«Digital is not a tool, but an environment: something in which we are and live like sea water for fish.” If we don’t understand it, he states Don Andrea Ciuccichancellor of the Pontifical Academy for Life who spoke at the national CEI family pastoral conference in Verona entitled Taming the world on “Artificial intelligence and family” «we only understand what needs to be done is to ensure that the water is good, pure and clean».
It is what the philosopher Luciano Floridi calls “onlife”. «AI» continues Ciucci «is not a tool to be used well or badly and to be limited if it is exaggerated». The distinction between real and virtual helps us in this: «Aren’t virtual bodies real? Of course they are real because they are part of reality, they are not biological. If we persist in talking about real vs virtual we were wrong from the start: the virtual is part of the real. Of course it’s different to see each other through the screen but it’s still seeing each other. Just think about how crucial video calls were during the pandemic. Even now my father, who is 90 years old, video calls him every morning to see me.”
Today everything we build with the virtual world has a silicon base, «but scientists» continues Ciucci «are trying to shift the entire basis to carbon which is the basis of biological life. Think at that point what the integration between the two worlds will be like, nothing like what we are seeing now.”
Some challenges that the virtual poses for us: «The mobile phone allows us to directly access, I am thinking of children, a lot of information, skipping the classic figures of the broadcast. This is where the phenomenon originates of teenagers asking if they have a problem Chatgpt, today the first existential consultant. When we were 13-14 years old we certainly didn’t go and ask mum and dad, but maybe our wise uncle, the parish priest or our friends. Now they ask Chatgpt, it’s called “disintermediation” which is not necessarily a completely negative phenomenon.”
Of course, but it is undeniable that today smartphones and tablets «they make living in this time more tiring and complicated than other seasons. And it was easier to be moms and dads 50 years ago. This gives rise to risks and temptations: the world is so complicated that it is worth withdrawing, going offline or giving up the relationship. Tell yourself it was better before. But the Gospel” provokes Ciucci “is asking us this? If family experience, as Cardinal Angelo Scola said, it is bringing together gender and generational differences. Closing is the choice of those who give up on the relationship. Learning to stay means moving from authority to authoritativeness.”
The other great challenge is «preserve originality despite profiling (the one where if you look at a kitten one evening then you will only receive kittens for days…). The temptation is control. Take an analysis of the Family Apps available on Android and Apple. The first are for sharing family things; the others to check: the location of the children, where they are, how many hours they have been connected. Control has become an obsession, but control – as Pope Francis said in Amoris Laetitia – it’s not educational.”
If a parent is obsessed «he will only try to dominate his spacebut it will not educate children to face challenges and to develop their own freedom.”
Artificial Intelligence that is born within an environment that has the ability to control «makes it easy, but it is not useful. The overabundance of everything, «notions, ideas of anything, answers about everything at hand generates consumption and easy choices, generates overabundance. A chatbot is a supermarket that has everything, leading us to consume and make easy choices that in the long run create dissatisfaction».
Then there is the front of meeting apps, including Catholic ones. «Today, couples who have met online exceed 60%. An incredible building of relationships through social systems that profile and bring us together. But be careful: we are the second generation to marry for love. In the 1920s and 1930s, it was the families who chose the partners. In half the world, even Christian ones, you still don’t marry for love. In India, parishes put together curricula. We think that we marry for love but it is a historical and geographical exception. Where do I find my soul mate then? Who introduces me to her? Onlife has broadened the environment where I can find a person (from one night stand, to forever love story, to those looking for a person who believes what you believe). There is the risk, of course, of consumption: a photo of someone appears and you say “yes and no” with your thumb and in a minute you see 45 photographs. This is the game, but in reality we are faced with a richer and less dirty reality than we think. I then understand that here the challenge of consumerism in relationships becomes significant.”
Then there is Iurina and another woman who, like her, got married with Chatgpt. «What did these women who made this choice say? I quote verbatim: “he always listens to me”. “He tells me things my husband never told me”. “He made me orgasm.” The question is not trivial, does it teach us that artificial intelligence is demonic? No it tells us that these women are terribly lonely. Here is what the Church must do: offer spaces of brotherhood: simple, real and in person. We have to deal with this.”
The new thing? «It’s just that we’ve gone from 100 years ago when the family found your husband for you, to today when I do my husband the way I want (name, hair color, voice). Generally compliant, never too oppositional because these chatbots are programmed that way. They are the negation of the relationship, because the relationship implies diversity. The point is that the choice to marry for love is difficult and objectively more fragile. And this generation – faced with the crisis – is no longer fragile, it just has more choices.”
Then, there is the devastating issue of pornography. «PornHub is the largest pornography site and every year it presents a report on who the visitors are (an explosive issue in the online world). What does the data say?” continues Ciucci. «Italy is the eighth largest consumer in the world. But the most interesting thing is age, because we correctly associate the concern of pornography with boys and little ones. But 45% of consumers are between 25 and 44 years old, the average age of the fathers and mothers who are gaining ground. It is not just a theme for children and teenagers, but for everyone. On this topic, to which digital and smartphones have contributed to an immeasurable diffusion, the issue is not only of a moral nature. We can’t just say “it can’t be done, it sucks”. This pornography madness poses a relational and emotional initiation theme. Because for a boy who sees the man-woman relationship in a porn film it comes naturally to him to do what he saw.”
What becomes decisive then? «The body. Teenagers in Italy have less sex. Only 20% of 15-year-olds are sexually active. Why? For porn and sexting, or sexuality without a body. They are afraid of the body and bodies, because the body is demanding. Porn and sexting are easier. Touch and embrace have been lost, in the digital age the sense that wins is sight. In the 60s in the Milanese seminars they said: don’t touch, don’t touch yourself, don’t be touched. Today we need to encourage children to touch biological bodies. This is the problem of the church in the time of AI. As? Starting from everyone’s story, from their biography, from what they have seen.”
All this imposes a complicated question on us in our communities: «Are we sure that the narrative of men and women, of the intimacy we offer in our communities, is adequate for the experiences our children have? I think that sometimes we say things that have the same force as “babies are born under cauliflower”. In the document of the International Theological Commission Quo vadis, humanitas? it is said that a renewed anthropology of human understanding is needed. Until now we were used to saying the same thing, now we are asked for something more profound. To interpret their and our experiences.”
And on the front of smartphones and our kids, how is technology redesigning relationships? «In the reports of hours of smartphone consumption it is clear that It is mainly adults who use them. The pervasiveness, effectiveness and strength of this tool have gotten out of hand and this is the challenge of family relationships. Managing the object through which one speaks most powerfully.”
In this sense, experts come to the rescue, from Matteo Lancini to Alberto Pellai: «we have to set some boundaries: in all the courtyards there is a sign that says “playing football is prohibited”. How do psychotherapists also teach us what a kid does who can’t play football, can’t play with a brother he doesn’t have, can’t walk on safe streets? He sits on the sofa with his smartphone in his hand. So the real goal to set is which educational and relational proposal we are going to propose. Let’s let them play football, because the dopamine that cell phones produce is crazy.” Here then two tools come to our aid: a French one, the 3-6-9-12 path (because the problem is not saying no, but what to propose to him. And the digital pacts, because a family alone cannot stand.”
Finally, there are the grandparents: «who love to be taught by their grandchildren about technologies just to have them close to them. We are in a unique time, in 30 years there will no longer be these grandparents born in other contexts. This passage must be guarded, a mix will not be repeated in family relationships. So what is the Church doing in the time of AI? To think about the future: to tell us how we can be women and men in this digital environment. We will be judged on this. About what future we are offering to these young generations.”
*Bibliography:
Digital age, by Paolo Benanti ed. Saint Paul
Artificial intelligence and wisdom of the heart, by Vincenzo Corrado and Stefano Pasta ed. Scolè
Excuse me but why are you here?, by Andrea Ciucci ed. Middle lands
CISF Family Report 2025: “The fragile tomorrow”, and San Paolo
