Brussels
Monday, 16 November 2026
16:00–18:30
A Catholic framework for AI discernment
Six moral red lines for artificial intelligence
We stand at a crossroads of our own making. Artificial intelligence is an extraordinary achievement of human creativity, opening possibilities for discovery, learning, work, and care. Its development is increasingly driven by a race for greater capability, efficiency, and autonomous power. Today's choices will shape what people can understand, how they relate, the work they can pursue, and the responsibilities they retain.
The Moral Red Lines project proposes six boundaries to guide AI toward a future worthy of human dignity, freedom, relationship, and responsibility. They invite us to ask what we should build, what limits we must set, and how progress can serve our common life.
Informed by Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas and Catholic social teaching.
Catholic foundations
What are we building?
In Pope Leo XIV's Magnifica Humanitas, Babel represents the temptation to measure progress by the reach of our own power. Jerusalem is rebuilt through the shared work of people who bring different gifts and take responsibility for a common home.
AI places these paths before us with particular urgency. Our task is to direct human creativity toward a future in which every person can belong, contribute, learn, and receive care. The six red lines are moral beacons pointing toward that pro-human future.
Magnifica Humanitas, §§8–9, 90A child learning to solve a difficult problem. A teenager seeking friendship and understanding. A young worker entering a profession. A patient waiting for a medical decision. A community depending on public digital infrastructure. These are the lives and responsibilities that give technological progress its purpose.
The proposed boundaries
Six moral red lines
Each boundary protects a human good and points toward technologies that help people flourish. Explore the reasoning, evidence, and practical commitments behind it.
- 1 Human control Keep powerful AI under meaningful human control, with independently tested safeguards and the ability to correct, interrupt, and stop consequential actions.
- 2 Human relationships Protect friendship, family, care, and human connection from systems designed to cultivate artificial intimacy or emotional dependence.
- 3 Education and formation Ensure AI strengthens what learners can understand, remember, explain, and do for themselves.
- 4 Human work Direct AI toward safer work, stronger human capabilities, meaningful participation, and a fair sharing of technological gains.
- 5 AI personhood Scrutinize the human-like identities deliberately engineered into AI and prevent confusion about consciousness, personhood, and moral responsibility.
- 6 Human moral judgment Keep decisions concerning life, liberty, care, justice, safeguarding, and spiritual responsibility with competent and accountable people.
People behind the project
Research rooted in dialogue
The project brings AI research into dialogue with theology, philosophy, and public policy through a consultation white paper and expert discussions.
It is implemented by a team from the University of Ljubljana, Slovenia, led by dr. Octavian M. Machidon, and funded by the Future of Life Institute through the grant program “Proposals on religious projects tackling the challenges posed by the AGI race”.
Meet the project teamUpcoming dialogues
Rome
26–27 November 2026
Moral Red Lines in the AI Race: Superintelligence, Work, and Human Relationships
Event details
Read the consultation draft
On the Need for Moral Red Lines for Artificial Intelligence
A Catholic Framework for Discernment and Dialogue
Consultation draft for expert review, discussion, and feedback.
Evidence reviewed through 7 October 2026.