All of us, from young students just returning to school, to those involved in teaching, business and medical service, and even to our senior members, are experiencing the rapid development of artificial intelligence and how it is making an impact on all stages of human life. Websites now make it easy to access artificial intelligence, responding to many simple and complex questions immediately. It is easy, through the use of artificial intelligence, to compose letters, greeting cards and even business presentations. While some of that may seem to be positive, artificial intelligence is taking us into a new world where human interaction, introspection and the ability to use our hearts, heads and hands are not so much relied upon as essential to who we are as human persons made in the image and likeness of God. As we celebrate Labor Day this year, we may be more aware of the rapid increase in the development of artificial intelligence to the extent that it affects our work and our ability to appreciate the true dignity and meaning of labor. Pope Leo XIV continues to address the challenges of artificial intelligence as primary in his ministry. His recent encyclical on the matter, Magnifica Humanitas, is monumental work. He intends to speak more on it in his message at the beginning of the new year of 2027.
As we carefully study the teachings of the recent popes, it is obvious that the matter of human labor has always been emphasized as a dignity which is part of human nature and the basic right of every man and woman to proper labor and proper compensation for it. This was so essential to the teaching of St. John Paul II that he wrote an encyclical on it. Entitled Laborem Exercens, On Human Labor, this encyclical set forth what St. John Paul II referred to as “a Gospel of Work.” Created in the image and likeness of God, men and women are called at the very beginning of the Bible to share the work of God in “subduing the earth” (Gen 1:28). In carrying out His call, every human person expresses his or her dignity and liberty, and reflects the very image of the Creator. St. John Paul II put it clearly when he stated, “Man ought to imitate God, His Creator, in working, because man above all has the unique characteristic of likeness to God.” In his encyclical, St. Pope John Paul II reflected that Jesus devoted many of the years of His life on earth to manual work at the carpenter’s bench. He said: “This circumstance constitutes in itself the most eloquent ‘Gospel of Work,’ showing that determining the value of work is not primarily the kind of work being done, but the fact that one who is doing it is a person.” That statement is an insightful reflection for all of us, no matter what our occupation may be, as it helps us to appreciate what we do and how we work together for our own common good and for the good of all.
Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI strongly emphasized the dignity of human labor in his teaching during his pontificate. In his encyclical, Caritas in Veritate, he emphasized how human labor develops the person’s ability to be who they are in terms of God’s call in life. In an address he gave to representatives from the world of culture in September 2008, he emphasized that the human person participates in the life of God through the labor he carries out. Referring to the words of Jesus in the Gospel of St. John, “My Father is working, still, and I am working” (5:17), Pope Benedict expressed that, “Human work was now seen as a special form of human resemblance to God, as a way in which man could and may share in God’s activity as Creator of the world.” In this address, there is no reference to artificial intelligence, but the pope refers to one of its primary dangers: “Where a man arrogates to himself the status of God-like creator, his shaping of the world can quickly turn into destruction of the world.”
Pope Francis, many times in regard to his devotion to St. Joseph, often emphasized the dignity of work as inherent to human nature. In his encyclical, Laudato Si’, on the care for our common home, which God has given to us, he spoke eloquently of the vocation of work and its centrality in the life of humanity. He said, “We were created with a vocation to work. The goal should not be that technological progress is increasing to replace human work, for this would be detrimental to humanity. Work is a necessary part of the meaning of life on the earth, a path of growth, human development and personal fulfillment.” Pope Francis began to speak frequently and strongly about the dangers that artificial intelligence presents in terms of human identity in taking over our capacity to work and to create.
Labor Day is a very good time for us to reflect upon how artificial intelligence can replace the natural right to work, which is our vocation, especially in regard to our call from God to work. In Florida, we experience a wide range of different working occupations, which include those who work with the earth, such as our migrant farmworkers and those who care for the land. It is very important for us not to hand over to machines the labor by which we fulfill ourselves as persons, which is becoming a grave danger at the present time. While it is important to use artificial intelligence to help us in the work that we carry out, it should in no manner be a means of taking over that employment. We see that happening in many ways today. Its objective is to increase economy and not to fulfill the human person. The occupations which are most threatened today are those that have to do with business and financial management. It is ironic, and almost providential, that those who work the earth are less threatened by artificial intelligence, which only goes to underline the original meaning of work as given to us by God in caring for the earth and for each other.
As we celebrate Labor Day this year, we thank God for our labor, and we must be vigilant in protecting that labor in the face of artificial intelligence at all levels. Perhaps the best advice we can give today to artificial intelligence is: job opening — artificial intelligence need not apply!
Most Reverend Gerald M. Barbarito
