Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society

Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Excerpts

Friday 5th June 2026 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

That this House takes note of the impact of Artificial Intelligence on human relationships and society.

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

My Lords, I wish to thank the usual channels for allowing me to hold this debate today and the parliamentary staff who have enabled it to happen.

In the Bible, the writer of the Book of Hebrews says of human beings:

“You made them a little lower than the angels; you crowned them with glory and honour and put everything under their feet”.


God created human beings in His own image, with glory and honour—each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or what we do. We carry an inherent dignity and immeasurable value. This is not in spite of our weakness, vulnerabilities or limitations but in many ways because of and through them. God made us to be relational beings, in need of Him and in need of others, not sufficient on our own.

I start here because, fundamentally, our vision of what it is to be human—of our glorious humanity—must inform the rest of our debate about technology and AI. Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas begins here too. God made us creative beings, and AI and wider technologies are a remarkable product of human creativity. They have led to extraordinary discoveries and breakthroughs at speeds that we could never have imagined. They have connected us across the globe and opened up endless new opportunities for working, creating, learning and travelling. I now carry vast information, processing power and connectivity potential in my pocket with me every day.

But this extraordinary product of human creativity and the power it places in our hands also raise urgent new questions. What are the implications for our human relationships, for our connections with family and friends? How does it impact on our working lives and the existence or quality of our jobs? What are the implications for warfare, for climate change and for our engagement with information and democracy? Just because we could create something or deploy technology in a certain way, does that mean we should? As CS Lewis put it:

“We all want progress. But progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. And if you have taken a wrong turning then to go forward does not get you any nearer”.


Wave after wave of technological innovation is taking place as we speak. The question we should be asking is simple: where are we going? What is our vision for how this technology will serve human flourishing? We are in danger of unleashing AI into our lives and societies without the theological, philosophical and spiritual framework with which to make decisions about creating, controlling, using or directing it.

Above all, we need to ensure that AI is being designed, built, regulated and used to serve our glorious humanity and not to diminish it—to be pro-human. As Pope Leo has said,

“humanity—in all its grandeur and woundedness—must never be replaced or surpassed”.

This poses the question: does AI make human life more human? The question matters for those designing, developing and building the technology as they think about what ideologies and belief systems should underpin the models, for there is no such thing as value-neutral technology.

This matters for Governments and policymakers as they determine what should and should not be permitted and regulated, and it matters for those using the technology. Many feel that AI is affecting them hugely without having any say in the matter. Others feel that the things which make us unique as humans are at risk of being eroded, devalued and replaced by AI as people turn to chatbots rather than other human beings for comfort and wisdom in moments of loneliness, loss, anxiety or pain. How should we adopt AI and what is the right place for it in our relationships, our families and our societies?

If humanity is to be placed at the centre of all thinking and decisions about AI, I would like to suggest that there are three fundamental questions to help us to work out what a pro-human framework for AI would look like, and how it informs practice. First, what does it mean to be human? If God crowned humans with glory and honour, how will AI respect—indeed, cultivate—that sort of dignity and value?

There are many ways in which AI is helping to enhance human dignity and to protect and uphold life. If you want to look to the potential of AI to serve human beings, you need look no further than across the sciences. In nursing, we can see the potential of AI. Nursing and medical care are areas where the value of human dignity is visible in some of the most tangible, practical ways. I do not believe that a robot or an AI model will or should ever replace human beings in some of these settings. Sitting at the bedside of a patient to deliver very difficult news or supporting a woman through the delivery of her baby are deeply vulnerable moments where human touch, eye contact and human emotional intelligence are invaluable.

However, there are many ways in which AI is having a hugely positive impact on healthcare. AI is beginning to make childbirth safer, from automated ultrasound to predictive tools for pre-eclampsia to consistent foetal heart rate monitoring. There are, sadly, other uses of AI today which, rather than enhancing human dignity, are providing new ways of degrading it or violating it. A recent report from Durham University presented evidence that chatbots are now facilitating violence against women and girls, allowing roleplay of incest, child sexual abuse and rape with few safeguards, risking the normalisation and the legitimisation of such abuse. These harms are not simply the result of user misuse. AI platform design choices, policies and governance failures are encouraging and enabling them, and existing regulation is wholly inadequate to prevent them.

My second question is: what are we here for, and what gives our lives meaning and purpose? The Christian faith teaches that we are designed for relationship—with God, with others and with the created world around us. We find meaning and purpose in these relationships and in dignified work, where we can partner with God to see His kingdom come on earth. We are human beings crowned with glory and honour, here to glorify God.

Perhaps one of the most profound areas of purpose is work. We are already seeing record numbers of 18 to 24 year-olds in neither education, training nor employment, and this is only set to worsen as agentic AI starts to come online. One area of the greatest gravity that this debate must address is how we as the political class are going to help young people navigate a rapidly changing world.

Yet AI impacts our sense of meaning in other ways that go beyond work. A fundamental quality of a human being, one source of our well-being and sense of purpose, is our ability to create, imagine, think and invent. God placed humans in the Garden of Eden to look after the garden. He asked Adam to name the animals and species there, an inherently creative task.

On one hand, AI can enhance human creativity and imagination. It puts more information, people, networks and tools at our disposal. It can increase efficiency and take away the burden of more repetitive and administrative tasks. But there are reasons to be concerned that AI is in fact having the opposite effect on our human abilities. There is already concerning evidence about the impact of technology, particularly smartphones, on the human ability to think and create. Mary Harrington wrote an article last year entitled “Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good”. It highlights evidence of human brain power decreasing, with adult literacy scores levelling off and declining in the past decade in the majority of OECD countries, and some of the sharpest declines are among the poorest.

Child literacy is also declining. Research shows that children who are exposed to more than two hours a day of recreational screen time have worse working memory, processing speeds, attention levels, language skills and executive function than children who are not. A study has shown that heavy users of AI struggle more with critical thinking as they stop thinking for themselves, and their capability atrophies. The irony is that while AI might make us feel like we are more creative, AI’s inherent nature means that, at scale, ideas will in fact become more predictable, unoriginal and homogenised.

The human ability to think and create surpasses the capabilities of AI. We must work to ensure that our human abilities are given space to grow and thrive—to be the thinking, creative beings that God has made us to be. The Pope put this well last November during a live address to young people at the National Catholic Youth Conference in Indianapolis:

“be prudent; be wise; be careful that your use of AI does not limit your true human growth. Use it in such a way that if it disappeared tomorrow, you would still know how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic friendships. Remember, AI can never replace that unique gift that you are to the world”.

My third question is: what is truth? Pilate notoriously asked Jesus this question as he was being sentenced to death. According to the Christian faith, truth is not something we define ourselves or alter to suit our own personal, political or commercial ends. Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and expressed in loving God and loving others. Truth is a fundamental foundation on which our personal lives and societies are built. Without common truth, a flourishing common life becomes impossible.

Generative AI cannot tell right from wrong or facts from fiction. Instead of truth, it produces a statistical echo of what has been said before in material it has been trained on. It reinforces biases inherent in the way that it has been coded, as well as social biases present in the material it has been fed. It also simply invents information. One study found that chatbots did this at least 3% of the time, some as much as 27%.

Even more concerning is that AI can be weaponised by malign actors. It is the perfect tool for someone wanting to create fake news. Its ability to disperse disinformation, discredit legitimate information, censor other information and game algorithms has the potential to distort and rewrite reality—to present fiction as fact, and all with a veneer of objective truth. It has the power to manipulate what we see and what we believe at a speed and scale never seen before. What is often presented as a tool in the democratisation of knowledge could, all too easily, become the tool of the autocrat.

The potential for real harm is still to be fully realised. There is a serious risk that this will lead to a fundamental breakdown in trust across society. The real danger is not our rising gullibility, but our rising cynicism. It is not that we will believe anything; it is that we will believe nothing. If we cannot trust information we see online, then perhaps we cannot trust the people we meet. When the possibility for trust in another human being is eroded, relationships cannot be formed, nor can much of what we do in communities or our society be sustained. Without a common understanding of truth, human relationships and the reciprocal ties which underpin our societal structures flounder. Truth and the trust it inspires, between people and within societies, must be cherished and protected.

It is easy to feel overwhelmed when considering the current and potential impacts of AI on life as we know it. What can be done to ensure that AI serves humanity and does not degrade it? Uninventing AI is not an option, nor would we want to be without the many positive effects that it brings, so what are we to do with technology which places great power in the hands of those who own, control and use it? Power is not inherently wrong, but it carries great responsibility and often great risks for human beings, as we have seen repeatedly through history. Power corrupts, and it takes people of great virtue and moral strength to withstand its temptations.

Archbishop William Temple described a central occupation of Christian social thought as being man’s dignity, tragedy and destiny. I have spoken today of humanity’s inherent dignity, but it is our fallenness—the tragedy—which makes technology’s power so seductive and the risk of its abuse so often our story. In the Christian tradition, there is a call that overrides the lust for power; it is the call to service. The distinctive Christian version of service is sacrifice, and Jesus’s life, death and resurrection is the perfect example.

This leads to the third of Temple’s triad: destiny. Jesus’s sacrifice for us on the cross offers profound hope to all humanity in every season and every circumstance. It also offers for us a model of living a sacrificial lifestyle—one where, with Him at work in us, we choose to sacrifice our own personal ends in the service of others and begin to see the kingdom come on earth. Within this, I believe, lies the hope of our relationships, families and societies. At every level of society—from individuals making decisions about how to use AI personally and with our families and children, to business owners choosing where to use AI in their processes and how this affects their workers, to owners of AI companies choosing what technology they invent and the features or limits they place on this—we can choose to make decisions sacrificially in the service of our common humanity.

We must cultivate the character to deal with the opportunities, challenges and temptations that such powerful technology places in our hands personally and corporately, involving people, communities and civil society in conversations about AI, drawing on the wisdom and insights of faith communities. Technology this revolutionary must not simply be unleashed on our societies; it must be developed with us, and for us, at a human pace with human objectives. Above all, with our common and glorious humanity, we must put people ahead of our profit, convenience or technological progress at all costs and ensure that we harness AI to serve humanity, and to be an extraordinary tool in the creation of a more just, abundant and hope-filled world. I beg to move.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Archbishop of Canterbury]

My Lords, artificial intelligence is a topic of such vast breadth and consequence. I am deeply aware that we have covered a huge variety of issues today but have still only scratched the surface. I hope that today’s debate has been a helpful opportunity for a longer discussion on this most salient of topics—one that goes beyond party-political debate to address the deeper questions and challenges at stake, and considers the practicalities around decisions on AI for real people, for our relationships with one another and for society.

I am deeply grateful to noble Lords for having covered so many areas of expertise and to the Minister for responding to this debate. I am grateful that we have spent time focusing on the positive opportunities that AI brings, not least in the contributions from the noble Baronesses, Lady Bottomley, Lady Uddin and Lady Fall, and the noble Lords, Lord Ahmad, Lord Johnson and Lord Shinkwin.

I am grateful that we have spent time considering what it is to be human, as well as the dignity that is inherent in us as human beings. I am grateful that the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, recognises that we have here a shared common ground between those of faith and those of no faith. There were many contributions on this topic, not least from the noble Lords, Lord Tarassenko and Lord Knight, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Gill and Lady Teather.

I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alderdice— I think he was followed on this by the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson—for his comments about the difference between what is human and what is machine intelligence. That topic was also picked up by the noble Lord, Lord Carter, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Marylebone, who began to explore what judgment was. I am very grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Prashar, quoted Tennyson:

“Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers”.


We spent a great deal of time speaking about relationships between ourselves and with society. That was picked up by the noble Lords, Lord Knight, Lord Nagaraju and Lord Rook, and the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, who were particularly concerned about the risk of relationships with technology rather than with people. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, spoke powerfully about the impact of AI on relationships and social structures, particularly those within the family. The noble Baroness, Lady Fall, spoke about her concern that AI had brought conversation to a close.

I was also grateful to my right reverend friend the Bishop of Leicester for his comment that this goes beyond the family to wider society, and to us acting as a healthy community. I was very grateful for the reminder from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, that the gift of human relationships is often within our flaws, and I was encouraged that the noble Baroness, Lady Fall, mentioned love. Of course, as a Christian, I believe that love forgives all things and bears all things.

Maybe one of the most concerning areas that we have brought out today is the impact on young people. I was very grateful for the contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Rook, among others. The noble Lord, Lord Johnson of Lainston, spoke about the fact that we need to prepare our young people, which we absolutely do. That was expanded on by the noble Baroness, Lady Stuart, who spoke about the preparation in employment and decision-making, while others spoke about education. The noble Lord, Lord Markham, reminded us that change has occurred throughout history; however, that does not mean that we should not prepare for the change that is in front of us.

Many noble Lords, including the noble Baronesses, Lady Prashar, Lady Helic and Lady Owen, spoke about our responsibility in addressing these concerns, whether at a governmental level, at a corporate level or in the hands of our own actions. I was very grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, for mentioning the balance between pacing and not being outrun as we take this topic forward.

It was a very helpful reminder to hear from the noble Lord, Lord Waldegrave, and then the noble Lord, Lord Parkinson, that we need to invest in humanities. If we are to develop an ethical framework in which we can make these decisions and be informed, that will be at the heart of doing it. The noble Baroness, Lady Teather, also reminded us that, in doing that, we need the space and partnership to discuss those issues and to reflect on the breadth that we have within our society. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Brooke, for his challenge to the Church of England, Anglicanism and faith groups to facilitate that discussion and reflection on a global stage.

We spoke a lot about the responsibility for governance and regulation. There were some helpful reminders from the noble Lords, Lord Waldegrave and Lord Taylor, and the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, of the need for us to look to our past to learn for our present and our future.

I was grateful for the contributions from the noble Lords, Lord Holmes and Lord Brooke, about whether we need to invest in our own model. This was also picked up by my right reverend friend the Bishop of Oxford when he spoke about the BBC. In mentioning my right reverend friend, I would like to recognise the contribution that he has made on this topic over a number of years. It has enriched not just the Church but, I believe, government and society.

I was grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Frost, for bringing us back perhaps to where we started: the overriding need for us to have confidence in our own humanity. My right reverend friend the Bishop of Portsmouth encouraged us to claim and not give away the agency that we have in that gift. I am also grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Cashman and Lord Griffiths, for their reminder to us that it is often those in society who are least able to manage change whom the change falls most significantly upon.

AI brings with it real and positive opportunities, but we need to ensure that it is being designed, built, regulated and used to the service of our glorious humanity, not to diminish it: to make us more human, not less. There is nothing so precious to God on this earth than human life. That is the heart of the Christian message and we must do all that we can to treasure it, too.

Motion agreed.