The Work AI Cannot Replace: A Catholic Understanding of Vocation
Over the last few years, artificial intelligence has begun reshaping the way we work. Companies promise greater efficiency, while workers hear rumors of layoffs and replacement. Entry-level positions have been reduced or eliminated in some industries, software engineers are expected to produce more with fewer resources, and new performance metrics, such as token usage or AI-assisted productivity, have emerged almost overnight. AI was supposed to help us work. Instead, for many people, it feels as though it is optimizing them out of a career altogether.
When our livelihoods feel uncertain, we begin asking deeper questions. If my work can be replaced, what is my value? Who am I without my job?
In the United States especially, we often define ourselves by our occupations. We introduce ourselves by saying, "I'm an engineer," "I'm a teacher," or "I'm a nurse." Work is good and honorable. From the beginning, God entrusted humanity with the care of creation and called us to cultivate it.¹ But our work is not our identity. Long before we have a profession, we have a vocation.
When many people hear the word vocation, they think immediately of the priesthood or religious life. While these are certainly vocations, the Church understands the word much more broadly. Every Christian has a vocation because every Christian is called by God. Our first and highest calling is holiness: to know, love, and serve God, and ultimately to share eternal life with Him.² The particular path by which we live out that universal call differs from person to person. Some are called to marriage and family life. Others to the priesthood or consecrated life. Still others faithfully serve Christ through the single life. Whatever the path, vocation is fundamentally about becoming the person God created us to be.
Occupation, on the other hand, is often temporary.
My own career has taken more turns than I ever expected. I began in the restaurant industry, entered the Jesuit novitiate, returned to restaurants, completed a software engineering bootcamp, spent time working in distilleries, and eventually found myself building software and AI systems.
On paper, those careers have very little in common.
Yet looking back, I can see that the work itself was never the constant.
The constant was the people.
Whether I was cooking in a kitchen, studying in a novitiate, mentoring junior developers, or designing AI systems, God continually placed people in front of me to serve. In restaurants I witnessed addiction, loneliness, and despair. In religious life I encountered men striving for holiness and others carrying profound wounds. As a supervisor and mentor, I found opportunities to teach, encourage, and help others grow in confidence and competence. In every season, my occupation changed, but my deeper calling remained remarkably consistent: to love God, to serve those He placed before me, and to strive to become more like Christ.
Jobs come and go. Industries evolve. Entire professions may disappear. History is filled with occupations that no longer exist because technology changed the world around them. Artificial intelligence may very well accelerate that process.
But no algorithm can replace the vocation to be a faithful husband or wife. No language model can become a loving father or mother. No machine can pray in your place, forgive your neighbor, comfort a grieving friend, or grow in holiness on your behalf.
Technology can change what we do.
It cannot change who God calls us to become.
This is why Christians need not fear that our identity hangs in the balance every time technology advances. We should certainly think carefully about how AI is developed and used, ensuring that it always serves the dignity of the human person rather than reducing people to instruments of efficiency.³ But our hope has never rested in a particular profession.
Our occupations are temporary.
Our vocation is eternal.
Long before we were engineers, teachers, mechanics, nurses, chefs, or software developers, we were sons and daughters of God, called to know Him, love Him, and serve Him. Careers may change many times over the course of a lifetime. God's call does not.
The work we perform may one day be automated.
The work of becoming a saint never will.
Notes
- Gen. 1:26–28 (NRSVCE); Gen. 2:15.
- Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2nd ed. (Vatican City: Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1997), §§1691–1698; §§2012–2016.
- Rerum Novarum (1891), §§32–35; Laborem Exercens (1981), §§6–10; Gaudium et Spes, §§33–39.