By Thomas B. Fowler (bio – articles – email) | January 21, 2026
Introductory note from Jeff Mirus:
In 2024, Thomas Fowler wrote a series of four articles on artificial intelligence for CatholicCulture.org:
At the end of 2025, Tom published a major book on this subject: Artificial intelligence: foundations, limits, advantages and dangers. This is a truly remarkable achievement – both scientifically and philosophically valid – involving a very confusing topic that is characterized for most of us by a combination of incessant hype and absurdly frustrating chatbots. The book clearly explains how AI actually works, identifies its strengths and weaknesses, delineates the difference between human thinking and artificial intelligence, and explains how AI can be useful while identifying the kinds of things it will never actually be able to do.
Fowler also reflects on the enormous costs of training and developing AI, as well as the fundamental limitations of the technology in that the systems do not (and cannot) produce anything that actually approximates true human intelligence. To help readers understand the scope of Tom Fowler’s extraordinary book, here is the table of contents.
With the author’s permission, I also present below a PDF version of one of the book’s chapters, “Chapter VII: The Real Capabilities of AI,” so that readers can begin to form a realistic assessment of the benefits and limitations of AI technology:
Read: The real capabilities of AI (chapter 7 of Thomas B. Fowler’s remarkable book Artificial intelligence)
Ring low! CatholicCulture.org supporters have their say.
All comments are moderated. To ease our editing burden, only current donors are allowed to Sound Off. If you are a current donor, log in to view the feedback form; otherwise, support our work and Sound Off!
