El Ignaciano / Junio 2026
Can AI Be a New Tower of Babel?
Jorge R. Rodríguez
Introduction
The technology, then and now
The biblical story of Babel in Genesis 11:1–9 presents more than an ancient construction project. It reveals a recurring human pattern: humanity seeking unity, coordination, transcendence, and power apart from God. Today, humanity is once again building systems capable of coordinating civilization at an unprecedented scale. This time, the tower is built from the data, computation, and algorithms of artificial intelligence technology.
This essay addresses the question of whether humanity is building a new Tower of Babel through the modern technology of artificial intelligence (AI). The question is important because it concerns both the extraordinary benefits, and the significant risks AI may introduce into civilization. Artificial intelligence is transforming how human experience is mediated through technology. Across the world, societies increasingly depend upon AI systems to organize knowledge, commerce, governance, and institutional life. This development raises an important question for humanity: Are we building a new Tower of Babel?
This essay does not claim that artificial intelligence technology is evil, but that AI becomes Babel-like when the power of technology is ordered toward self-exaltation, control, and autonomy apart from what humanity owes to God.
The research project that led to this paper followed the insight expressed in an aphorism commonly attributed to Albert Einstein: complex problems cannot be solved at the same level at which they were created. Rather, solutions must emerge from a higher level of understanding. In this essay, that understanding refers broadly to the conceptual framework through which human beings understand reality and guide action. It includes the human faculties of intelligence (reason), memory, will, judgment, and reflection.
Yet the human person cannot be reduced to intelligence alone, whether artificial or human. The human spirit is also involved. Human beings exhibit hope, faith, love, and moral responsibility. Human beings are motivated not only to know, but also to love. Spiritual discernment becomes essential, especially when working with technologies that increasingly shape civilization itself.
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The levels of AI technology
When we say that solutions must emerge from a higher level, we must recognize that the problem of AI exists across multiple overlapping levels simultaneously. Each level presents distinct concerns that require careful examination. Below we list five cases intended to help find the higher levels from which solutions can provide us with a better understanding of our concerns, the problems, and the solutions that are needed.
First is the consideration of the macro level — the level of civilization itself. At this level, concerns emerge regarding what AI may mean for the future of humanity. This is the level of direct technological concern. The broader civilizational concern remains valid: how does humanity govern systems whose scale and complexity increasingly exceed direct human comprehension? Artificial intelligence extends far beyond conventional computer hardware and software systems. AI is increasingly becoming an epochal technology — a technology capable of creating the conditions for an entirely new era in human history. Another term used to describe this transition is the Fourth Wave.
Second, there is the meso level involving communities, organizations, institutions, and social structures. The training and operation of advanced AI systems require enormous technical infrastructures, including massive data centers, specialized processors, extensive electrical power, and large quantities of water and material resources.
Third, there is the micro level — the level of the individual person. AI increasingly influences human judgment, perception, attention, work, relationships, and identity. Advanced systems appear to simulate forms of intelligence once considered uniquely human.
Fourth, there are the higher levels of reflection involving moral, spiritual, anthropological, and theological questions. If humanity is to respond wisely to the rise of artificial intelligence, it cannot remain only at the level of technical capability. The deeper questions concern truth, wisdom, responsibility, stewardship, and right order. The Tower of Babel remains important because it reveals what happens when human capability expands without corresponding humility before God.
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Technology as we use it in our project
In our effort to derive bast results in our project, we developed an immersive approach. The approach involved using the technology not only at higher possible levels achievable but also using the technology as deeply as possible in the conduct of the project. That would provide a first-hand understanding of the technology and its applications. For example, this paper was developed through an AI-assisted engineering methodology in which all conceptual direction, structural judgment, interpretive reasoning, and final editorial decisions remained under the responsibility and authority of the author. Furthermore, Artificial intelligence tools were used as analytical and compositional instruments within a broader engineering framework designed to support semantic decomposition, structural organization, conceptual alignment, drafting assistance, and iterative refinement. But at no point did the AI system function as an autonomous author, independent interpreter, or self-directing intellectual agent. This provides a good exercise defining the AI-user boundary, as well as what are the maximum capabilities as well as the limitations of each. A strict definition of those boundaries become necessary.
The methodology employed in the development of the paper treated AI as a constrained collaborative tool operating within parameters established by the author. The governing ideas, philosophical commitments, theological interpretations, structural architecture, semantic hierarchies, and evaluative conclusions originated from and were directed by human judgment. The author remained responsible for defining the aims of the work, selecting and organizing concepts, evaluating outputs, revising generated material, preserving coherence across the document, and determining the final form and meaning of the text.
This approach reflects a broader attempt to explore the disciplined use of AI within an intentional process of text engineering and semantic formation. Rather than replacing authorship, the technology was employed to assist in the clarification, structuring, normalization, and reconstruction of complex ideas under continuous human supervision. The process therefore preserved the primacy of human intellectual responsibility while utilizing computational tools to increase analytical visibility, structural consistency, and iterative development capability.
This methodology has also been used in the engineering of additional works within the Library of Integral Formation, including the recently published book Rhythm in an Age of Acceleration — A Primer, as well as the forthcoming volume Principles, scheduled for publication in June. The same AI-assisted engineering methodology technology will be used to engineer future volumes of the Library of Integrative Formation, about a dozen volumes in all. This work made possible the insights discussed in the remainder of this essay.
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Part 1: A New Tower of Babel
From Genesis to Artificial Intelligence
The people gather to build a tower to reach the heavens. They possess a common language and advances in construction and their coordination allows them to pursue a common project with great efficiency. The deeper desires of the people were to “make a name for ourselves.” The problem was not construction itself but the inward turning of human power upon itself. Thus, humanity seeks unity, permanence, and transcendence detached from humility before God.
Throughout human history, civilizations have repeatedly expanded their technical capabilities and then mistaken those capabilities for self-sufficiency. Babel reveals this recurring temptation. Today humanity is building again. But today’s tower is made from technological systems. Artificial intelligence now functions as a global coordination infrastructure linking communication, commerce, media, knowledge, and governance.
The question before us now is “Are we building a new Tower of Babel?”.
Part 2: The Babel Pattern in the Age of AI
Structural characteristics of Babel.
Artificial intelligence provides powerful coordination systems and increasingly our society depend on AI-driven systems to organize the functions performed by business, industry, governments, and individual citizens. A common digital language now links institutions and people across large distances and scales. Artificial Intelligence promises extraordinary benefits and beneath these promises lies a structural pattern similar to Babel.
These developments raise an important question. Can AI become a new Tower of Babel? The answer to this question is the focus of this article.
- Unity without transcendence. At Babel, humanity was unified, but it was not oriented toward God. The problem was unity without transcendence. What is needed is not only a unified humanity, but one that is also oriented toward God. What is needed is coordination that is not detached from this transcendent orientation. Coordination detached from higher order gradually loses the ability to distinguish what is ultimately worth preserving. Modern technological systems increasingly integrate human societies into unified operational environments, but integration alone does not guarantee wisdom.
- Power without limits. At Babel, the people wanted to make a name for themselves, they desired power without limits. In artificial intelligence, technological capability expands faster than accountability and governance. Capability accelerates while moral safeguards struggle to keep pace.
- Compression of time. The Babel pattern also includes compression of time. Decision cycles become nearly instantaneous. Automation reduces reflection and weakens discernment. The temporal conditions necessary for wisdom begin to disappear. The builders of Babel also sought to secure their future through technology.
- Illusion of control. Modern artificial intelligence systems produce a similar illusion of control. Beneath highly integrated technical systems, fragmentation and instability can spread through institutions and shared meaning structures.
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Part 3: The Root Nature of the Crisis
The challenges of artificial intelligence.
At its deepest level, the crisis is not technical. The failure of Babel was not technical. The failure was spiritual: self-exaltation and disorder. The failure of artificial intelligence is not technical. The failure is spiritual: truing to secure transcendence through technology. The failure is the pride of disobedience.
Where the failure was disobedience, the salvation is obedience. The salvation, both of Babel as well as artificial intelligence, is obedience to God’s design. The proper response is not the rejection of technology itself. Rather, the question concerns whether technological power remains rightly ordered. Three dispositions therefore become essential: humility, obedience to God, and responsibility.
Three dispositions are essential: humility, obedience, and responsibility.
- Humility recognizes that human ability is limited, human knowledge is incomplete, and human control is never Humility allows us to accept our own limits and to allow God’s designs to operate in our lives.
- Obedience to God acknowledges and affirms that true order is not self-generated. Human flourishing depends upon conditions received from God. That the expansion of our capability is determined by God as Creator. Everything that can and should be dome is subject to God’s designs for our wellbeing.
- Responsibility means recognizing that human beings remain accountable for the systems they create and sustain. Technology is not a moral agent. Human beings are. For this reason, stewardship becomes essential. Human beings remain responsible for ensuring that technological systems remain aligned with truth, wisdom, responsibility, and the flourishing of human persons. We are handed down Creation and we become stewards of Creation.
Part 4: Without These Dispositions
Without These Dispositions
Technology in general, and artificial intelligence in particular, pose the risk of creating organized disorder at a civilizational scale when they become detached from moral and spiritual order. The Babel story therefore serves as a warning, a reminder, a wake-up call, a guide. Humanity is asking increasingly urgent questions. What is our future? Where is civilization going? How should technological systems be governed? What is our future? Where do we go from here? How does it all end? Who do we ask? These questions cannot be answered solely through technical systems themselves—instead, we should ask God.
Only by aligning the mind of humanity with the wisdom of God can technological power remain rightly ordered. If we want to know the mind of God, we may ask all these questions of philosophy, of theology, of science. Eventually we may find the answer to these questions: “Who, what, when, where, and how?” But only the agent can know the answer to “Why?" The most powerful question one can ask is why? Who can answer that question? God can. God is the ultimate authority on what His intentions were in creating the world. God only knows what His motives and reasons are in creating the world.
Artificial intelligence may become one of the greatest tools humanity has ever developed. But if technological capability expands faster than wisdom, humility, and responsibility, humanity risks rebuilding Babel in digital form.
The Babel narrative therefore remains a living warning for the modern technological age. Human civilization can achieve extraordinary technical power while remaining morally fragile.
Bibliography
The Tower of Babel
Genesis 11:1-9. New International Version (NIV)
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%2011&version=NIV
Stanford HAI: “The 2026 AI Index Report.” Used for current adoption, investment, capability, and responsible-AI context.
Artificial Intelligence Index Report – 2026
https://hai.stanford.edu/assets/files/ai_index_report_2026.pdf
Stanford University Human Centered Artificial Intelligence. (Stanford HAI)
https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report
NIST: “AI Risk Management Framework and Generative AI Profile.” Used for risk-management framing.
The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST)
https://nvlpubs.nist.gov/nistpubs/ai/NIST.AI.600-1.pdf
OECD: AI Principles. Used for values-based trustworthy AI framing.
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
https://www.oecd.org/en/topics/ai-principles.html
Pew Research Center: 2025 and 2026 AI public-attitudes reporting. Used for public concern, openness, and religion-related attitudes.
How Americans View AI and Its Impact on People and Society
Pew Research Center
Jorge R. Rodríguez is a Permanent Deacon in the Catholic Church. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics and a Master of Science in Electrical Engineering, both from the University of South Florida. After retiring from engineering, Jorge pursued an opportunity to broaden his theological formation and completed a Master of Arts in Theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville. He then felt called to dedicate his ministry to interpersonal relationships and worked to develop the spirituality of relationships. Presently, that work has focused on rhythm, discernment, and permanence as conditions for human flourishing in an age shaped by rapid technological and cultural change. He is the author of a book he recently published, Rhythm in an Age of Acceleration—A Primer.