Christians in an AI-dominated future: a talk by Dr Gerard Casey

Today, Pope Leo XIV has issued his first encyclical. Titled Magnifica Humanitas, it offers a broad sweep of Catholic social teaching, and in light of that, what the Catholic Church’s response to Artificial Intelligence should be. Three years ago, The Iona Institute hosted a talk by philosopher, Dr Gerard Casey on a very similar topic. He discussed how technological developments seem to be ushering us towards a post-human and transhuman world in which many people will be genetically altered and/or merged with technology, including AI, to produce hybrid human beings. At what point will we have to doubt whether we are even human at all, in the strict sense? Will Christians be among the last people on Earth who remain fully human and unaltered?

A bullet point summary of Dr Casey’s talk is below. A link to his talk on Spotify is at the bottom.

• Dr Casey presents the contemporary technological future — especially artificial intelligence and transhumanism — as part of a broader cultural and philosophical transformation.
• Casey frames the discussion around three interconnected themes:
  • transhumanism,
  • Artificial Intelligence,
  • and anti-humanist or “Anthropocene” thinking.
• He argues that these movements are not merely technological projects but involve deep philosophical assumptions about what human beings are and whether humanity has value.
• According to Casey, transhumanism envisions a future in which human biological limitations are overcome through technology, potentially merging humans with machines or radically transforming human existence.
• He suggests that many advocates of transhumanism view ordinary human embodiment as something defective or obsolete that technology should transcend.
• Casey implies that AI development is often linked to this broader ambition of redesigning or replacing aspects of human nature.
• A central concern in the talk is the emergence of what he calls an “anti-humanist perspective.” He argues that some contemporary intellectual trends increasingly portray humanity itself as a problem for the planet.
• He criticises environmental and anti-humanist ideologies that regard human beings as a kind of infestation harming nature. In his interpretation, these movements sometimes implicitly welcome human decline or extinction.
• Casey characterises this outlook as giving greater moral value to non-human entities than to human beings themselves.
• He jokingly but critically describes this mentality as:
  • “anthropomorphic ultra-romanticism” —
    meaning the tendency to treat nature almost as a person while simultaneously devaluing humanity.
• The talk suggests that technological utopianism and anti-humanism can converge:
  • AI and transhumanist technologies may be promoted not simply to improve human life,
  • but to move beyond humanity itself.
• Casey is sceptical of the assumption that technological progress automatically leads to moral or civilisational progress.
• The broader implication is that AI raises fundamental questions about:
  • human identity,
  • human dignity,
  • embodiment,
  • dependence on technology,
  • and the future meaning of being human.
• Casey also emphasises that there is now an enormous amount of literature promoting or analysing transhumanism and AI, suggesting that these ideas are rapidly moving from fringe speculation into mainstream intellectual culture.
• The overall thrust of the talk is cautionary:
  • technological power without a strong philosophical understanding of human nature risks leading society toward forms of dehumanisation rather than genuine human flourishing.

Listen to his talk on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2vUlkpODTkgyYfXIdtAgRW ^[1]