Dr. William Bosl is professor at the University of San Francisco, Affiliate Research Faculty at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Lecturer at Harvard Medical School. He is also Director and Chief Scientist with the MindScope Institute for NeuroAI.

He delivered a presentation titled: ““Clinical AI and Beyond: Autonomy, Ethics, and the Role of Consciousness: A dialogue between science, philosophy, and faith on the future of intelligent systems” at the Acton Institute Conference, “Artificial Intelligence, Human Dignity and the Free Society,” which took place at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome on Thursday, December 4, 2025.

In 1891 Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum, responding to the “new things” of his era and launching a corpus of modern Catholic social teaching. Pope Leo XIV’s choice of name and his early remarks signal that he thinks we are living in a similarly historic moment of social, cultural, and economic upheaval which will be driven by rapid advances in technology, including artificial intelligence. This conference featured talks by experts in technology, theology, economics, and business to examine what the world needs today to traverse the complex problems which confront humanity.