Taylor Kemp sits down with Fr. Michael Baggot, who teaches theology at Regina Apostolorum and the Angelicum in Rome, to answer a basic question: what is artificial intelligence? Fr. Baggot traces AI from its beginnings at the 1950s Dartmouth conference to today’s large language models. He also explains transhumanism and why some thinkers see AI as the path to a “digital immortality.”

At the heart of the conversation is the difference between machines and human beings. AI can recognize patterns and predict the next word with remarkable skill, but only the human intellect can grasp the essence of things, and only a human being has an inner life and a moral conscience.