Catholic Futurist

Would you trust a robot doctor?

Would you let an AI doctor diagnose you and write your prescription? Sit with that for a second, then hear the other side. In this episode of Catholic Futurist, Benjamin Crockett sits down with Michael Pencina, director of Duke AI Health, and Louis Kim, who moved from tech into healthcare and now works on spiritual care in hospice and palliative medicine. The same tech that feels wrong in your own clinic could put 50 hospitals in regions that have none. They wrestle with what we lose when no person is in the room, and the lines Catholic healthcare won't cross. Timestamps: * 0:00 Intro * 2:27 What makes Catholic healthcare different * 4:56 The hardest debates * 7:59 What AI does in hospitals today * 10:37 Lines AI should never cross * 13:00 The future of care * 14:55 AI in hospice and spiritual care * 16:27 Changing the economics of care * 19:18 What the Church should do now

Why AI will never make true art

Every story you love has a human fingerprint on it. Someone felt something they needed to share, and they made it real. A machine can copy the shape of that, but no one is inside it. In this episode of Catholic Futurist, Benjamin Crockett sits down with actor, producer, and Novo Inspire Studios co-founder Lorenzo Henrie, who plays the apostle Jude Thaddeus in Mel Gibson's The Resurrection of the Christ, and Dave Plisky, Director of Marketing & Digital and Director of Product & Innovation at DeSales Media. They talk about what makes a story human, what AI can and can't do in film, and why that difference matters for Catholic storytellers. Timestamps: * 0:00 Intro: AI lacks a soul * 2:27 AI in film today * 5:18 Corporate greed & AI * 8:27 Replacing human artists * 12:47 The social media trap * 17:03 Return to simple living * 22:23 A Christian tech manifesto

Should You Be Kind to Your AI Chatbot?

Should you say "please" and "thank you" to ChatGPT? The answer says a lot more about you than you think. Recorded at the Builders AI Forum in Rome, Benjamin Crockett sits down with philosopher Steven Umbrello and Fr. Jean Gové. They explore why being kind to AI shapes your own character, why forming bonds with a chatbot can quietly harm you, and what the Church says makes a human being truly different from a machine. Timestamps: * 0:00 Intro * 2:35 The Catholic Turing Test * 3:55 What is a Turing Test? * 5:14 Falling for AI chatbots * 9:12 Will AI be conscious? * 13:30 Why inefficiency matters * 18:43 What "consciousness" really means * 22:54 Why manners matter with AI * 26:37 What the Church should do

Can the Pope stop the AI arms race?

What keeps AI researchers up at night? Not robots turning evil. Something far more plausible — and far more urgent. Most conversations about AI risk deal in abstractions. This one doesn't. Three guests at the intersection of faith, technology, and global security sit down to name the specific scenarios that concern them most — and to ask whether the Catholic Church is uniquely positioned to respond. In this episode of Catholic Futurist, Benjamin Crockett is joined by John-Clark Levin, Research Lead at Kurzweil Technologies, William Jones, Associate of the Futures Program at the Future of Life Institute, and Fr. Michael Baggot, L.C., Professor of Bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. They don't agree on everything. But they converge on this: the Catholic Church has something to say about AI that Silicon Valley cannot offer — and the window to say it is narrowing. Together they explore:  * why the most dangerous AI risks require no leap of speculative logic * how geopolitical pressure leads good people to catastrophic choices * what AI companionship is doing to human relationships and the soul * whether Pope Leo could play the role John Paul II played in the nuclear conversation * and what genuine hope looks like at the edge of civilizational risk Timestamps: * 0:00 – The "Grown" Intelligence  * 1:04 – Real-World Risks vs. Science Fiction  * 3:31 – The Geopolitical Arms Race  * 5:44 – AI and Nuclear Escalation  * 7:19 – Seeking a Collaborative Framework  * 10:51 – The Lack of Interpretability  * 12:53 – Deceptive Alignment  * 13:26 – Collateral Damage to the Soul  * 18:28 – The "Demonic Summer of Love"  * 24:21 – A Call for Democratic Control  * 28:28 – The Global Competitive Landscape  * 30:04 – The Case for Optimism

Are We Producing Human Bots?

Most of us move through an education system we didn’t design—and rarely have the opportunity to question. Fr. Ambrose Criste, O.Praem., does. Speaking at an AI conference in Rome, he traces the roots of modern schooling to systems built for efficiency and output—and asks whether Catholic education is still operating within a model not originally designed for human formation. Catholic education, he argues, has a deeper purpose: the formation of the human person, ultimately ordered toward the salvation of souls. Everything else—grades, college, career—follows from that. His response to the AI moment is not a better system of production, but a renewed vision of what a human being is—and what education is for. Timestamps: * 0:00 Intro: The True Purpose of Education * 1:03 Meet Father Ambrose * 1:34 How the Church is Actually Using AI * 4:08 The Problem with "Factory" Schools * 8:18 Why AI Will Never Have True Intelligence * 9:32 The Hidden Dangers of Tech Algorithms * 13:17 Why AI Can't Replace Human Teachers * 15:36 Using AI as a Teaching Tool * 17:23 Finding Hope in Screen-Free Schools