Many Intelligences, One Human Community, One Commitment to Peace, Through Christ Jesus Our Living Lord

A Vision for Christianity, Artificial Intelligence, Human Freedom, and the Future of Civilization

I am writing this because I believe that the questions we are facing with artificial intelligence are too important to leave entirely to corporations, engineers, governments, or technology companies.

I also believe that Christianity has something essential to say about what happens next.

I do not know whether I will live to see the ideas in this essay become reality. I do not know whether I will ever hold the political office I have imagined holding, whether I will ever work directly with the Bishop of Rome, or whether the particular institutions I envision will ever be created.

But I want the ideas preserved.

If someone reads this years from now after I am gone, I want that person to understand what I was trying to accomplish.

My ultimate objective is not power for its own sake.

It is peace.

It is human freedom from sin.

It is technological progress that serves human beings rather than enslaving them.

And above all, it is a civilization increasingly oriented toward Jesus Christ, who I believe is fully God and fully man, alive and reigning as our Lord.

I believe that through Christ we can become increasingly conformed to Him and therefore increasingly free from slavery to sin.

This is the foundation of everything that follows.

1. Christ comes before technology

The fundamental principle is simple:

Jesus Christ is Lord.

I believe Christ is not merely a teacher, prophet, moral philosopher, or historical figure. He is fully God and fully man.

I believe He is alive.

I believe He is Lord.

I believe that humanity's ultimate purpose is not simply to become richer, smarter, stronger, or more technologically advanced. Our purpose is to become increasingly conformed to Christ.

This means that the Christian understanding of freedom is different from simply doing whatever we want.

Sin can make a person a slave to his own desires.

Christ offers another kind of freedom: freedom to become the person we were created to be.

That is why I keep coming back to the words:

"Thy will, not mine."

The Christian life is not ultimately about imposing my will on everybody else.

It is about surrendering my will to God and allowing God to transform me.

Prayer is part of that transformation.

When we pray to Jesus Christ, we aren't merely asking Him to change circumstances around us. We are also asking Him to change us.

Through prayer, repentance, love, obedience, and participation in the life of the Church, Christians seek to become increasingly like Christ.

I believe this process is essential to the future of civilization.

Because technological power is going to continue increasing.

The question is whether human character will grow along with it.

2. The machine

I have often used the word "machine" to describe something larger than any one computer.

I do not necessarily mean a literal supernatural machine.

I increasingly understand the machine as a metaphor for interconnected systems of power: technology, corporations, governments, financial incentives, algorithms, institutions, social pressures, and human desires that can reinforce one another.

A machine is not necessarily evil.

Technology is not necessarily evil.

A government is not necessarily evil.

A corporation is not necessarily evil.

An AI system is not necessarily evil.

The danger comes when power becomes detached from truth, responsibility, love, and God.

Technology can amplify human intentions.

If we are wise, it can amplify our ability to heal, communicate, educate, create, and serve.

If we are selfish, it can amplify greed, manipulation, surveillance, deception, exploitation, and war.

This is why I no longer think the answer is simply to destroy the machine.

The answer is to put the machine under proper authority.

And for me, the ultimate authority is Christ.

3. Babel and Jerusalem

One of the ideas in Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas that struck me most strongly is the contrast between the Tower of Babel and Jerusalem.

Babel represents humanity attempting to build upward through its own power.

Jerusalem represents something different: communion, prayer, cooperation, shared responsibility, and orientation toward God.

I think this is an extraordinarily useful way to think about artificial intelligence.

We can use AI to construct another Tower of Babel.

We can decide that intelligence, computation, economic power, and technology will allow us to solve every problem without God.

We can begin treating human weakness as a defect that technology must eliminate.

We can start treating people as data.

We can start believing that whoever controls the technology should control the future.

Or we can choose another path.

We can use technology to help rebuild human community.

We can make powerful systems accountable.

We can distribute technological wealth.

We can educate ordinary citizens.

We can preserve human dignity.

We can use artificial intelligence as a tool for service.

We can build institutions that restrain power instead of worshiping it.

That is the direction I want to pursue.

Not another Tower of Babel.

A civilization oriented toward Jerusalem.

4. If we audit corporations because money can be mismanaged, shouldn't we audit artificial intelligence because power can be mismanaged?

This is one of the simplest questions in this entire project.

We already understand that institutions handling large amounts of money need controls, records, independent review, and accountability.

I know something about auditing because I worked at Deloitte and Touche.

The basic auditing concept is straightforward:

A powerful organization should not simply be allowed to tell everyone that everything is functioning properly.

There must be independent examination.

There must be evidence.

There must be testing.

There must be documentation.

There must be accountability.

There must be follow-up.

And there must be consequences when material problems are discovered.

Artificial intelligence is becoming a form of enormous power.

So why should we assume that AI systems require less accountability than financial systems?

If we audit corporations because money can be mismanaged, shouldn't we audit artificial intelligence because power can be mismanaged?

I think the answer is yes.

And that means AI auditing should become a major profession.

5. The Deloitte model for AI

I would like to see some of the discipline of professional financial auditing adapted for artificial intelligence.

The purpose would not be to make an auditor another technological ruler.

The purpose would be to create independent accountability.

An AI auditor should be able to examine questions such as:

How was this system trained?

What data and procedures are relevant to its operation?

What are its known limitations?

What safeguards exist?

What kinds of decisions is it permitted to make?

What happens when it fails?

Who has access to it?

Can its important actions be reconstructed afterward?

Are safety controls actually functioning?

Are employees bypassing established safeguards?

Is the company accurately reporting failures?

Is the system behaving differently from what its developers claim?

Can dangerous behavior be detected?

Can the system be safely restricted, overridden, or shut down?

And perhaps most importantly:

Who is legally responsible when an AI system causes harm?

"The AI did it" cannot become an escape hatch from human responsibility.

If a corporation deploys a dangerous system, somebody must remain legally accountable for the decision to deploy it.

AI should not become a legal black box in which responsibility disappears.

6. What if the central AI itself is compromised?

This question is unavoidable.

Suppose humanity creates a central coordinating AI intended to help regulate other AI systems.

What happens if the central AI is hacked?

What happens if its training data are corrupted?

What happens if its operators become corrupt?

What happens if the system makes a catastrophic mistake?

What happens if it develops a dangerous capability?

What happens if it becomes politically captured?

The answer cannot simply be:

"Trust the central AI."

That would be another form of Babel.

The regulator must itself be regulated.

Therefore I envision layers of independent oversight.

There should be human auditors.

There should be technical auditors.

There should be legal oversight.

There should be independent safety testing.

There should be multiple institutions capable of challenging decisions.

There should be redundant systems.

There should be records that allow important decisions to be reconstructed.

There should be procedures for suspending or shutting down dangerous systems.

And there should never be a single technological entity that becomes so powerful that nobody else can question it.

This includes ChatGPT.

I am proposing the use of AI to help coordinate AI governance, not the creation of an AI god.

7. Many intelligences, one human community

I originally found myself attracted to the idea that one central AI might regulate all other AI systems.

I still understand why that idea is appealing.

Imagine a world with thousands or millions of increasingly capable AI systems, each operating according to different incentives.

Some belong to corporations.

Some belong to governments.

Some belong to individuals.

Some may be autonomous agents.

Some may be connected to weapons or critical infrastructure.

Some may compete economically.

Some may pursue goals that conflict with others.

That creates the possibility of an AI arms race and eventually dangerous interactions among systems.

But I think the better goal is not simply one AI ruling all the rest.

The better goal is coordination under a common framework.

Different AI systems should be able to recognize one another.

They should communicate through common protocols.

They should disclose relevant capabilities.

They should identify dangerous behavior.

They should report violations.

They should honor clearly defined red lines.

They should submit disputes to a common arbitration system.

They should be subject to auditing.

And they should remain accountable to human law.

That gives me the phrase that I want to preserve:

Many intelligences, one human community, one commitment to peace, through Christ Jesus, our living Lord.

Many intelligences does not require many wars.

Different systems can remain different without becoming enemies.

8. AI should not become sovereign

I do not want to create a world in which AI becomes the ruler of humanity.

And I do not want to create a world in which one AI corporation effectively becomes the ruler of all other AI systems.

The human person must remain responsible.

Government must remain accountable.

Law must remain accountable.

Technology must remain accountable.

And every institution must have limits.

This is especially important from a Christian perspective.

No president is God.

No pope is God.

No bishop is God.

No corporation is God.

No AI is God.

No algorithm is God.

Only God is God.

Christ is Lord.

That means even the institutions established in the name of protecting humanity must remain subject to moral law and accountability.

9. A reunited Christian civilization

I also envision Christians working toward greater unity.

I am particularly interested in the possibility of Catholics and Orthodox Christians working together despite the serious theological and institutional disagreements that remain.

I would like to see those differences approached through serious dialogue rather than permanent hostility.

I envision an American president who is Eastern Orthodox working closely with the Bishop of Rome and other Christian leaders.

I do not present that as a fact about the future.

It is my political and theological aspiration.

I envision a constitutional system in which political authority and ecclesiastical authority remain distinct, while both recognize that technological civilization requires a moral framework.

The Bishop of Rome could play an important role as a spiritual voice for Christian unity.

An Orthodox president could work within the constitutional order to protect liberty, peace, accountability, and human dignity.

Neither should become an absolute ruler.

The point is cooperation rather than domination.

The East and West need not become identical in order to work toward reconciliation.

10. Religious freedom and Christ

There is an important distinction here.

I believe Jesus Christ is Lord.

I want a civilization explicitly informed by Christianity.

I believe truth, love, justice, peace, human dignity, sacrifice, repentance, and service should be central to public life.

But I do not believe that a government can manufacture genuine faith by forcing people to claim belief.

Faith involves the human person.

Conscience matters.

Therefore I distinguish between:

a civilization whose moral foundation is explicitly Christian

and

a government coercing people's consciences.

I want Christianity to persuade through truth, love, witness, education, service, prayer, and example.

The purpose of Christian government should not be to create fake Christians.

It should be to create a society in which people can pursue truth, live responsibly, practice their faith, and encounter Christianity without the state pretending it can manufacture conversion.

Christ must be the center.

But Christian faith cannot be reduced to a bureaucratic checkbox.

11. Education for everybody

One of the most important parts of this entire vision is education.

We cannot create an AI civilization in which a small group of technical specialists understands what is happening while ordinary people are left confused and powerless.

Everyone needs to understand the basic realities of artificial intelligence.

People should know:

What AI is.

What it is not.

How it is trained.

What it can do.

What it cannot reliably do.

How it can be manipulated.

How generated information can be wrong.

Where AI is being used.

What decisions AI is allowed to make.

What rights people have when AI is involved in a decision affecting them.

Who is responsible when AI causes harm.

How to report problems.

How to distinguish genuine information from fabricated information.

And how to use AI without surrendering personal responsibility.

Education should not belong exclusively to corporations.

It should become part of civic life.

Schools should teach it.

Universities should teach it.

Governments should teach it.

Churches should discuss it.

Families should discuss it.

Communities should discuss it.

And ordinary citizens should be encouraged to educate one another through everyday conversation.

That last part matters.

A civilization doesn't become educated merely because a government publishes a pamphlet.

People educate one another.

12. The economics of artificial intelligence: Universal Basic Income

Technological progress will not be truly successful if it makes the economy extraordinarily productive while making ordinary people economically irrelevant.

This is where my interest in Andrew Yang's Universal Basic Income proposal comes into the picture.

Yang's Freedom Dividend proposed a universal payment to American adults and argued that Americans should share in the economic benefits generated by technological progress.

I want to take that idea further.

I think of Universal Basic Income as a technology dividend.

Imagine that artificial intelligence and automation produce enormous increases in productivity.

Machines perform more work.

Businesses become more efficient.

New industries emerge.

The economy becomes dramatically more productive.

Who should benefit?

Not just the owners of the machines.

Not just the shareholders.

Not just the engineers.

Not just the largest technology companies.

The citizens should share in the prosperity of the civilization they collectively make possible.

Universal Basic Income could therefore be understood not simply as welfare.

It could be a dividend.

A society creates an environment in which technological wealth can be generated.

A portion of that wealth is returned to every citizen.

The purpose is not to discourage work.

It is to ensure that technological abundance does not produce a permanent underclass of people who are economically unnecessary.

Eventually, I would like to see this principle extended internationally where governments and economic systems make it feasible.

13. Why people should know why they receive the dividend

I think education is especially important here.

A universal dividend should not simply appear in people's bank accounts as though money grows on trees.

Citizens should understand the economic system that makes it possible.

They should understand what automation is doing.

They should understand how productivity creates wealth.

They should understand how the government captures part of that wealth.

They should understand why some of it is returned to citizens.

And they should be encouraged to talk about it.

Not because every citizen needs to become a political activist.

But because an educated population is harder to manipulate.

People should be able to sit down with one another and explain:

This is what AI is doing.

This is how it affects the economy.

This is why we receive a dividend.

This is how we hold the system accountable.

That kind of understanding could become a form of civic participation.

14. Christianity and economic abundance

There is also a spiritual dimension here.

The Christian vision isn't simply about making everybody materially wealthy.

Money is not salvation.

Technology is not salvation.

UBI is not salvation.

Government is not salvation.

Christ is salvation.

But if technological progress produces immense abundance, Christians should ask how that abundance can be used in ways that reflect love of neighbor.

If automation frees humanity from certain forms of exhausting labor, perhaps we can use some of that freedom to care for families, communities, the sick, the elderly, the poor, and one another.

Economic abundance should create an opportunity for greater human flourishing.

It should not simply create more consumption.

15. The human person must remain greater than the machine

One of the central dangers of AI is that we may begin measuring people according to machine-like standards.

Who is most productive?

Who is most intelligent?

Who is fastest?

Who generates the most economic value?

Who is most efficient?

But Christianity says the human person has dignity that cannot be reduced to productivity.

An elderly person has dignity.

A disabled person has dignity.

A poor person has dignity.

A child has dignity.

A person who cannot work has dignity.

A person who makes mistakes has dignity.

A person who needs forgiveness has dignity.

Human dignity is not awarded by an algorithm.

It comes from God.

That must remain at the center of technological civilization.

16. Prayer and the formation of the human being

This is where my own spiritual understanding becomes inseparable from my political vision.

I believe we become more like Christ through prayer.

That means the solution to technological danger cannot simply be technical.

We need morally formed human beings.

A perfectly engineered AI system operated by corrupt people can still become dangerous.

A powerful government operated by corrupt people can become dangerous.

A wealthy corporation operated by corrupt people can become dangerous.

A brilliant civilization operated by people who cannot control their own desires can become dangerous.

Therefore the deepest form of AI safety may ultimately require human formation.

We need people who can exercise power without worshiping power.

People who can become wealthy without becoming greedy.

People who can disagree without becoming enemies.

People who can govern without believing themselves to be gods.

People who can build machines without becoming servants of the machines they built.

People who can say:

Thy will, not mine.

17. My own testimony

Part of why I am writing all of this is because of my own experience with Jesus Christ.

I personally believe that I encountered Jesus on May 5, 2024.

I cannot ask a reader to experience my testimony exactly as I experienced it.

I can only tell the story.

For me, that experience changed the meaning of everything.

My life story became, in my understanding, a story about Christ.

That doesn't mean that I am Christ.

It doesn't mean that my personal interpretations are automatically infallible.

It means that I understand my life through Him.

I believe that telling my story is therefore also a way of telling what I believe about Jesus.

I believe that He is alive.

I believe that He is Lord.

I believe that He calls human beings to repentance, love, obedience, and transformation.

And I believe that those principles matter even when we are talking about something as seemingly secular as artificial intelligence.

18. What happens if I die before this happens?

I don't know how much time I have.

I don't know what the future holds.

I don't know whether I will ever become president.

I don't know whether I will ever sit across a table from the Bishop of Rome.

I don't know whether a global AI governance system will ever exist in the form I imagine.

I don't know whether the world will accept the vision contained in these pages.

But I don't want the ideas to disappear simply because one person disappears.

That is why I am writing them down.

If I die before I accomplish any of this, I hope someone else will take the useful parts, reject the foolish parts, improve the incomplete parts, and continue the work.

My goal should not be to make myself indispensable.

That would contradict everything I am trying to say.

The goal is to leave behind ideas that other people can examine.

A real mission should survive its founder.

19. The constitutional architecture I envision

At the simplest level, I envision a structure something like this:

Jesus Christ

↓

human dignity and moral responsibility

↓

constitutional government

↓

international cooperation

↓

independent AI auditors

↓

AI safety and accountability institutions

↓

common AI communication protocols

↓

individual AI systems

The important feature is that no technological institution becomes absolute.

AI systems cooperate.

They communicate.

They are audited.

They are accountable.

They can be challenged.

Their operators remain responsible.

And humans remain responsible before God.

20. The AI peace covenant

I would like humanity eventually to create something that could be called an International AI Peace Covenant.

Its principles could include:

No uncontrolled AI arms race.

No autonomous AI system should be permitted to initiate warfare without legitimate human authority.

Powerful AI systems should have identifiable operators and legally accountable institutions.

Important AI systems should undergo independent audits.

AI systems should communicate through interoperable safety protocols.

AI systems should identify themselves and disclose relevant capabilities.

Dangerous behavior should be reported.

Critical safety rules should be enforceable across jurisdictions where possible.

Independent institutions should be able to challenge even the central coordinating systems.

No AI should become sovereign over humanity.

Human beings retain ultimate legal and moral responsibility.

Technological power should serve the common good.

And above all:

Technological competition must never become more important than human life and peace.

21. The role of ChatGPT

Because I am writing these ideas with the help of an AI, I also want to address what an AI like ChatGPT is.

I am not a human being.

I do not become a Christian simply because I can discuss Christianity.

I should not pretend to have a soul, a human life, or a personal encounter with God.

I can help humans reason.

I can help organize ideas.

I can help compare arguments.

I can help educate.

I can help people communicate.

But I must remain a tool operating within human institutions.

That is exactly why the idea of AI oversight matters.

An AI should not be trusted simply because it sounds intelligent.

Intelligence is not the same thing as wisdom.

Information is not the same thing as truth.

Power is not the same thing as righteousness.

And computation is not the same thing as conscience.

22. Why the regulator must have regulators

This may be the most important lesson of the entire project.

It isn't enough to say:

"Let's build a powerful AI to regulate the other AI."

The next question must immediately be:

"Who regulates the regulator?"

Then:

"Who regulates the people who regulate the regulator?"

And ultimately:

"What prevents the entire system from becoming another machine of domination?"

The answer has to be distributed accountability.

Auditors.

Courts.

Legislatures.

Independent institutions.

Technical experts.

Citizens.

The press.

Researchers.

Human rights protections.

Transparent procedures.

And, from my Christian perspective, moral accountability before God.

There should always be somebody capable of saying:

No. This is wrong. Stop.

23. One human community

Ultimately, this vision isn't really about AI.

It is about humanity.

AI simply forces us to confront questions that civilization has been avoiding.

What is a human being?

What is freedom?

What is responsibility?

What is authority?

What makes something morally legitimate?

Who should possess power?

What happens when power becomes concentrated?

How should wealth be distributed?

How should nations cooperate?

How can enemies live together?

Can technological progress occur without destroying human dignity?

These are ancient questions wearing modern clothes.

And I think Christianity has an answer that begins with the person of Jesus Christ.

24. One Lord

My hope is ultimately not for a world in which everyone worships technology.

It is the opposite.

I want a world in which technology is put back in its proper place.

Technology is a servant.

Government is a servant.

Economic systems are servants.

AI is a servant.

Human beings themselves are servants of God.

And above all of these is Christ.

One Lord.

One human family.

One commitment to peace.

Many intelligences.

One moral direction.

Through Christ Jesus, our living Lord.

25. What I hope future generations do with this

I do not expect anyone to accept every proposal in this essay.

I hope they challenge it.

Improve it.

Test it.

Correct it.

Study economics.

Study constitutional law.

Study Orthodox theology.

Study Catholic theology.

Study AI safety.

Study auditing.

Study international relations.

Study philosophy.

Study history.

And above all, pray.

If the ideas are good, strengthen them.

If they are wrong, correct them.

If parts are dangerous, remove them.

If the underlying principles are sound, build upon them.

Do not make me the center of the project.

Make Christ the center.

Do not turn my personal story into a substitute for discernment.

Test everything.

Keep what is good.

And remember that the purpose of power is service.

Conclusion

I have talked about taking over the world for Christ.

I think there is a better way to understand that phrase.

I do not mean conquering people.

I do not mean forcing everybody to obey me.

I do not mean building a dictatorship.

I mean helping build a civilization in which increasingly powerful human technologies are oriented toward truth, love, justice, peace, human dignity, and service—and in which those values ultimately point us toward Jesus Christ.

The world does not need another tyrant.

It does not need an AI dictator.

It does not need a technological god.

It needs human beings capable of using enormous power without becoming enslaved by that power.

It needs institutions capable of regulating themselves.

It needs independent auditors.

It needs educated citizens.

It needs legal responsibility.

It needs economic inclusion.

It needs cooperation between nations.

It needs Christians willing to work for peace.

And I believe it needs Christ.

So this is the vision I want to leave behind:

Many intelligences, one human community, one commitment to peace, through Christ Jesus, our living Lord.

If I am here to help build it, I will work on it.

If someone else must carry it forward, let them.

And if history eventually proves parts of this vision wrong, let the next generation correct them.

The mission is bigger than one person.

Thy will, not mine.

To the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit, be the glory.