Four panelists argued students should value creativity over efficiency to find dignity in their professional lives amid the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workforce at a Georgetown University event Sept. 29.
The panel advised young people to collaborate more and appreciate the process of the work itself, rather than its end product. The panel — hosted by Georgetown’s Initiative on Catholic Social Thought and Public Life (CST) — included two journalists, a political researcher and a humanitarian who drew upon Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas, a papal encyclical about AI, to urge a human-focused approach to AI usage.
Emma Goldberg, a New York Times reporter, said that AI cannot replace human creativity in the workplace.
“It’s not just the product that matters but the process of creativity,” Goldberg said at the event. “The process is so much more important than the product.”
David Jimenez — a manager at the Niskanen Center, a think tank that advocates for bipartisan policy solutions — said Magnificia Humanitas sets out a flexible groundwork to address AI issues.
“The goal here is to provide a set of frameworks for us to think about these issues versus a prescription for every situation,” Jimenez said at the event.
University President Eduardo Peñalver spoke on the encyclical at a Sept. 9 panel, affirming the Pope’s message of conforming AI to respect human dignity. On Sept. 3, Peñalver announced a university-wide framework plan for AI, which intends to closely monitor AI use at Georgetown over the next two semesters, establishing a student fellows program to help faculty adapt courses to the AI era.
Cecilia Flores — the executive director of Catholic Volunteer Network, a Catholic nonprofit organization — said AI has intensified the pressures of modern work life.
“Our natural inclination to take our time, and to learn, and to work has been commodified, and now we’re just trying to produce as much as we can, as fast as we can,” Flores said at the event. “Just let it be; it’s not going to be perfect the first time.”
Flores said young people should approach life and work with less focus on end products.
“The process of learning something, the process of creating something, or even the process of just doing something is meaningful in itself,” Flores said. “Nothing is wasted.”
Renée Roden — a journalist and fellow at the Jesuit Media Lab, a Jesuit organization that supports artists who incorporate Jesuit ideals into their creative work — said human creative work will always have value, echoing the teaching of Dorothy Day, a 20th-century Catholic social activist of the Catholic Worker Movement.
“There’s something about making and producing and sharing that, I think Dorothy Day would say, this is the theological central pillar of what work is about,” Roden said at the event.
Eswyn Gray (CAS ’27), a CST undergraduate fellow, said Georgetown students often feel pressured to focus on the final product.
“It can be so easy to prioritize efficiency and deliverables, just getting things done, and you lose that creative process and the excitement of collaborating with your peers and asking questions,” Gray told The Hoya. “This was a really good reminder for me to take time, slow down, listen and recenter my perspective less on work, delivery and efficiency, and more on the process of getting there.”
Jordan Holmes (CAS ’26), a CST undergraduate fellow, said his experience as a student-athlete has taught him to appreciate the learning process both athletically and academically.
“AI takes away that process of falling in love with craft, with failing and trying again, failing and trying again,” Holmes told The Hoya. “It’s not about the destination; it’s about the journey. And so, I took away to fall in love with the process, with the journey of work and really just bask in what it means to work with others, collaborate, and be a community.”
Flores said collaboration is vital to finding purpose in professional life in the AI era.
“Slow down and be curious,” Flores said. “I think sometimes we’re just so focused on what we’ve got to do that we don’t even notice the people around us and just the human beings that we are.”