There Is Already a Word for the Deep Moral Failures of AI The author finds the word ‘sin’ to be the most fitting term for the dehumanizing effects of artificial intelligence, such as marketing digital companions to the lonely. This perspective is echoed by Christian critics like Ivan Illich, Charles Taylor, Jennifer Frey, Paul Kingsnorth, Carl Trueman, and Pope Leo, who frame the AI crisis as an anthropological one, questioning what it means to be human in the age of advanced technology. While secular critics focus on measurable harms like environmental impact and bias, Christian thinkers like Pope Leo and Carl Trueman emphasize the more fundamental anthropological regression caused by AI, highlighting the need for a clear conception of human nature that transcends mere capabilities.

• The author uses the word ‘sin’ to describe the dehumanizing effects of AI, such as marketing digital girlfriends and robot companions.
• Christian thinkers and writers, including Ivan Illich, Charles Taylor, Jennifer Frey, Paul Kingsnorth, Carl Trueman, and Pope Leo, are seen as insightful critics of AI because they are comfortable using words like ‘sin’ and address the anthropological crisis.
• These critics, particularly Trueman and Pope Leo, view the crisis posed by technological modernity as primarily anthropological, questioning ‘What is man?’ in the face of AI.
• Secular critics often focus on utilitarian concerns like environmental toll, intellectual property theft, bias, and autonomous weapons, which are measurable but may miss deeper philosophical issues.
• Christian humanism, with its concept of humans being made in the ‘Imago Dei’ (image of God), offers a definition of humanity based on a transcendent source rather than on capabilities that machines may replicate.
• The article argues that a clear, positive conception of human nature is necessary to defend human dignity against AI, and that secular humanism may struggle to provide this without a similar foundational premise.