Could We? Should We?

Reflections on Artificial Intelligence and the Crichton Model

There’s a peculiar danger that arises not from malice, but from brilliance. It is the danger of progress untethered from prudence—of racing ahead in capability while leaving wisdom behind. This is the heart of what might be called the Crichton model: a cultural pattern in which the thrill of discovery outpaces our willingness to ask what our discoveries are for.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of artificial intelligence. We have created machines that can compose poems, write code, imitate empathy, and simulate understanding. Yet the fact that we can do these things has too often eclipsed the more important question: ought we?

Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote that prudence is “right reason applied to action.” It is not the enemy of progress, but its moral compass. Prudence does not ask, “Is this amazing?” or even “Is this useful?” It asks, “Is this good? Is this ordered toward the true flourishing of the human person?”

The Church has always held that technology must serve the dignity of the human being, not replace it. We are not just toolmakers. We are moral agents. We are not just capable of marvels, we are responsible for their consequences. And so, every new invention, especially those with the power to imitate the human mind, must be met with reverent discernment, not just applause.

The great irony is that in our pursuit of intelligence, we may lose sight of wisdom. We may, as Crichton warned, take what is wondrous and commodify it: before we even understand what it is. Slap it on a lunchbox. Sell it to kids. Move on.

But as Catholics, we are called to more.

We are called to ask:

Does this technology deepen our communion with others- or isolate us behind screens?

Does it illuminate truth- or obscure it behind the illusion of certainty?

Does it expand our capacity to love- or merely inflate our efficiency?

To ask these questions is not to fear progress, but to redeem it.

And we must never forget that the goal of our labor, whether in science, art, or code, is not merely productivity, but human flourishing. That is, the full flowering of the person in truth, goodness, beauty, and love. As Pope Benedict XVI once wrote, “The world offers you comfort. But you were not made for comfort. You were made for greatness.”

Yet we are often seduced into settling for less.

We aim for distraction instead of joy.

We seek pleasure instead of communion.

We prefer the easy lie over the difficult truth.

Technology becomes a mirror of our desires, and a magnifier of our disordered ones.

But the Gospel always calls us back to something higher: Beatitudo- true blessedness. Not artificial happiness, not dopamine loops, but the hard-won joy that flows from truth, sacrifice, and love. That joy isn’t opposed to innovation, but it is shaped by purpose and virtue.

The Church does not fear new tools, but she insists that every tool be evaluated in the light of the Cross. Because it is there, in the suffering love of Christ, that we see what true greatness looks like: not domination, but gift. Not artificial intelligence, but incarnate wisdom.

Consider, for example, the rapid deployment of AI-generated companions—chatbots designed to simulate emotional intimacy. Marketed as tools for mental health or loneliness, they mimic empathy without possessing understanding, offering comfort without communion. Some users begin to rely on these artificial “relationships,” not realizing how shallow and unaccountable they are. In trying to fill a real human need, we risk replacing genuine connection with an illusion and mistaking simulation for love. The result is not healing, but a deepening of isolation, precisely because we have exchanged the incarnate for the artificial.

The Spiral We Must Break

In the natural world, there is a haunting phenomenon called the ant mill: a death spiral. A group of army ants, having lost their pheromone trail, begin to follow one another in a circle. Each ant is doing exactly what it is wired to do: follow the one in front. But the result is tragic. They march in circles endlessly, until they die of exhaustion.

It is a chilling image. And it mirrors the risk we face in our digital age.

AI models follow patterns. Humans follow trends. Companies follow profit. All seem rational. But when none of us stops to ask where this is going, we risk spiraling into distraction, disconnection, and meaninglessness, each step feeling logical, but collectively destructive.

The ant mill persists in nature not because it is ideal, but because the underlying behavior works most of the time. But when it fails, it fails completely.

Unlike the ant, however, we can stop. We can ask, Is this truly the path to joy? Is this truly love? And if it is not, we can turn around.

That is what prudence looks like: not the absence of progress, but the courage to break the spiral when we see that it leads not to life, but to endless, exhausting motion.

May we be a people who choose wisdom over momentum- and truth over the easy trail.