Reorienting technologytowards God

For most of our lives, new technology has been dominated by a handful of companies that have decided what we see, what we read, and what we’re allowed to say. These large companies have let us down time and time again because they are driven by power and profit maximization, and not the good of the human person.

Meta has been sued by more than 40 states over its features in Instagram and Facebook designed to capture children’s attention and keep them hooked on its apps. Google has pushed their ideologies to the top of search results and in YouTube algorithms influencing many people’s world views. Netflix has pushed highly sexualized content and gender ideologies in shows and movies meant for children and adolescents. The list goes on and on.

These companies have been put up with for as long as we can remember, and now, with the rise of AI, it is more important than ever to ensure it is built with a strong moral framework.

Pope Leo XIV wrote in Magnifica Humanitas that technology “is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.”

AI reflects the viewpoints and morality of its creators. Therefore, we cannot allow the same creators who have dominated the tech scene for so long with hardly any consideration for human dignity to write the moral frameworks of these models. As Catholics, we must be building.

Catholics have always built. We built hospitals and universities. We built cathedrals that have stood for centuries. The science of genetics was founded by a friar named Gregor Mendel. A priest named Georges Lemaître proposed the Big Bang.

St. Carlo Acutis was a builder. He taught himself to code at nine years old and used technology and the internet to serve God and introduce others to Him. Now he’s a saint.

As Catholics, we must re-establish ourselves as the builders of the world who will “build the city in which God and humanity dwell together” (Magnifica Humanitas). We must work to reorient technology towards God, the original Creator.

That’s why we’re building Acutis.