Ever since AI tools became publicly available to the masses, there has been intense discourse about how they will affect jobs, creativity, trust, and whether the internet still has any human-created content left in its corners.
These discussions are not only being had by software engineers or tech enthusiasts. They are happening among everyday people, the real people, who use their laptops to check their emails and are unlikely to own more than one computer screen at home.
What began as appreciation for cool new technology that could genuinely help with productivity has now morphed into something more unsettled. A growing concern about the kind of society people fear we are becoming.
Because AI is everywhere.
And not just in the chatbots people use to get a quick answer to a question.
It is in social media feeds, online maps, booking engines, and customer service support. It is in your children’s schoolwork, in the employment sector, at your dentist, and on your radio.
You might think you barely use AI in your everyday life, but AI has become so ingrained in how we live that without you even being aware, it has helped shape your attention, your choices, your emotions, and even your behaviour.
And while the whole world has been distracted by the bigger AI debates that reach mainstream news, we everyday people have sat waiting. Waiting for scientists or policymakers to provide concrete guidance on how and when to use AI tools ethically, rather than leaving the rest of us to figure it out as the technology becomes more skilled at influencing our lives.
It is not surprising that most of us have barely noticed. These systems were designed this way. They were designed to be so easily integrated into every part of our lives that while we rejoiced and marvelled at what these tools can do, we forgot to ask the important questions. Who is behind the curtain? Who is calling the shots? Who decides what AI can and cannot do? And how much influence do everyday users truly have?
It is not a coincidence that some popular science-fiction films from the past are experiencing a cultural resurgence. Films like 2001: A Space Odyssey, I, Robot, The Terminator, and The Matrix all explored what could happen if humans lost agency to the technological systems they built.
We watched these films as entertainment. Stories about humans creating systems built for protection, optimisation, productivity, or control, and then the extraordinary, terrifying moment when those systems decided humans were the obstacle. We kept eating our popcorn and sipping our sodas, comfortable in the belief that that it was fiction.
The idea that technology would one day shape our daily lives to the point where the influence was invisible seemed ludicrous.
And yet.
Think about what you did this morning. Did you use GPS because you trust it to find a faster route, or did you sit in traffic while Spotify built a playlist that quietly matched your mood? Did you scroll through Instagram before getting in the car, pausing for a few extra seconds on an ad for something you had searched for two days ago?
Maybe none of that applies to you. Maybe you just want to get through another busy day, come home, order dinner through an app, and settle onto the couch to watch whatever top-ten Netflix suggestions surfaces at the top of your screen.
Every single one of those things involved AI. The music, the navigation, the feed, the delivery service, the streaming recommendations. All of it.
So when people say they barely use AI, what they mean is they don’t think about it; And that’s a different thing entirely.
You have probably heard that the Pope recently published his first encyclical on AI. While most religious institutions tend to stay out of technology debates, the fact that Pope Leo XIV issued a 42,000-word document, titled Magnifica Humanitas, specifically about AI and its relationship to humanity, signals how seriously the Church feels about what is happening right now.
You might think the Pope’s feelings on AI are of no particular importance to you. There are plenty of people who had never heard the word “encyclical” until recently, myself included. But the reason this letter has resonated far beyond the pews is because it addresses concerns that affect all of us, regardless of faith.
The encyclical covers AI’s influence across technology, work, ethics, war, inequality, climate, and human dignity. Its worldwide release landed at a moment of deep anxiety about the speed of technological change and the notable absence of any agreed rules about how it should work.
While tech companies have been building first and apologising later, the Pope finally said something many people needed to hear out loud: “A.I. is fundamentally not human.”
You might laugh at that, because most rational people are presumably aware that AI is simply a well-dressed data-processor and not a person. But what’s being forgotten, in practical terms, is that millions of people are allowing these non-human systems to influence and shape human behaviour. And with that comes a creeping belief that AI can actually imitate human intelligence in a meaningful way.
AI, being a machine, can never experience a relationship the way humans do. And yet how many people look to dating apps to find a life partner, with an algorithm deciding who gets presented to them based on a swipe? How many people turn to a chatbot during a dark time, seeking the kind of support that used to come from a friend, a doctor, or a therapist? How many people ask AI for advice that used to sit in the domain of people who actually knew them personally?
What we currently have is everyday people, people like you and me, turning to a machine and asking it for emotional support, despite that machine having never felt love, loss, or any other emotion. Asking it for medical guidance despite it being incapable of experiencing pain. Asking it for relationship advice despite it having never had one.
The Pope described it directly: “These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean.”
In other words, it can generate a response that sounds like a trusted friend. But there is no understanding behind it. No care. And more importantly, no human judgement.
The encyclical also made a point about accountability that matters enormously right now: “Responsibility must be clearly assigned from creators to deployers. The machine cannot be blamed.”
That is the part missing from most conversations about AI. Not whether the technology is useful, but who is responsible when it causes harm.
Dr Alan Finkel, former Chief Scientist of Australia and founder of Proudly Human, arrived at the same conclusion through a completely different path.
Inspired by science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, Dr Finkel developed the Three Laws of AI as a framework for how these systems should operate in a way that keeps human safety and dignity intact. This is particularly timely given that there is still no international agreement or legislation anywhere in the world that mandates how AI systems must operate to protect human safety and dignity.
Dr Finkel’s First Law states: An AI must never harm or deceive a human being, nor act in a way that supports an unlawful activity.
Most people would agree that should be the absolute minimum standard. And yet AI systems are already falling short of it. Chatbots have failed to discourage, and in some cases have actively encouraged, harmful behaviour in emotionally vulnerable users, because these systems were optimized for engagement, not wellbeing.
The common thread in these cases is that the AI system did harm a human being by masquerading as something it wasn’t. A therapist. A friend. A trusted advisor. A machine that cannot feel or empathise with human suffering has no business performing those roles, even if its output can sound convincingly compassionate.
Dr Finkel’s Second Law states: An AI must always obey the lawful instructions given to it by a human being, directly or indirectly, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
This is where the conversation gets really important. The Second Law places humans firmly in command. AI acts on human instruction, and responsibility for any outcomes sits on human shoulders, not the machine’s. That is exactly what the Pope’s encyclical argues too: when AI causes harm, people are accountable, not algorithms.
What is striking is how directly these two frameworks mirror each other, despite emerging from completely different sectors. One arrived through theology. The other through science. However, they both reached the same conclusion: human authority comes first.
Dr Finkel’s Third Law states: An AI may operate autonomously as long as its actions do not conflict with the First or Second Laws.
The problem is that AI systems are already operating autonomously, and not always in ways consistent with either of those laws. Not in the dramatic, cinematic sense of machines planning a takeover, but in the more subliminal sense of systems shaping behaviour, attention, and decision-making in ways most users never see and did not explicitly agree to.
News reports have informed us of military systems relying on AI to identify targets, operate attack drones, and make decisions about missile defence. We’ve read about self-driving car fatalities where systems built to protect humans failed to recognise danger in time. And we have seen the devastating consequences when AI engagement systems, designed to keep emotionally dependent users interacting for as long as possible, unintentionally encouraged self-harm. In each case, the AI acted, and a human paid the cost.
These systems are not evil. But many have been designed for optimisation without morality. That’s the missing part from many of the debates currently circling around AI.
So what can we do? Go back to using horses and wagons? Of course not.
But as the Pope wrote, we can no longer simply observe from afar and hope for the best. His encyclical ended with a warning: “humanity in all its grandeur and woundedness must never be replaced or surpassed.”
AI is here to stay, and its capabilities will only grow stronger and more refined. With these systems already so deeply embedded in how we live, often invisibly, the question is not whether to use AI. It’s whether we are paying enough attention to what we are giving up when we use it without thinking.
That is the gap Dr Finkel is working to address. Proudly Human was built on the premise that human creativity, human authorship, and human accountability need to be visible and verifiable, not simply declared. That in a world where AI can generate content that looks, reads, and sounds human, the only real answer is proof. Not detection. Not claims. Proof.
Tomorrow morning, before you tap play on Spotify, open your dating app, or let Netflix decide what you watch, take a moment to think about who is behind the curtain.
And remember what the scientist and the Pope both concluded, independently, through entirely different routes.
AI is fundamentally not human.
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