
This is the edited text for the Homily for Mass on 20 December, Catholic Archdiocese of Sydney End of Year Celebration at St Mary’s Cathedral, 20 December 2024.
A recent article in Forbes magazine asked the question on many people’s minds: “Will AI replace your job?” Some are heralding a “fourth industrial revolution:” after the machine age, electrical age and digital age, we now face the convergence of artificial intelligence, robotics, the Internet of Things and biotechnology, blurring the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological and fusing their capacities. As a result many fear that their skills will no longer be needed and that they will soon be redundant. At a tech conference earlier this year the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, declared that AI is fast taking all our jobs and that that’s not necessarily a bad thing: in the future employed work will be optional. PwC forecasts that AI related technologies will add $15.7 trillion to global GDP by 2030. With its promise of greater, cheaper production, higher profits for corporations and government but declining need for human work, anxiety among workers is naturally on the rise.
But are we truly on the cusp of such full-scale automation, with most jobs being undertaken by robots and chatbots like an episode out of Black Mirror? Should I be resigning as archbishop and handing over to a new computer program? Should we install chatbots in all the confessionals?
No, the experts are saying, the key to future-proofing our jobs and keeping relevant is to further develop our “soft skills” like creativity, empathy, judgment, communication and collaboration. A Harvard Business Review study of 1500 companies found that those that sought to replace humans with AI were making limited gains at best, whereas firms in which humans and machines each play to their strengths while working together, achieve the most significant performance improvements. The AI revolution may well bring disruption to employment for many, but there will be new tasks ahead and many jobs—like I suspect most of ours—will be much the same.

Thankfully, ministry doesn’t function in the quite the same way as industry. It’s not profit that we’re after but proclamation. Revenue matters a lot less than repentance, soul savings rather than cost savings. Sacraments require moral presence, literally the human touch, and can’t be conducted through the virtual universe. Our core business of disciple-making might be assisted by Bishop Richard’s memes and SCE use of the new media, or by all our computer-based research, artwork, accounting and comms supported by our IT people. But no matter how “intelligent” or efficient a technology is, it will not read souls or inspire conversion. The raw materials for the Gospel proclamation business are not e-books or even old books, but the living, breathing witness of those who have encountered the Risen Christ—ready to love selflessly and radiate joy in doing so, willing to walk with others, especially the needy and suffering, able to bring them the comfort of a God who is love.
That human beings are, unlike everything else in creation, images of God, named rather than numbered, God’s unique and irreplaceable artworks, is confirmed by the events of the Annunciation and Incarnation told in our Gospel today (Lk 1:26-38). Here we witness the greatest of all collaborations, not between a natural intelligence and an artificial one, a man and a machine, but between a pure spirit and an embodied one, an infinite intelligence and a human one; a partnership conceived in eternity and born in history, where through the steadfast obedience of humble virgin, God’s love became manifest in the most profound of ways, in a newly conceived then new-born man-God whose Advent would change everything.
At that moment, the meeting point of the old and new covenants, the promise of an Emmanuel God-with-us (Isa 7:10-14) was fulfilled. In doing so, God confirmed the inherent goodness of the material creation and offered healing where it was broken. More than this, He offered to elevate us to partakers of the divine nature, adopted sons and daughters of the Most High. But God is no tyrant. He doesn’t programme us or impose on us. To bring about His will, He holds out His hand of friendship, which we are free to accept or reject.

That we recall Mary’s cosmos-defining response so close to Christmas highlights that the Incarnation began not with the first Christmas but at that moment nine months before when Mary, on the behalf of all of creation, spoke those all-important words, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me.” (Lk 1:38) Her fiat is the blueprint for ours. Each of you, in grand ways or humble, seeks to improve yourself and your work performance, to be more efficient in what you do, more effective in service of the mission. Technology may help. The team around you also. But in the end what matters most is that like Mary you are saying to God, “Your will be done,” and letting Him make the most of you.