What Is AI, and How Is It Shaping Society? - Charlie Catlett

The pace of improvement in artificial intelligence (AI) has been daunting, with forecasts of transformations—some utopian, others dystopian—touching nearly every aspect of life. We already see both sides: from social platforms that amplify polarisation to vehicle safety features like automatic emergency braking. This Master Class explains how AI works, what’s coming next, and how to use it wisely and effectively in ministry and daily life—guided by biblical principles of wisdom, stewardship, truth, and love of neighbour.

This is part 1 in a 5 part series on 'A Christian Guide to Understanding and Using AI Wisely'.

1. What Is AI, and How Is It Shaping Society?

We begin by tracing AI’s roots, its rapid progress and adoption in the past decade, and where it already shows up in everyday life—for good and ill.

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Charlie Catlett is a senior computer scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory, with visiting appointments at the University of Chicago and the University of Bristol. He has focused his research for 40 years in the development of the Internet and WorldWideWeb, computer security, and high-performance computing, holding scientific leadership positions at multiple universities and national laboratories. During the past decade his research has focused on the use of computational modeling and artificial intelligence (AI) embedded with sensors to create new classes of environmental measurements and urban planning capabilities. Recently he has also used AI-based data analysis to assess community vulnerability to factors ranging from communicable disease to impacts of climate change, such as flooding and extreme temperatures. He has received numerous awards for his research and leadership, including being named to Crain’s “Tech 50” leaders in Chicago in 2014, GovTech magazine’s national “25 Doers, Dreamers & Drivers” of 2016, as a Distinguished Performer in 2019 by the Board of Trustees of Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, and was named one of the "High Performance Computing People to Watch in 2025" by HPCWire magazine. Charlie is a Computer Engineering graduate of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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