On Tuesday, March 10, Professor Eugene McCarraher delivered the 2026 Spring Humanities lecture titled “Why AI Doesn’t Love You and Never Will.” The event was held in Driscoll Hall auditorium and attracted a large crowd of students, faculty and Villanova alumni.
Professor McCarraher is a professor in Villanova’s Department of Humanities whose work is particularly concerned with the impact of different economic and religious practices and beliefs throughout history, as explored in his two books, “Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought” and “The Enchantments of Mammon: How Capitalism Became the Religion of Modernity.”
McCarraher was introduced by host Michael Tomko, Ph.D, Chair of the Department of Humanities and Professor of Literature.
Professor McCarraher took his audience by surprise when he began his lecture.
“We should stop calling it artificial intelligence and start calling it what it is: automation,” McCarraher said.
By defining Artifical Intelligence (AI) in a way that many individuals oftentimes overlook, McCarraher laid the foundation for his following points.
Though many of us view AI as a technology that helps us more efficiently complete certain tasks and therefore a positive addition to human existence, Professor McCarraher explained how “automation has never been about making anyone’s life easier.”
He supported yet another shocking claim by encouraging his audience to consider the history of AI. Everything, including historical contexts, political beliefs and individual inventors, was explored in McCarraher’s lecture.
“We should all start focusing not on the marvelous machines, but on the people who design and bankroll them,” McCarraher said.
McCarraher emphasized the role of capitalism in the rise of technology.
“Automation has been about cutting costs and controlling people,” McCarraher said. “That way of looking at everything and everyone in purely instrumental and pecuniary terms” is what sparked technological advancement during the Industrial Revolution and what continues to spark progress today.
McCarraher’s discussion about automation as a means of lowering costs and maximizing profits demonstrated how “capitalists have a built-in incentive to innovate technology.”
“We began thinking of ourselves as computers before we began humanizing our own creations,” McCarraher said.
The developments humanity has made are direct results of viewing our actions as reducible to computer-like automations. Only once humans accomplished automation did they begin to (attempt to) add in human traits.
Professor McCarraher’s lecture approached AI in a new and interesting way that invited his audience to consider not so much the technology itself, but the harsh and unpleasant influences that drive its creation and progress.
Though listeners may have been taken aback by Professor McCarraher’s removal of AI’s sugar coat, he ended on a powerful reminder of our duty to uphold our humanity.
“AI will never love you,” McCarraher said. “You have to love you, and one another.”
McCarraher’s lecture was followed by a question and answer session and a reception in the lobby of Driscoll Hall.
Professor McCarraher’s book, tentatively titled Automated Vistas: Visions of Automation from Ancient Greece to Silicon Valley, which is set to be published by Yale University Press, will continue his discussion on automation and the role of AI in human life.
