Lately there has been an explosion of “AI Art” (art generated by artificial intelligence). It is becoming more prevalent on different media sites, in social media, and through different media platforms. This has caused some fantastic discussion about the definition of art, what constitutes sacred art, and whether or not artificial intelligence should be used to create such things. Sometimes, when discussion arise around a particular issue that has never before been considered, it can be helpful to ponder what the saints would say. When it comes to art, technology, and the dignity of the human person, no saint in recent (or even not so recent) history has had more to contribute to the discussion than Pope St. John Paul II. So what would he say about AI art?
Can AI art touch man’s spirit?
Pope John Paul II might begin his comments by positively affirming the genius of man, and how humanity’s achievements can be a source of good. Perhaps he would echo his introcuction to a letter he wrote to those in the communications media in 2005:
“The rapid development of technology in the area of the media is surely one of the signs of progress in today’s society. In view of these innovations in continuous evolution, the words found in the Decree of the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council, Inter Mirifica, promulgated by my venerable predecessor, the servant of God Paul VI, December 4, 1963, appear even more pertinent: “Man’s genius has with God’s help produced marvelous technical inventions from creation, especially in our times. The Church, our mother, is particularly interested in those which directly touch man’s spirit and which have opened up new avenues of easy communication of all kinds of news, of ideas and orientations.”
The Rapid Development: To Those Responsible for Communications. January 24, 2005.
It ‘gives rise to disquiet’
“The development of technology and the development of contemporary civilization, which is marked by the ascendancy of technology, demand a proportional development of morals and ethics. For the present, this last development seems unfortunately to be always left behind. Accordingly, in spite of the marvel of this progress, in which it is difficult not to see also authentic signs of man’s greatness, signs that in their creative seeds were revealed to us in the pages of the Book of Genesis, as early as where it describes man’s creation, this progress cannot fail to give rise to disquiet on many counts. The first reason for disquiet concerns the essential and fundamental question: Does this progress, which has man for its author and promoter, make human life on earth “more human” in every aspect of that life” (Redemptor Hominis, 15, emphasis added)?
Man cannot relinquish his place in the world that belongs to him
“What is in question is the advancement of persons, not just the multiplying of things that people can use. It is a matter-as a contemporary philosopher has said and as the Council has stated-not so much of “having more” as of “being more”102. Indeed there is already a real perceptible danger that, while man’s dominion over the world of things is making enormous advances, he should lose the essential threads of his dominion and in various ways let his humanity be subjected to the world and become himself something subject to manipulation in many ways-even if the manipulation is often not perceptible directly-through the whole of the organization of community life, through the production system and through pressure from the means of social communication. Man cannot relinquish himself or the place in the visible world that belongs to him; he cannot become the slave of things, the slave of economic systems, the slave of production, the slave of his own products” (RH, 16).
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