Church of England academics and policy advisers are calling for a fresh nationwide dialogue on artificial intelligence (AI) and its growing influence on employment, cautioning that unregulated technological progress could widen inequality and erode human dignity.
The call follows a motion passed by the Church’s General Synod in February 2024, which acknowledged the far-reaching effects of AI and the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
The Synod asserted that work should remain purposeful and dignified — and that technology have to be directed toward the common good fairly than economic gain alone.
A recent edition of Crucible journal, released this month, expands the discussion through a series of theological and practical reflections.
Contributors examine how automation, data monitoring, and algorithm-driven oversight are transforming today’s workplaces — from the expansion of the gig economy to the complexities of distant work.
“Work is neither who we’re, nor can it’s dismissed as irrelevant to our identity,” wrote Becky Plummer, the Bishops of Lichfield and Newcastle’s Parliamentary Researcher. “Without meaningful work we risk losing a way of purpose and belonging.”
The publication applies biblical values and Christian social thought to explore what just and humane labour must embody in an era shaped by intelligent technology.
Other contributors include Rev Dr Simon Cross, an authority in technology ethics, and Rev Dr Kathryn Pritchard, co-editor of the journal and co-director of Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science.
Dr Cross examines the moral dilemmas of platform-based employment, calling for justice-driven approaches to the gig economy.
He said: “Technology is just not value-neutral. The ways tools are invented, adopted and exploited are all shaped socially – and that features the gig economy.
“If we would like the gig economy to reflect the values of fine and meaningful employment because the Bible helps us understand them, there’s loads of work still to do.”
Dr Pritchard’s article focuses on the impact of AI on women’s work, warning that exclusion from datasets could reinforce gender bias.
“If women’s contributions to work are absent from the datasets on which AI systems are built, those self same technologies risk reproducing that invisibility,” she cautioned.
She continued: “Passivity within the face of such rapid technological change is just not theologically justifiable. The future of girls’s work in an AI age is just not yet written.”
Co-editor Will Fremont-Brown said the problem demands thoughtful engagement from each church and society: “We must avoid the temptation towards unalloyed optimism about AI, or overlook ways during which we’d harness AI to serve the common good. Our task is to shape a fairer course.”
Their message echoes growing global concern.
Just days after taking office, Pope Leo XIV referred to AI as “one in every of the defining problems with our time,” underscoring the threat it presents to human dignity, fairness, and work.
The editors hope the Crucible series will help churches, policymakers, and residents alike to reflect and respond.
Dr Pritchard emphasised: “The way work and AI overlap is a subject of interest from kitchen tables to lecture halls. We cannot sit on the sidelines, but have a responsibility to have interaction, point to signs of hope, and do all we will to be sure that the elemental dignity of all and sundry is upheld.
“We hope this edition of Crucible will probably be interesting, informative and of practical use.”
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