Join the IHE for a lecture with John Di Camillo, President of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, titled “Navigating the AI Revolution in Bioethics: Human Rights and Being Human”.

Depersonalization is the deepest threat to human rights. It entails de-classifying some human beings and denying their inalienable dignity, which is the foundation of human rights, or treating human beings as just so much useful biological material — so long as a sufficiently good outcome can be accomplished. The artificial intelligence (AI) revolution takes this depersonalization to new levels, raising profound questions about what it means to be human and how we understand intelligence and free will. How do we defend and promote human rights in the churning anthropological and cultural waves intensified by AI?

Sound bioethics defends the rights and dignity of human beings only through a clearsighted grasp of who the human person is. AI can be a powerful aid for health, knowledge, and even life, but it comes with grave risks of deceiving, eliminating, reducing, or replacing human persons, their uniqueness, and the relationships and communities they need to flourish.

In the 21st century AI revolution, respecting human rights demands reclaiming what it means to be human. As a field, bioethics must unite truth-seeking, sound reasoning, and solid anthropology with personal encounter, respect for human dignity, and respect for conscience. Wisdom, charity, human relationships, and the pursuit of the common good in all its fullness are indispensable features of being and acting human, beyond the reach of AI. Will grappling with this AI revolution help us to understand and live out our humanity more fully than before?

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