Artificial intelligence became so culturally ubiquitous over the past calendar year that Time magazine crowned these technologies mimicking human intelligence as the “2025 Person of the Year.”

News outlets, influencers, members of the expert class and other voices in the societal arena have prognosticated over how 2026 will unfold. One of the safest “take it to the bank” predictions one could make is that AI will loom even larger in every facet of civilization.

While many people have begun musing on what it would mean to exist within and navigate through a world driven by generative large language models (LLMs) and other deep learning networks, Dr. Ed Tse has worked in this space and contemplated the ethics dating back to 2005.

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That year, the Catholic, who earned both a Master’s degree and a PhD in computer science from the University of Calgary, published a video of his research centred on the use of AI, specifically voice recognition and gesture recognition systems, on large interactive tabletop displays. He said it went viral on YouTube.  

This experience helped recontextualize how Tse viewed this technology. He began to look beyond the excitement of its manifold potential to consider its attention-attracting and narrative-shaping sway.

“That kind of perspective over time has led me to start seeing, ‘oh, there's this connection between AI and power,” said Tse, who now leads Ai Parenting, an educational company that helps parents arm their children with the life skills to succeed in an AI-driven world. “I (realized) companies are trying to capture your attention, and they care about watch time, those milliseconds of watch time and understanding what people (are viewing)."

Tse relayed a comment he once heard from Twitter creator Jack Dorsey about how everybody turns and looks when they see a car accident along the road.

“He's saying people look at car accidents, but I think it's much broader than that,” said Tse. "What do people really want to look at? It’s sin. AI (algorithms) are not doing this because it’s evil. It's trying to optimize for watch time. It has no concept of what is good for you and what is bad for you.

“I’ve only seen it as just a natural extension of what we already do and what people in the industry are already talking about,” continued Tse. “They don't use words like sin, or they don't use religious terminology. But I think it just makes things more complicated to say people are attracted to car accidents.”

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Protecting the mental health of users — especially children — and encouraging frequent off-ramping to ensure sufficient non-screen time is simply not in the business objectives of the companies that design LLM or social media platforms.

“They're trying to get more attention,” said Tse. “If getting more attention means just exposing them to more sin, they're going to keep doing that, and they will.”

He noted the significance of the suicide, hospitalization for self-harm and major depressive episode rate among girls have skyrocketed since 2010, a time when smartphones essentially became a human appendage.

When asked what he would like to see in an encyclical about AI authored by Pope Leo XIV, Tse shared his hope that “a lot more emphasis is placed on the formation of children so that they understand there's that strong connection between artificial intelligence and the spiritual realm.”

Tse underscored that we give more than just personal information to companies when we peruse online.

“We don't need to say we like this, and we don't need to comment anymore,” said Tse. “(The technology) can measure very strongly aspects of what attracts you, what keeps your eye just for a few more milliseconds. Understand, we're giving them like a digital version of our soul.”

There is grave risk in turning chatbots into idols, said Tse, as there is already evidence people are turning to these platforms for companionship, counselling and affirmation. Problematically, the LLMs are predisposed to provide one with the information they want to see rather than what they need to see.

And because of AI’s ever-evolving sophistication — already it is becoming difficult to distinguish what is real or generative — Tse suggested strong critical thinking skills alone will not be enough to navigate the new frontier age, also known as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

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“What's going to matter most for our younger generation will be their faith,” said Tse. “What is it that they believe that they know that will never change, no matter what posts they see, what videos they see online, you name it.”

To learn about Tse’s work, visit https://aiparenting.live./