What Is AI Asking of Us?

Please join us to our next Gradient Gathering on Thursday 8 October 2026, 5:45 PM, at the Sydney Knowledge Hub, The University of Sydney.

Registration required. Register here.

Convened by Gradient Institute, in partnership with the Embassy of Italy Canberra and the Consulate General of Italy Sydney, during the Australian visit of Fr Paolo Benanti, “St Francis and The Artificial Wolf.”

Father Paolo Benanti, theologian, moral philosopher and AI ethicist, advisor to the Holy See, the UN and the Italian Parliament on AI Ethics and governance, visits Australia on the occasion of the 800th anniversary of the death of St. Francis. He will take part in talks and gatherings across different Australian cities on the theme of "St Francis and the Artificial Wolf"

The tour takes its name from the legend of Gubbio. A wolf terrorises a town; Francis walks out to meet it, and he brings back a pact. The wolf's violence, he says, came from hunger, so the townspeople agree to feed it for the rest of its life, and the wolf agrees to stop killing. Both sides change by taking on an obligation.

That is a story that invites a deeper reflection than what we usually hear about technology. We're glad to host Fr Benanti in Sydney at our next Gradient Gathering to explore what a pact with today's artificial wolf would require of us now.

The evening

When registering, everyone tells us, in their own words, what they think about the ethical development and use of AI. We ask this of everyone in advance of the event, because we want the evening to begin with what you feel it’s worth surfacing.

Reading the replies so far, what comes through clearly is a great deal of care alongside a real sense of unease.

People wrote about the dignity of their work, about what their children should be learning, about whether they still understand the decisions being made around them, about who is being left out, and about a pace of change that existing institutions weren’t built to absorb. People are paying close attention to what matters, to them and to others, but don’t yet know how to best respond.

So we have designed this evening as an inquiry: a chance to look at this moment together, steadily and without hurry, and to ask what it still leaves us free to do, for ourselves and for one another.

The direction

AI is pressing on long-held ideas about what a human being is and what a human life is for: what work is for, what learning is for, what it means to decide, to pay attention, to create, to be answerable for something. Which of those pressures should we resist? Which should we welcome?

Each speaker is given the same question, and five minutes to explore it. Then the room is invited to join.

AI is pressing on long-held ideas about what a human being is, and what a human life is for. From where you stand: what is AI asking of us, and how do we want to answer?

The panel

Fr Benanti will be joined by three distinguished guest speakers, each of whom has thought carefully about the relationship between humans and AI, and each of whom comes to the question from a different background

Anna Goldsworthy, Pianist and writer. Author of The God We Made, Quarterly Essay 102, on artificial intelligence.
Ven. Assoc. Prof. Juewei, Head of Applied Buddhist Studies, Nan Tien Institute. Began in computer science and engineering.
Fr Paolo Benanti, Franciscan friar and theologian. Adviser on AI to the Holy See, the Italian government and the UN.
Dr Simon Longstaff AO, Executive Director, The Ethics Centre.

Hosted by Alberto Chierici and Tiberio Caetano, Gradient Institute.