This article is the twelfth in CPJ’s Ink & Impact series featuring young writers from across the country. In today’s political climate, often marked by cynicism and despair, CPJ’s annual Ink & Impact conference helps Christian young people become messengers of hope. In a world dominated by digital distractions, Ink & Impact develops writers who can articulate complex political topics in an approachable, nuanced way to inform the public. The views and opinions reflected in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official position of CPJ.
Stewardship of Technological Gifts
As soon as I could comprehend, my mother taught me stewardship principles with regard to resources, or what I would call “God’s gifts.” These principles entailed gratitude for daily food and drink, responsibility for taking care of my belongings, and frugality with finances.
This philosophy of stewardship is akin to the duty of dominion given to humans in the Creation story in Genesis 1:26. God provided an abundance of “good” gifts for the sustenance and flourishing of the earth. We also see from the account of the Fall that Adam and Eve’s faulty stewardship brought forth the profound separation of God from creation. Thus, when a good gift is mishandled, it can cause a great deal of harm.
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. espoused a similar warning in his Nobel Peace Prize lecture in Oslo, Norway on December 11, 1964:
“In spite of…spectacular strides in science and technology, and still unlimited ones to come, something basic is missing. There is a sort of poverty of the spirit which stands in glaring contrast to our scientific and technological abundance. The richer we have become materially, the poorer we have become morally and spiritually. We have learned to fly the air like birds and swim the sea like fish, but we have not learned the simple art of living together as brothers.”
Dr. King received the prize for his efforts to end racial segregation in the United States through nonviolent social action that led to the groundbreaking Civil Rights Act of 1964 signed by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964. The legislation was put forth to outlaw discrimination on the basis of race, religion, sex, or country of origin. Alongside the law itself, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 brought forth the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) as a governing body to enforce the act.
The Prominence of AI
Even more than in 1964, today’s world is sprawling with scientific and technological abundance, and the advancement of artificial intelligence (AI) is at the center of modern strides in technology. This is evident, for example, in Nvidia, one of the largest and most influential chip manufacturers in the world, gearing up to invest more than $100 billion into the future of OpenAI, a leading AI company globally. AI is designed to make things easier and more cost efficient; therefore, it is no surprise that companies are looking to utilize the technology in their business procedures from hiring to completing daily tasks.
Anyone who has ever visited job boards like LinkedIn and Indeed has encountered demographic questions designed to differentiate job applicants. These inquiries allow employers to parse through education level, racial identification, and disability status before formally meeting candidates. Many companies use AI software like Workday to streamline this process.
A Jobseeker Challenges AI’s Use in Hiring
The class action lawsuit of Mobley v. Workday sits at the intersection of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the harm that the misuse of technology like AI can cause. Derek Mobley, a 40-year-old African American man with a disability from California, unearthed a concerning pattern while applying for jobs through Workday’s employer assistance software. On February 21, 2023, such concerns led Mobley to file a class-action complaint against Workday, claiming that the software’s screening process outright rejected more than 100 of his applications due to his race, age, and disability status. Workday filed a motion to have the case dismissed, arguing that the software functions as a neutral intermediary between the employer and job seeker and therefore falls outside the scope of Title VII. The motion to dismiss was subsequently denied. The EEOC has since argued that Mobley’s case against Workday has valid points for the company to be considered a “covered entity” under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), and the Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967.
The Brokenness Often Present in Work and Human Dignity
The validity of this case falling under the Civil Rights Act of 1964 marks a historical continuation of brokenness in the relationship between work, technology, and race in the United States. This is a founding woe with many of our earliest leaders believing in white supremacy and enslaving African Americans for labor and brutalization. Even President Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, articulated this view in racial hierarchy in an 1858 debate:
I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and Black races—that I am not nor ever have been in favor of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermingling with white people; … I am as much as any other man in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.
President Lincoln’s way of thinking was a result of brokenness in the world we inhabit. When God created humans, no form of superiority was assigned to any particular race or ethnicity of people. In the creation story, God imparted the divine image upon humans and in doing so gave us dominion over the earth and all other creatures and created things (Genesis 1:26–27)—calling us to steward those things responsibly. Because humans bear the divine image and AI does not, allowing AI to make consequential decisions about people’s livelihoods without adequate human oversight fails to honor the dignity inherent in every person. God indeed observes a distinction between human beings like Derek Mobley and other created things like AI.
How does this shape what we owe to actual people like Mobley? Going forward, if companies are going to employ AI in the hiring process so heavily, they should uphold the God-given dignity of all human beings seeking employment. Jobs serve a twofold purpose: they are how people use their gifts to contribute something of value to the world, and they give people the much-needed avenue to providing the necessities of food, water, clothing, and shelter for themselves and their families. If AI, a created entity, is being used to exclude actual people from gaining access to such necessities, it is antithetical to responsible stewardship and reflects what Dr. King prophetically highlights as “poverty of the spirit.”
A Call to Action
The Center for Public Justice’s public justice framework holds that government, civil society, and citizens each carry distinct responsibilities for the flourishing of all—and that includes how AI is used in hiring.
In order to pursue what Dr. King calls “living together as brothers” in a more Christ-like manner, churches, organizations, government, and concerned individuals alike should be committed to shaping a society that serves the goodness and flourishing of all citizens—irrespective of race, gender, religion, or disability status. Churches should serve as networking and support hubs for job seekers. Other nonprofits can advocate for legislation that establishes clearer standards for AI use in hiring. We should lament and seek to prevent the great deal of harm that the further expansion of AI is projected to cause to the employment rate by 2030.
With this potential harm looming, government has a special responsibility among the spheres of society to put forth legislation that protects and upholds public justice. Government should practice better stewardship of the expansion of AI through laws and regulations regarding job candidates’ application and screening processes. Currently, there is no single comprehensive federal legislation that addresses the use of AI in hiring in a regulatory manner. At the federal level, the regulatory direction has moved toward deregulation rather than protection. Executive Order 14365 pushes for less state regulation of AI and Executive Order 14281 directs federal agencies to reduce reliance on disparate-impact liability—a legal doctrine that can protect against disproportionate outcomes for legally protected groups like racial minorities or disabled individuals. Meanwhile, the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) has issued guidance encouraging federal agencies to adopt AI across the hiring lifecycle, further expanding AI’s role in employment decisions without comprehensive federal anti-discrimination protections in place.
While matters approach deregulation at the federal level, several states have begun to fill the gap with their own legislation. The state laws and regulations remain intact and enforceable, as there have been multiple failed attempts at a federal moratorium on the state laws regulating AI. With this reality in mind, a federal law requiring transparency in companies’ use of AI in the hiring process would be a meaningful step forward. This could include mandatory reports about their hiring outcomes as well as annual audits of the use of these tools.
In the Bible, Jesus taught comparable lessons to the ones my mother taught me as a child. He affirmed a citizen’s duty of stewardship with resources in saying we are to “render to Caesar what is his and to God what is His” (Matthew 22:21). Part of rendering to God what belongs to God is caring for the most vulnerable among us, not merely with thoughts and prayers but with responsible civic actions that promote their well-being (Matthew 25:40). Christ followers committed to bringing heaven to earth should lament the ways that our relationship between labor and technology has allowed our founding wounds to persist and deepen. Public justice calls on government, and specifically the EEOC, to establish meaningful guardrails against discriminatory AI in hiring practices, for the good of citizens like Derek Mobley.
Will Creagh is a passionate writer and entrepreneur committed to building creative communities that end self-abandonment, embrace vastness, and expand access.
Graphic by Center for Public Justice
