Beyond Productivity: A Christian Vision for Work and Technology, Part I

This essay on a Christian vision for work in the age of AI, was originally written by Grady Burkhart for COMM-222: Interpersonal Communication, taught by Dr. Michael Kearney. In part one of two, Burkhart challenges the idea that work is just tasks and outputs, drawing from contemporary AI scholarship and theories of interpersonal communication.

The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence has led to never-ending uncertainty regarding what the future of work will look like. As a result, humanity has been overcome with questions about identity, purpose, and human dignity in an increasingly automated world. As industries such as manufacturing, engineering, journalism, design, and dispute resolution adopt new AI tools, the fear that machines may replace meaningful human labor has become greater than ever. For Christians, these shifts lead to an even deeper question: if work is central to God’s design for humanity, how can believers continue to understand the value of work when algorithms and machines increasingly perform tasks once reserved for people? This question invites reflection not only on technological trends but also on theological anthropology, interpersonal communication, and the relational nature of vocation. By drawing from contemporary scholarship on AI, Reformed Christian thought, and theories of interpersonal communication, Christians can frame work not merely as economic output but as an expression of personhood rooted in the Imago Dei, lived out through relationships, creativity, discernment, and communal responsibility, dimensions that automation cannot replicate.

Much of the anxiety nowadays surrounding the development in automation stems from the assumption that work derives its value from productivity alone. Waelen (2025), drawing on the philosophy of Hannah Arendt, argues that Western society has long equated human worth with labor output, creating the “society of laborers without labor” (p. 4). In this society, automation becomes threatening because it disrupts the very activity upon which individuals get their meaning from. Arendt’s distinction between labor, work, and action can help provide a good framework for rethinking how Christians often evaluate the subject of vocation in an automated age. Labor refers to cyclical, survival-oriented activity. Work, on the other hand, refers to the creation of lasting artifacts or structures. Finally, action refers to the meaningful interaction between persons in public life. Automation may diminish the need for what Arendt calls labor and even portions of technical work, but it cannot eliminate action, because action is fundamentally relational, moral, and communicative. For Christians, action corresponds closely to the relational calling related to the belief that humans are made in the image of God (Imago Dei). With this in mind, human work is not just about completing tasks but about participating in God’s ongoing creation through relationships, creativity, stewardship, and responsibility.

This perspective aligns greatly with the ideas presented in An Introduction to Communication and Artificial Intelligence by David J. Gunkel (2020). In this book, Gunkel insists that while AI can simulate communication, it is incapable of participating in interpersonal communication in the same way humans can. Communication, as understood within interpersonal communication scholarship, involves identity management, emotional expression, mutual understanding, and embodied presence, qualities deeply tied to personhood. Solomon and Theiss’ text about putting theory into practice regarding interpersonal communication (2013), they emphasize that interpersonal communication is inherently rooted in subjective experience and relational meaning-making. No matter how advanced artificial intelligence becomes in the future, it will never have the same kind of consciousness, intentionality, and emotional grounding needed to engage in these kinds of relational interactions. Therefore, even in technical fields where automation may replace certain tasks, the interpersonal dimensions of engineering work, collaboration, ethical judgment, conflict resolution, and leadership, remain uniquely human and central to the vocations of Christians.

Furthermore, contemporary research on AI in organizational contexts helps further clarify the parts of work that maintain the need for qualities unique to humans despite the new advancements in technology. Matsunaga (2022), drawing on uncertainty management theory, finds that employees’ uncertainty surrounding the adoption of AI technologies is associated with lower job performance. However, these negative effects can be reduced when organizations are led by transformational leaders, especially those who are digitally literate. Leaders who clearly communicate their vision, support employees emotionally, and show confidence in AI-related systems help workers understand technological change as less threatening. This suggests that AI introduces not only technical challenges, but also important communicative and relational ones.. These findings help bring clarity to the fact that AI does not just introduce technical challenges, but communicative and relational challenges as well. This all reinforces the importance of human leadership, empathy, and sense-making in workplaces that are becoming increasingly shaped by the developments in automation.

At the same time, concerns about AI replacing creative and expressive work have also begun to grow in recent years, especially with the rise of generative models. These technologies have raised fears that activities once thought to be uniquely human, such as writing, art, and storytelling, may become automated or devalued. However, some of the new research suggests that AI’s presence in creative fields does not eliminate human creativity but instead draws attention to the aspects of creativity that cannot be reduced to technical output alone. For example, Matich, Thomson, and Thomas (2025) note that the new fears that have arisen about AI in journalism closely resemble earlier anxieties surrounding previous technological shifts in the field, like the printing press. Despite major changes in tools and platforms, the foundational commitments of journalism, such as truth-telling, ethical discernment, and the communication of human perspective, have remained largely intact. Similarly, Bender (2023) argues that generative AI may even support creative education by clarifying the distinction between technical proficiency and genuine creativity, the latter of which carries intrinsic value beyond mere efficiency or replication. From a Christian perspective, these insights are especially meaningful, as creativity is understood not simply as a skill but as an expression of humanity’s reflection of God’s creative nature. Humans create not only to generate content or solve problems, but to communicate meaning, emotion, and a sense of transcendence, all things that AI may mimic in form but can never truly possess.

Other studies further support the idea that, even when AI performs well on a technical level, it struggles to reproduce emotional depth and narrative coherence that humans have done so well with over the history of art. Malecki, Messingschlager, and Appel (2025) show that although audiences often admire the visual or aesthetic quality of AI-generated art, they frequently sense a lack of emotional resonance beneath the surface. In a similar way, Kizilhan (2025) finds that while AI can demonstrate strong technical skill in design tasks, it often falls short when it comes to communicating story, intention, and emotion. From a Christian perspective, this gap points to the limits of machines in replicating forms of creativity that emerge from the human soul, personal experience, and purposeful intent. The concept of the Imago Dei emphasizes humanity’s capacity to create meaning, tell stories, and form emotional connections, all things that cannot be automated or reduced to algorithms. Taken together, these findings suggest that AI may imitate the form of creative work, but the depth that gives creativity its significance remains uniquely human.

This distinction also appears in legal and ethical debates surrounding the use of AI in roles that have traditionally required human judgment. Walters (2025) argues that robots cannot ethically replace human arbitrators because they lack emotional and moral intelligence. Arbitration is not simply a technical process, it involves weighing fairness, interpreting nuance, understanding human motivation, and exercising compassion, all of which depend on relational capacities that extend beyond machine processing. Similarly, Stockton-Brown (2023) observes that even in creative fields where AI is playing an increasingly visible role, questions of authorship and ownership remain closely tied to human cultural context, relationships, and lived experience. Taken together, these studies affirm that human work continues to hold irreplaceable value, particularly in areas where automation cannot fully assume interpersonal, moral, or relational responsibilities.

Interpersonal communication theory offers further insight into why the relational dimensions of work are so significant. Solomon and Theiss (2013) describe communication as the primary way people construct identity, negotiate meaning, regulate emotions, and form relationships with others. From this perspective, workplaces are not simply sites where tasks are completed or products are made, but social environments in which trust is built, collaboration takes place, and conflict is navigated through ongoing interaction. Employees rely on communication to coordinate efforts, clarify expectations, and support one another in moments of challenge or uncertainty. These processes cannot be fully automated because they depend on empathy, vulnerability, and a recognition of others as persons rather than systems or tools. Even in highly technical fields such as engineering, successful work requires listening, perspective-taking, conflict management, and shared decision-making alongside technical expertise. From a Christian standpoint, these relational practices reflect the belief that humans are created in the image of God and are called to work in ways that honor community and mutual responsibility. Interpersonal communication, therefore, is not a secondary or “soft” skill, but a central dimension of human work and an essential part of Christian vocation.

Gunkel (2020) further argues that while AI may be able to simulate certain aspects of communication, it lacks the embodied, emotional, and ethical qualities that make communication genuinely interpersonal. Machines do not possess agency grounded in moral responsibility, nor are they capable of experiencing emotions or forming meaningful commitments to others. As a result, their “communication” remains functional rather than relational. From a Christian perspective, this distinction means that the increasing presence of automation does not diminish human worth or significance. Instead, AI can serve as a contrast that highlights what is uniquely human, including the ability to form relationships, exercise ethical judgment, create meaning, and engage in purposeful reflection. These capacities are central to the concept of the imago Dei and help explain why human work continues to hold enduring value, even in contexts where machines may perform tasks more quickly or efficiently.

References:

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