ACI Prensa Staff, November 12, 2025 / 6:00 am
Ana Lazcano, director of the University Institute of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at Francisco de Vitoria University in Spain, warned that AI is not an all-powerful deity and that it is necessary to “lay the foundation for critical thinking” about the technology.
Speaking to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, Lazcano explained that the recently created institute she leads aims to provide a unified vision of AI: “It is a discipline that has arrived like a tsunami, an interdisciplinary science that is sweeping us all away in every field, and we need a unified approach; we must build strength together.”
For Lazcano, who also directs the university’s master’s programs in business analytics, artificial intelligence and machine learning, and generative AI for business, this unified vision is “very necessary, because there are also many ethical questions involved. How do we use AI? What is the purpose? To replace us, to complement us? The more the vision aligns with the university’s mission, the greater the benefit we can achieve.”
The new University Institute for Artificial Intelligence is integrated into the university both organizationally and through the multidisciplinary nature of its employees: philosophers, anthropologists, teachers, engineers, psychologists and others.
“There are representatives from all faculties and departments of the university, which allows everyone to have his or her perspective from their field, share it and find common ground,” Lazcano explains.
The proposed approach to AI from a specifically Catholic perspective, she affirmed, is that of Pope Leo XIV: “We should not fear it, understand it, approach it with great caution.”
This caution refers to the fact that “we cannot attribute to it qualities and characteristics that it does not possess: artificial intelligence is not all-powerful. If we put this technology in the right place – and what we do is prioritize human knowledge, human wisdom and, above all, what sets us apart from it – then we can make the most of it.”
“The moment we treat artificial intelligence as a deity, we are mistaken; it is far from that, it is a complement,” she emphasized.
Contribution to the common good
The new institute aims to base its activities on four pillars: training, research, technology transfer and application, and dissemination to contribute to the common good.
Lazcano said the institute hopes to provide society with “well-trained and prepared students,” not only in technical fields, but especially “for the ethical challenges posed by AI, as well as the knowledge generated by research and its practical application.”
Regarding dissemination, Lazcano pointed out that “it is necessary to lay the foundation for critical thinking. There is a lot of talk about artificial intelligence, and unfortunately, because there are many voices, there is also a lot of noise. We want what we generate to really contribute; to be high-quality content that is useful to people.”
Impact on the university world
Artificial intelligence has also impacted the university sphere, Lazcano said, posing significant challenges to “how we teach, learn and assess.”
She said the university should provide technology training and services to professors, students and researchers because “if you know the tools at your disposal, you can apply them more effectively.”
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But “there is resistance to change,” she acknowledged, so the school hopes to “implement a technology support model where we explain that this is a small but important revolution; that we should ride the wave and, above all, benefit from its possibilities, rather than fearing it or having a negative image of it.’
One of the biggest challenges is that AI “opens a spectacular technological gap between teachers and students,” in which students are more advanced. “Written work is no longer of much use. I can no longer say whether a student has completed a paper or not,” said the expert, who nevertheless looks at the matter with hope.
“I like to think that this takes us back to an original concept of the university, to debate, to conversation; to putting the student at the center and supporting them in that learning process,” she said. “It’s going to completely change the rules of education, but I think for the better. Once we stabilize a bit, we’ll be able to get back to those fundamental topics and make critical thinking fashionable again, instead of artificial intelligence.”
This story was first published by ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner. It has been translated and adapted by CNA.
Nicolás de Cárdenas has been a correspondent for ACI Prensa in Spain since July 2022. In his journalistic career he has specialized in socio-religious topics, and has also worked for local and international social associations.
