Why this matters
Artificial intelligence is quickly changing the way people learn, work, create, communicate, and make decisions.
Students use it while they study. Professionals use it to draft, analyze, and automate parts of their work. Developers use it to write code. Organizations are racing to adopt it, and it’s becoming part of everyday life.
But knowing what AI can do doesn’t tell us what we should do with it.
Should every task be automated? How do we stay committed to the truth when AI can produce convincing answers that are wrong? What happens to learning when more of our thinking is handed to machines? How do we make sure AI supports our relationships rather than replacing them?
Faithful Automation is a framework for working through questions like these. It’s meant to help you discern whether and how to use AI within your vocation, one task at a time.
It’s written from a Christian perspective. On our own, we lack the wisdom to use AI faithfully, so the framework starts from our reliance on Christ’s faithfulness and wisdom. You don’t need to share that faith to find the questions useful, and you’re welcome here either way.
AI is an ocean
The ocean is vast, powerful, beautiful, and also dangerous.
For centuries it has invited exploration, trade, discovery, and connection. Yet sailors don’t survive by surrendering to the sea. They navigate it with maps, compasses, experience, judgment, and care for their crew.
Artificial intelligence presents a similar challenge. It can extend what people are able to do, speed up learning, cut down on tedious work, and support new kinds of creativity.
It can also distort the truth and weaken understanding. It can encourage unhealthy dependence and make dishonesty easier. And it can change our relationships in ways we don’t notice right away.
If we reject AI outright, we may miss out on a useful tool. If we adopt it without thinking, we may end up lost at sea.
Just as sailors need to know their destination, trust their compass, maintain their vessel, and care for their crew, people using AI need habits of discernment. Faithful Automation is a framework for building them.
Technology will change. Christ’s faithfulness won’t, and neither will our calling to serve the people around us.
Start here
The framework at a glance
Faithful Automation asks four questions. Use them whenever you’re discerning whether and how to use AI for a task.
Question 1
What is my task, its purpose, and my intent in using AI to assist in completing it or to automate it entirely?
Question 2
How am I anchoring truth, knowing AI is neither transparent nor inherently trustworthy?
Question 3
How am I stewarding my own thinking, my time, and my gifts, recognizing the formative nature of this task?
Question 4
How is my use of AI displacing human connection that would otherwise occur when completing this task?
The framework is also the middle level of a larger AI Literacy Framework, which places wisdom and discernment between foundational human competency and AI skill.
Who is this for?
Faithful Automation is written especially for Christians seeking to be faithful in their vocations, but it’s for anyone who wants to use AI thoughtfully, including:
- Educators deciding how AI should shape teaching, assessment, and student growth.
- Students who want AI to support genuine learning rather than replace it.
- Software developers who want AI’s productivity without giving up understanding of (or responsibility for) their code.
- Professionals and leaders bringing AI into their teams and organizations without losing sight of the people they serve.
- Parents and families who want technology to support healthy relationships rather than compete with them.
Guides and case studies
The framework is most useful when it’s applied to real situations. Guides will give practical advice for specific contexts, starting with teaching, learning, and coding. Case studies will work through real and hypothetical scenarios. Good decisions about AI are rarely as simple as “use it” or “don’t,” and the case studies are meant to show why.
Practical guidance for applying the framework in specific contexts.
The framework applied to real and hypothetical scenarios.
About the project
Faithful Automation is a project kicked off by Marcus Gubanyi, an assistant professor of computer science at Concordia University, Nebraska. Read more about the project.