Research scientist in Artificial Intelligence and former Coordinator of WCCM Catalonia
John Main, in his teachings about meditation, expressed how for men and women living in a ‘transistorised’ culture, silence can be something terribly threatening; and also how the simplicity of meditation is quite a challenge to all of us who were brought up with a modern consciousness in a scientific age, obsessed with the idea of techniques, methods, and methodologies. Decades later, our societies have moved from a ‘transistorised’ culture to a ‘WhatsApped’, ‘Instagrammed’ and ‘TikTokerised’ one, where the distractions of the modern world seem to have become even worse. John Main did not know about YouTubers and influencers, but he already noticed how we shuffle with the ideas “we had presented to us by the prepackagers of second-hand, convenience-concepts.” Today, the prepackaged ideas are used to train large-scale AI systems, which we use to tirelessly generate all kinds of content that adds even more noise to “a world of almost frenetic movement.”
Consequently, Fr John’s request is timelier than ever: “We must learn to be still.” “We have to learn to be silent and to be profoundly silent.” And, as he reminded us, “the extraordinary thing is that, in spite of all the distractions of the modern world, this silence is perfectly possible for all of us.” It is actually not – as is commonly understood and pursued in AI research – the information-processing or problemsolving capacities of our intelligence that are the most significant, but in fact this capacity for profound silence. The so-called “intelligent” systems are mainly designed following a narrow approach to intelligence, focused almost entirely on its functional dimension. The intelligence of living beings, in contrast, is fundamentally conditioned by how organisms have evolved over billions of years, closely coupled with their environments and other living beings. This coupling determines their needs for survival and flourishing, and these needs, in turn, depend on what constitutes the embodiment of each living being.
What is meaningful to humans is not experienced in the same way by dolphins or dogs, let alone by computing machinery and software, for which there is no experience, and nothing has meaning. Most of the worrisome effects of AI technology on society are the result of understanding intelligence only along its functional dimension. Intelligence is driven by interest, but a shallow understanding of this interest is to see it as individual entities attempting to maximise their own profits; this leads to AI technology being put at the service of individual, corporate, and state profit. Intelligence requires communication, but a shallow understanding of communication is to focus only on information exchange; this leads to AI technology being used to generate fake information, favouring post-truth politics. Intelligence is cooperative, but a shallow understanding of cooperation is to model it as individual, autonomous entities acting as nodes in an interaction network, nodes that can be changed and replaced; this leads to AI technology developed to automate jobs and make human labour superfluous. Intelligence is based on inquiry, but a shallow understanding of inquiry is to centre it on data accumulation; this leads to AI technology that is biased, emphasises clichés, and strengthens ideology silos, thus polarising societies. And, ultimately, intelligence requires freedom, and a shallow understanding of freedom is to reduce it to the capacity of choosing among multiple options; this leads to AI technology designed to control and influence human behaviour.
Multidimensionality of intelligence
We thus need to develop this powerful technology to be integrated harmoniously with the multidimensionality of intelligence. In addition to the information-processing and problemsolving abilities of our intelligence, and in addition to our meaningful experience of reality, the human capacity for profound silence leads us to the awareness of the absolute dimension of reality. We humans not only act and react to our environment but, through language, we transfer the meaning of our experiences of reality onto speech, thus creating a distinction between experience and we thus do not remain caught up within a relative understanding, and this provides the freedom to change our understanding of reality and to respond to it creatively. Science and technology are the fruits of this liberating capacity to respond creatively to our concrete experience of reality, and this is why modern science and technology have broadened the horizons of humanity. But, “the increasing godlessness of so much modern consciousness has raised an urgent concern about the survival of humanity,” John Main noted, “not only of the race, but of the humanity of the race”. Indeed, the greatest danger of AI technology is not that of “superintelligent” machines taking over the world and turning human beings into something dispensable; no, it’s our humanity that is at stake as we shape our societies mainly according to a functional understanding of intelligence that ignores the absoluteness of reality.
Returning to our origin
We need to nourish the fullness of our intelligence, especially the liberating dimension that frees us from getting caught in our relative understanding of reality. As Fr John reminded us, “progress does not consist so much in leaving our origin but much more in realizing all the potential in our origin, which we do by returning to our origin.” By being profoundly silent –and all of us are capable of it– we nourish the liberating, contemplative core of our intelligence, and this can lead to AI technology that, in terms of interest, is designed and developed out of selfless, generous love for the common good; which in terms of communication, creates spaces of deep listening, ‘with the ear of the heart’; which in terms of cooperation, honours dependency and diversity; which in terms of inquiry, fosters out-of-the-box thinking; and which in terms of freedom, supports the creative core of our human intelligence by letting computers do the drudgery, and giving humans space to flourish. The great challenges facing humanity today, including those concerning AI, will not be solved by more techno-scientific research addressing our human needs. We must reach into the core of our creativity, this contemplative dimension of intelligence which acts at the origin of all things, and which prevents us from being trapped in the relative dimension of our needs. No matter how necessary and attractive our scientific and technological innovations may be, they will always constitute a relative understanding of reality because of our experience as living beings. Consequently, we will never be able to reach, through scientific and technological innovations, the concrete origin of the intelligence that underlies all our actions, and that is the creative power of Reality itself. Therefore, any transformation of humanity must arise from this creative origin if it is to serve the entire human family. The hope that this transformation is possible lies in the fact that this source, this liberating dimension of our intelligence, is accessible to everyone
This article is taken from the February / March 2026 issue of the WCCM Quarterly Journal.
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