Are We Ready for the AI Revolution? What Faith, Education, and Culture Teach Us About Navigating the Age of Artificial Intelligence

The rise of artificial intelligence isn’t just a tech story — it’s a human story that raises societal, moral, and spiritual questions. Three visionary thinkers from the twentieth century — a monk, a philosopher, and a media theorist — offer surprisingly timely wisdom for navigating the most transformative revolution of our age. This post explores what their insights mean for how we live, learn, and lead today.

A New Kind of Revolution

In the summer of 1956, a handful of scientists gathered at Dartmouth College to explore a bold idea they called “Artificial Intelligence.” In hindsight, that meeting was the spark for a new kind of revolution — not agricultural, not industrial, but autonomous.

Consider the pace: the Agricultural Revolution took roughly four centuries to reshape society. The Industrial Revolution took about two. This third wave is moving so fast that within just a few decades, the world could look fundamentally different. This isn’t only about robots or clever gadgets. It’s about how knowledge itself is changing. How we work, learn, relate to one another, and even understand what it means to be human.

We’ve been here before, of course. Every major shift in civilization brings both excitement and anxiety. It can be tempting to hope that things will quiet down, that the old ways will return — but they won’t. As with the plow and the steam engine, wishing the new world away has never worked. The real question isn’t whether we’ll live in an AI-shaped world. It’s how we’ll live wisely within it, emphasizing the importance of moral and spiritual reflection for a meaningful response.

Three Voices Worth Listening To

When facing seismic cultural change, it helps to seek out thinkers who saw deeply into the soul of their own times. Three such voices stand out as especially relevant today: Thomas Merton, Mortimer Adler, and Marshall McLuhan. Each offers a different lens — spiritual, educational, and cultural — for making sense of where we are and where we might be headed.

Thomas Merton: The Call to Stillness

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and prolific writer, warned that modern life too easily turns us into what he called “creatures of speed.” For Merton, being fully human begins with being still — learning to see clearly, without illusion or distraction.

Would Merton ask us today: Are our machines helping us become more human, or are they distracting us from being human at all? Artificial intelligence can process data at lightning speed, but it cannot love, wonder, or forgive. Those remain our tasks — and our gifts.

Mortimer Adler: The Pursuit of Wisdom

Mortimer Adler, philosopher and champion of the “Great Books” tradition, believed that the purpose of education was never merely job training. It was wisdom training. He spent his career arguing that learning to think morally and critically is not a luxury — it is the foundation of a free society.

Adler would remind us that we don’t just need people who can write an algorithm. We need citizens who can decide what that algorithm should do and why — and who have the moral grounding to say no when the answer is wrong.

Marshall McLuhan: The Medium Is the Message

Marshall McLuhan, the Canadian media theorist and prophet of the information age, taught that every new technology reshapes the way we experience reality. His famous phrase — “the medium is the message” — means that our tools are never neutral. They change the way we relate to time, to one another, and even to truth itself.

McLuhan would encourage us to stay awake to how our devices are reprogramming not only our machines but our minds. The question isn’t just what AI does for us. It’s what AI does to us.

What We Can Do: Acting with Intention

Seeing the challenge clearly and judging it wisely are essential — but they aren’t enough on their own. We also have to act with moral and spiritual intention. Three domains offer particular opportunities to shape this revolution for the common good.

Faith and Spiritual Community Religious traditions can ground our conversations about technology in moral and spiritual truth. Faith reminds us that progress without purpose can be deeply destructive. It keeps the human person — not efficiency or profit — at the center of the story. Churches, synagogues, mosques, and other communities of meaning have a vital role to play in asking the questions that spreadsheets can’t answer, inspiring hope and shared responsibility.

Education Schools and learning communities need to form people who can discern, not just perform. That means nurturing curiosity, critical thinking, moral imagination, and empathy. In the age of AI, wisdom is the new literacy. Adults returning to learning, in particular, bring life experience that gives ethical reasoning real weight and relevance.

Civic and Political Life The tension between democratic and authoritarian approaches to technology governance will only grow sharper in the years ahead. Authoritarian systems may appear more efficient at deploying technology. Still, without transparency and shared accountability, speed becomes a tool of control. Democracies, for all their messiness, create the conditions for the moral dialogue and public participation we will need to keep human dignity intact.

The Invitation

The deepest call of this moment is simply this: to slow down long enough to think, pray, and talk together about the future we are building. Consider how you can contribute to shaping this future with intention and moral clarity.

Merton would say we must rediscover silence. Adler would remind us to keep asking the big questions. McLuhan would warn us to pay attention to the messages our machines are quietly sending us.

The autonomous revolution will not wait. But it will reflect who we choose to become. Whether AI deepens our humanity or diminishes it will depend less on the technology itself and more on the spiritual, moral, and communal imagination we bring to it.

The future isn’t just something that happens to us. It’s something we build — together.

Questions for Reflection and Discussion

These questions are designed for adult learners, book groups, faith communities, and civic conversations. There are no right or wrong answers — only the opportunity to think more carefully.

1. The pace of change. The article suggests AI is transforming society faster than any previous revolution. Do you feel that speed in your own life? Where do you notice it most — at work, in your family, in your community?
2. Thomas Merton and stillness. Merton believed that the antidote to a distracted age is contemplation — being still enough to see clearly. What practices help you stay grounded and reflective in a world of constant information? What gets in the way?
3. Mortimer Adler and wisdom. Adler distinguished between training people to do things and educating them to think well. Looking back at your own education, which did you receive more of? What kind of learning do you most wish you had pursued?
4. Marshall McLuhan and awareness. McLuhan argued that technologies change us even when we think we’re just using them. In what ways do you think smartphones, social media, or AI have already changed how you think, communicate, or experience time?
5. Faith and technology. The article suggests that religious and spiritual communities have a unique role to play in shaping how we respond to AI. Do you agree? What can faith communities offer that other institutions cannot?
6. Education in the AI age. If wisdom is “the new literacy,” what should schools — and adult education programs — be teaching that they currently are not? What skills or habits of mind matter most?
7. Democracy and technology. The article raises concerns about authoritarian uses of AI. What safeguards do you think are most important for keeping AI in democratic societies accountable, transparent, and fair?
8. Your own role. The closing argument is that the future reflects who we choose to become. What is one concrete thing you could do — in your home, your workplace, your community, or your civic life — to help ensure AI serves human flourishing rather than undermining it?

This post draws on themes from theology, philosophy of education, and media studies to invite deeper reflection on one of the defining challenges of our time. It is intended as a starting point for conversation, not a final word.