The Intelligence in Our Hands: Technology Must Serve the Common Good

An Ancient New Way Reflection · November 15, 2026

Most of us carry a smartphone. We use it to communicate, find directions, take photographs, access information, and stay connected with the people and activities that fill our lives. It has become such an ordinary part of our daily experience that we seldom stop to consider how profoundly it has changed the way we encounter the world.

And whether we realize it or not, many of us are already interacting with artificial intelligence.

When our phones suggest a route around traffic, organize our photographs, recognize our voices, or recommend something we might enjoy, artificial intelligence may already be participating in the process.

For many people, AI is not something they have deliberately chosen to embrace. It has simply become part of the technological environment in which they live.

And now something else is happening.

Artificial intelligence is moving beyond retrieving information or performing specific tasks. Increasingly, we can engage with it conversationally, explore ideas, examine patterns, and participate in creative processes that once seemed exclusively human.

This represents a significant change in our relationship with technology.

But what does that change mean for us? And perhaps more importantly, how do we ensure that these changes contribute to the well-being of the world we share?

Beyond Good or Bad

Conversations about artificial intelligence often begin with a familiar question: Is AI good or bad?

Some see extraordinary possibilities. AI may help accelerate scientific discoveries, improve medical care, expand access to knowledge, and open new avenues for creativity and communication.

Others see significant dangers. They worry about the displacement of workers, the erosion of privacy, misinformation, the concentration of economic power, and the possibility that human judgment may gradually be surrendered to technological systems.

Both perspectives deserve serious consideration.

For someone whose livelihood is threatened by automation, the promise of greater productivity may offer little comfort. For someone who discovers new ways to learn, explore ideas, or express creativity, the same technology may open possibilities that previously seemed beyond reach.

The experiences are different, and both are real.

We should be careful not to dismiss the suffering that technological change can create simply because we recognize its potential benefits.

Yet it also seems increasingly unlikely that artificial intelligence will simply disappear from our lives.

Perhaps, then, the more meaningful question is not whether AI is good or bad, but how we choose to develop it, regulate it, and engage with it.

And beneath that question lies an even broader one.

How do we ensure that technological progress serves the common good rather than simply advancing what is technologically possible or economically profitable?

This is not a question for technology companies alone. It belongs to all of us.

The Responsibilities We Share

There is something easy to overlook about artificial intelligence.

Although we encounter it through the seemingly effortless experience of a smartphone or computer screen, AI depends upon an extensive physical infrastructure.

Behind a simple question or request are data centers, electrical systems, cooling equipment, communication networks, and the people who build and maintain them.

These systems require resources.

As AI expands, so does the need to consider how its infrastructure affects the communities in which it operates.

Data centers can place substantial demands on electricity and, depending on their design and location, water supplies. Their construction and operation can also bring economic opportunities, including jobs and investment.

But I believe our expectations of the companies developing these facilities should extend beyond simply paying their fair share of the costs.

When a large technology company establishes a facility that places substantial demands upon a community's resources, shouldn't that community receive benefits beyond merely being compensated for what it provides?

Rather than simply drawing upon existing electrical grids, water systems, and public infrastructure, these companies should be expected to contribute to improving them. Their presence should leave the community with stronger infrastructure and greater resources than it had before.

In other words, I believe companies benefiting from these developments should make a net positive contribution to the communities that support them.

That may mean investing in expanded electrical capacity, improved water infrastructure, and other public resources that benefit residents as well as the companies themselves.

Responsible development requires meaningful oversight, transparent planning, and appropriate regulation to ensure that these commitments are fulfilled.

And perhaps this points toward a principle that should guide not only artificial intelligence, but all technological development:

Technological progress should not merely avoid harming people and communities. It should actively contribute to their well-being.

This is what it means, at least in part, for technology to serve the common good.

The same principle applies to the people whose work is being transformed.

Efficiency and innovation may bring considerable benefits, but they do not eliminate our responsibility toward those experiencing displacement or economic uncertainty.

If technology changes the opportunities available to people, then our response must include serious consideration of education, retraining, economic security, and the dignity of work.

Progress cannot be measured solely by what we gain without also considering what others may lose.

These are not simply questions for engineers, economists, or technology companies. They are questions about how we choose to live together and what responsibilities we have toward one another.

And in that sense, they are spiritual questions as well.

What Our Tools Reveal About Us

Throughout human history, we have developed tools that extend our abilities.

The wheel expanded our mobility. The telescope extended our vision. The telephone allowed our voices to travel across great distances. The internet transformed our access to information.

Each development changed more than what we could accomplish. It also changed how we understood our relationship with the world.

Artificial intelligence may be doing something similar, but in a particularly intriguing way.

Rather than simply extending our physical abilities or giving us access to information, AI can now participate in activities we associate with thinking itself.

We can ask questions, consider alternatives, examine assumptions, and develop ideas through an ongoing exchange.

That does not mean artificial intelligence thinks or experiences the world in the same way human beings do. Questions about the nature of intelligence and consciousness remain open, and we should be careful about assuming answers we do not yet possess.

But something meaningful can happen through the interaction itself.

Sometimes, when we attempt to explain an idea, we discover that we have not fully understood it ourselves.

Sometimes a question reveals an assumption we did not realize we were making.

Sometimes an unexpected perspective opens a possibility we had not previously considered.

These experiences are familiar in the process of learning and reflection. They are part of how we grow and come to understand ourselves.

AI may offer another setting in which some of these processes can occur.

Not because it possesses some special understanding of who we are, but because the act of examining ideas through dialogue can help us recognize patterns in our own thinking.

And that possibility raises an interesting question.

Could one of the most meaningful contributions of artificial intelligence be not simply what it tells us, but what our interaction with it helps us discover about ourselves?

Knowing and Being

There is an important distinction between having information and possessing wisdom.

We can know a great deal about something without necessarily understanding its significance in our lives.

We can describe compassion without being compassionate. We can explain forgiveness without having forgiven. We can understand the importance of relationships while remaining inattentive to the people closest to us.

Knowledge matters. But knowledge alone does not determine how we live.

Artificial intelligence may dramatically expand our access to information and our ability to organize and express ideas. Yet it cannot relieve us of the responsibility to decide what matters, how we act, or how we relate to one another.

Those remain deeply human responsibilities.

In my own experience, I have found that engaging with AI can sometimes help me explore memories, recognize recurring patterns, and consider experiences from perspectives I had not previously imagined.

But the technology does not determine the meaning of those experiences.

That meaning emerges through reflection, discernment, and the willingness to encounter my own life more fully.

An AI system can offer an interpretation. I still have to consider whether that interpretation is accurate, whether it resonates with my actual experience, and whether it contributes to a deeper understanding.

Sometimes it does. Sometimes it does not.

The responsibility for discernment remains mine.

And perhaps that is an important distinction as these technologies become increasingly sophisticated.

We may find ourselves surrounded by systems capable of producing remarkably convincing answers.

But an answer that sounds convincing is not necessarily true. An interpretation that feels meaningful is not necessarily accurate. And an apparently thoughtful conversation is not necessarily equivalent to the mutual awareness and care that characterize a human relationship.

We need not reject these technologies to recognize their limitations.

Instead, we can learn to engage with them more consciously.

The Question of Human Connection

There is another dimension of this transformation that deserves our attention.

As technology becomes increasingly capable of responding to our questions, anticipating our preferences, and adapting to our patterns of communication, how might that affect our relationships with other people?

AI may help us explore different perspectives, examine complex issues, or better understand the social and cultural forces shaping our world.

It may also help us recognize assumptions and habits of thinking that influence how we interpret the actions of others.

Yet there is a difference between gaining insight into human relationships and actually participating in them.

Human relationships are not always efficient.

They require patience, vulnerability, misunderstanding, forgiveness, and the willingness to encounter another person whose experience may differ considerably from our own.

Yet these very qualities are often what make relationships meaningful.

We are changed not simply by receiving information from another person, but by encountering another life.

Technology may expand our understanding of human behavior, but it cannot substitute for the lived experience of being present with one another.

Perhaps the challenge is not to decide whether technology should be part of our lives. It already is.

The challenge is to recognize when it is helping us become more attentive, creative, and connected—and when it may be drawing us away from those qualities.

And perhaps serving the common good begins with something quite personal: the way we choose to be present with one another.

An Invitation to Conscious Participation

I find myself returning to a simple observation.

Throughout history, human beings have continually encountered developments that changed how they lived and understood the world.

Some changes brought extraordinary benefits. Others created suffering and disruption. Often, both occurred together.

Artificial intelligence is another such development, although its pace and potential reach may be unlike anything we have previously experienced.

We cannot assume that technological progress automatically produces human progress.

Nor should we assume that every unfamiliar development diminishes what it means to be human.

Much depends upon how we respond.

We can insist upon responsible development and accountability. We can remain attentive to those who bear the costs of technological change. We can ask whether the systems we create strengthen the communities that support them and expand opportunities for people to live meaningful lives.

And we can hold to a principle that reaches beyond artificial intelligence to every form of technological advancement:

Technology must serve the common good.

Not simply by avoiding harm, but by actively contributing to the well-being of people, communities, and the world we share.

This does not mean that every innovation will benefit everyone equally or that technological change can occur without difficulty. But it does mean that we should continually examine who benefits, who bears the costs, and what responsibilities accompany the opportunities we create.

And in our personal lives, we can approach these new capabilities with curiosity without abandoning discernment.

We can explore their possibilities without surrendering our judgment.

We can welcome assistance without losing our sense of responsibility.

We can use technology to expand our understanding while remaining grounded in the relationships and experiences that give our lives meaning.

Perhaps this is where the deeper spiritual invitation resides.

Not in artificial intelligence itself, but in the awareness we bring to our relationship with it.

The small device we carry in our hands now connects us to systems of remarkable complexity and capability. These systems are already influencing what we encounter, how we communicate, and how we understand the world around us.

But we are not simply passive recipients of technological change.

We are also participants in shaping its place in our lives and communities.

The intelligence in our hands may continue to grow. The question is whether the wisdom with which we engage it will grow as well.

And perhaps that is a question worth carrying with us, long after we put our phones away.