About the "What Are We Building?" AI Discernment Series
Recognizing the Catholic university as a privileged site for “the exercise of moral and spiritual discernment” called for in Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, Marquette will host a special series, What Are We Building? A Year-long Communal Discernment Exercise about AI during the 2026–27 academic year.
Guiding Questions
This series will bring together events hosted by units across the university, inviting the Marquette community to engage with five key questions inspired by Magnifica Humanitas. Together, these questions provide a shared framework for discerning not only what we are building “in the time of Artificial Intelligence,” but also why, how and for whom we are building it.
Foundation: What are we building, in the era of AI, and what assumptions serve as the foundation for our collective building projects?
Blueprint: What are the goals for our current building projects, and what should the goals be?
Transformation: How do our building projects in the era of AI affect our humanity, our society and our environment?
Limits: What constraints should we introduce to keep our building projects on track and protect our commitments?
Partners: Who gets to make the decisions guiding our building projects and whose voices still need to be in the conversation?
Key Objectives
To produce a more complex conversation about AI and strengthen our ability to “reflect critically, choose and love freely, and form authentic relationships,” the initiative will support the formation of those who participate in its sponsored events, such that:
Students will be able to articulate how the use of AI affects their personal formation, impacts their communities and shapes the world around them
Faculty and staff will be able to discern when AI use supports the humanity of their work with students and one another and when AI use interrupts their responsibilities to cura personalis and cura apostolica
Marquette University will develop a shared institutional understanding of the issues at stake in AI use that empowers a more thoughtful conversation on campus, and reveals the distinctiveness of Marquette’s Catholic, Jesuit approach to partners beyond campus
