries tossed into the ever present answer machine at our fingertips.

I’ll be honest—if it is not already evident—I am generally suspicious of efficiency, particularly when it is hailed as an un-interrogable good. I suppose I feel this way because efficiency is so often at odds with creativity, wilderness and humanity.

It is easier to listen to a song than to learn how to play it. It is quicker to use the highway your GPS narrates than to explore your way toward your ultimate destination through greenbelts and garden paths. It is certainly more efficient to utilize workers for as little money and as much labor as possible than it is to pay fair wages, offer benefits, and encourage time off for personal development and/or crisis. 

There is and has always been a dark side to prioritizing speed.

On the other hand, I recognize I am always a late adopter when it comes to new tech. This may be a perspective I enjoy from my moral high ground, or one I cling to from the depths of my fear bunker.

I understand, of course, that efficiency can be a compassionate aim. I, for example, want our physicians to use AI if it means increasing the likelihood of swift and accurate diagnoses that lead to swift and lifesaving interventions. I want to level the playing field for my students who do not have a parent who is “editing” their work for them, so that they have access to equitable educational inputs when compared with their highly resourced peers.

The swirling questions remain: Do we want young learners, whether studying medicine, mental health, math or maps, to rely primarily on products handed to them? Or, might there be occasions when something slower, more frustrating, and more embodied is required?

Academic disciplines are beginning to craft their own ethical guidelines for AI. This is important, but just as we take the time to develop thoughtful individual philosophies about our relationships to substances and to weapons, why wouldn’t we develop some inner guiding principles about this game-changing technology, which I predict might be similarly addictive and or dangerous when consumed or wielded carelessly?

As I prepare to teach a new group of social work students how to practice ethically and with a sense of personal integrity, I am engaging a virtues-informed learning and practice model.

Is there a benefit from taking a similar approach to engaging artificial intelligence?

Daahlsgaard, Seligman, and Peterson assert that wisdom, temperance, humanity, courage, justice and transcendence are virtues that show up in meaningful ways across each of the major world religions as well as a broad range of philosophical approaches. So I will start with these six, though I imagine we could and probably should hold AI up to the light of any and all virtues that we each hold dear. 

Wisdom

If wisdom is a combination of knowledge, experience and inner knowing, then perhaps we should be asking more than, “what does the research tell us?” Here are a few additional questions for our consideration:

• Whose research has been centered in the spaces this technology pulls from?
• How do others (historically non-centered groups) fair in the hands of this technology—intellectually, environmentally and spiritually? 
• How do I (and those for whom I have some personal or professional responsibility) feel, think and behave in relationship to this technology?

Temperance

Temperance answers the question: How do I remain grounded, even when internal and external winds and waves are attempting to toss me about? Perhaps these reflections can serve as a starting point:

• How do I incorporate elements of this technology that are beneficial, even if it means evolving in ways that are personally uncomfortable?
• Which guardrails might I establish for myself, or for those under my supervision and care, in order to help maintain (for myself) and model (for others) some measure of intellectual sobriety even as those around me are comfortable using to excess?
• How will I know when I am approaching an excessive or unethical use of this unprecedented and increasingly normative tool that is being used in many instances to “think” and problem-solve on my behalf?

Humanity

If humanity answers the question, “How do I love my neighbor?” then we must contend with the human impact of using or not using AI in our personal and professional contexts. Some questions to consider:

• What is the human impact if I refuse to allow use of this highly accessible tool as a resource in systems where other resources are so often inaccessible, and unfairly distributed?
• What is the human impact (including the environmental cost) if I use this tool with complete abandon? 

Courage

If courage is the golden mean between cowardice and recklessness—a rational and appropriate response to a frightening situation—then:

• When and with whom might I need to advocate for some uses of AI despite (and because of) their positions of power or proximity to me?
• When and with whom might I need to oppose some uses of AI despite (and because of ) their positions of power or proximity to me?

Justice

If justice is about fairness, protection of rights, and making amends when we have harmed, then we ought to consider some of the following:

• If use of this tool is vilified, who is most likely to be labeled as a “cheater,” “slacker,” and/or “sinner”? Historical patterns can help us predict the answer to this thought experiment. 
• If careless use of this tool causes environmental harm—which almost always disproportionately impacts those already most vulnerable—then what and how can I promote more intentional prioritization of when, how and how often this tool is used?

Transcendence 

If transcendence is characterized by appreciation of beauty, gratitude, humor, hope and spirituality, then some degree of letting go will be necessary from each of us as we expand beyond what we have known or what is trendy. Some considerations that move us toward expansion might be:

• Where does this technology allow me to go, that was once out of reach? Or, perhaps more urgently, where can it provide new hope for friends, neighbors, learners and leaders who have been demoralized by the amounts and types of labor that they are underequipped to produce in the given time and contexts?
• What do I intentionally or unintentionally lose each moment that I am scanning a screen for quick answers to impatient demands rather than 

observing, 

touching, 

experiencing, 

relating, 

trying, 

failing, 

feeling,

or creating 

from within this miraculous vessel imbued with the animating spirit that holds all things together?

As fall arrives and new chapters begin, my prayer is that we, with divine help, continue to make space in our lives for both ethical evolution and holy hesitation.