AI and Work

Genesis 2:15 places the human being in the garden to work it and take care of it. Work precedes the fall. Work is not punishment — it is vocation. The image-bearer participates in creation by tending, cultivating, making, and caring for what God has made.

This means that when AI displaces human work, something more is at stake than wages. The question of what humans do — and what their doing means — is a question about human identity, dignity, and purpose. It is a theological question before it is an economic one.

AI will automate enormous categories of human labor. Some of that labor was genuinely dehumanizing, and its automation may be liberating. But the question the Christian tradition presses is: Will those freed from dehumanizing labor be given access to meaningful work? Or will they simply be told their skills are obsolete?

Matthew 20's parable of the vineyard workers is a provocative text here. The owner goes out at dawn, at nine, at noon, at three, and at five — seeking workers. He wants everyone working. And at the end of the day, everyone receives the same wage — not based on hours, but based on the owner's generosity. This is not economics. This is grace. And it suggests that the right question is not only who gets to work, but who gets to eat.