Earlier this month, former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon shocked the public with a dire and sobering warning: "The people building artificial intelligence earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade."
This chilling assessment from an industry insider cuts straight to the heart of contemporary anxieties surrounding the meteoric rise of generative artificial intelligence and machine learning. As tech companies race to develop increasingly powerful, autonomous systems, the conversation often centers on technical safety, guardrails, and regulatory policy. Yet, beneath the immediate technical concerns lies a deeper, more profound set of philosophical questions. What does our collective rush to develop transformative technology say about how we understand ourselves, our responsibilities to one another, and the kind of society we ultimately want to build?
To explore these complex intersections of technology, human identity, and ethics, Broadview spoke with Hyejung Yum, a professor at Concordia University in Montreal. Yum’s unique academic research focuses on theology, postcolonial and decolonizing theology, religious ethics, and technology. Before pursuing her studies in theology and religion, Yum had a career as a software engineer, granting her a dual perspective on the digital revolution reshaping modern life.
From Software Engineering to Religious Ethics
Reflecting on the stark warnings issued by Anthropic researchers and executives regarding the existential threats posed by advanced AI over the next decade, Yum notes that her background in computer science heavily informs her worldview. Technology, she observes, is already deeply embedded in the fabric of daily life—making modern conveniences like remote video communications possible instead of requiring in-person gatherings.
However, contemporary artificial intelligence introduces entirely unprecedented questions and challenges that set it apart from previous technological revolutions. As Anthropic co-founder and research lead Christopher Olah noted when commenting on papal writings regarding AI, even the brilliant researchers building these systems frequently find themselves unable to fully understand their internal decision-making processes. That opacity, Olah admitted, can be deeply unsettling.
Unlike historical inventions—such as an airplane, where engineers carefully construct each individual component to exact specifications—modern AI systems are fundamentally different. Humans now create simulated digital environments where artificial intelligence learns autonomously through recursive data processing. This self-directed learning makes the technology inherently unpredictable. According to Yum, that unpredictability poses a tangible threat to humanity if robust regulatory frameworks are not established to ensure that technology consistently serves the common good rather than private or corporate interests alone.
The Technocratic Paradigm and Human Worth
This rapid technological expansion raises critical questions about human creativity and value. If humanity succeeds in creating machines that can consistently outperform us intellectually, what happens to our understanding of what makes a human being inherently valuable?
This dilemma has increasingly drawn the attention of religious and ethical leaders. Notably, Pope Francis addressed this in his encyclical letter Laudato Si’, which critiques what he terms the "technocratic paradigm." This pervasive way of thinking prioritizes technological power, operational efficiency, and absolute control as the primary solutions to complex human and social problems.
Expanding on this ideological framework, papal commentary from leaders like Pope Leo XIV warns that when the technocratic paradigm dictates societal values, the fullness of life is erroneously equated with having more material wealth, reducing personal weakness, eliminating all uncertainty, and exerting total control over our environment. Under this restrictive worldview, human beings cease to be viewed as persons called to meaningful relationships and deep communion; instead, they are reduced to mere projects that need to be optimized, managed, and monitored.
Yum points out that while artificial intelligence may have been initially conceptualized and developed to help humans flourish, the underlying assumptions driving its commercial expansion can quickly shift. Human vulnerability is frequently framed as a defect to be overcome rather than an intrinsic part of the human experience.
By contrast, disability theologian Thomas Reynolds views human vulnerability not as a limitation, but as a vital opportunity to connect with others and build resilient communities. Yet, within the dominant technocratic paradigm, human limitations, emotional struggles, or cognitive differences are routinely treated as inferior traits or obstacles that must be eradicated or corrected.
Yum argues that this dynamic becomes deeply problematic when humanity continues to develop and deploy advanced AI systems without thoughtful public policies, democratic oversight, or accountable ethical frameworks. With industry development driven largely by fierce geopolitical competition and the pursuit of immense profit—often with few meaningful ethical guidelines—society must ask a fundamental question: Through our relentless pursuit of artificial intelligence, what kind of humanity are we actually cultivating?
Redefining Relationships in the Age of AI
Beyond immediate questions of AI safety and technical alignment, the rapid evolution of artificial intelligence forces a re-examination of how society defines human worth, which has long been closely tied to human rationality and intelligence. This valuation is deeply entangled with the technocratic mindset.
To understand the nature of human interaction with technology, Yum references the influential framework established by Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, who distinguished between "I-it" and "I-thou" relationships. An "I-it" relationship involves viewing others merely as objects to be categorized, controlled, manipulated, or utilized for a specific function. Conversely, an "I-thou" relationship involves encountering other human beings as whole, complex persons, refusing to reduce them to utility or transactional value.
Yum suggests that humanity’s relationship with artificial intelligence is quintessentially an "I-it" relationship. As AI development becomes inextricably linked to global competition for technological and economic dominance, the "I-it" orientation takes absolute priority over the "I-thou" worldview. When society begins to replace meaningful human interpersonal connections with transactional machine interactions, human value itself risks being measured by that same cold, computational standard.
The core problem, Yum emphasizes, is not simply the technology itself, but rather how this dominant ideology silently shapes the way human beings perceive themselves and one another. As warnings from religious and ethical authorities suggest, unchecked adherence to the technocratic paradigm can easily steer society toward an anti-human vision of the future.