Austriaco urges a Philippine context for Catholic AI discernment

A local question within a wider inquiry

Fr. Nicanor Austriaco, O.P., is urging the University of Santo Tomas to examine artificial intelligence through questions relevant to the Philippines. In an interview published October 13 with The Varsitarian, he calls for deliberate reflection about that transition.

Austriaco connects that task with Thomistic understandings of the person and reasoning. He says AI should serve human intelligence and that technologies which exploit or manipulate people should be regulated or marginalized. These are his ethical and philosophical judgments. The interview provides no model evaluation or employment study that would establish which human tasks AI can perform or how jobs will change. Source: The Varsitarian (Source: varsitarian.net)

The institutional announcement came earlier

The Order of Preachers announced its AI and emerging-technologies study group on September 9. Austriaco is among its members; the October interview does not announce a new appointment.

The Order’s published remit spans preaching, intellectual formation and institutional practice. It asks the group to consider truthfulness in generated material, preserve disciplines of personal study, and propose guidance for governance, administration and communication. The pastoral work includes ethical guidance for the faithful. These are assigned responsibilities, rather than evidence that new guidelines have already been completed. Source: Order of Preachers (Source: op.org)

What local discernment would need to ask

For a Catholic school or ministry, the useful next step is to make the local question concrete. Consider a hypothetical AI-assisted lesson: Which language will students use? Who can check whether an explanation carries the intended religious meaning? Can learners question its answer with a teacher who knows them? Does the exercise develop their own reasoning?

These are questions prompted by the interview, not requirements announced by UST or findings about Philippine classrooms. They identify what a community would need to examine before calling a tool appropriate for its setting.

A philosophical account of human dignity can guide that examination. It cannot, by itself, establish a product’s accuracy, accessibility or effects on learning. Institutions need both a clear account of the people they hope to serve and evidence about the particular use they are considering.

For Christian educators, taking dignity seriously means examining what learners can understand, question and decide, alongside the quality of the answer a tool produces. That is a responsibility of the institution using it.