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Publication Date

7-2025

Keywords

Artificial Intelligence (AI), Predictive Algorithms, Evolving Ontology, Justice, Theological Ethics

Abstract

In the United States today, predictive algorithms, a particular form of artificial intelligence (AI), permeate all segments of society, including the criminal justice system. With the help of AI, judges are able to “plug” defendants into algorithms and generate outputs that produce a deterministic and homogenous view of defendants. Proponents of predictive algorithms cite accuracy, neutrality, fairness, and efficiency, but what is missing from their calculus is the human person, the central figure who shapes and is shaped by algorithms. Using the story of defendant Darnell Gates as a case study, this article seeks to contribute to the development of AI as a topic of theological ethics, offering a moral reflection on AI in the American justice system and its implications for theological ontology. Heeding Alexander Filipović’s call to employ a social-ethical perspective of “justice to people as persons,” I will explicate what I call the theory and praxis of “evolving ontology,” building upon (1) Roberto DellʾOro’s vision of the human person; (2) Darlene Fozard Weaver’s discussion of human dignity; and (3) Pope Francis’ notion of a “culture of encounter.” This paradigm captures the conflux of potentiality, relationality, and dignity that is human existence, illumining the power of human agency and the enduring promise of human redemption that God creates, gives, and sustains. AI is a urgent matter of justice, and it is only by seeing and encountering one another in our humanity that we will be able to redeem our mechanized world.

DOI

10.15365/sst.2025.3001

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