Discerning AI is Marquette's interdisciplinary Community of Practice for exploring how ethical discernment can guide the teaching, use, governance, and societal impacts of artificial intelligence. Through collaboration, research, teaching, and public engagement, participants develop practical resources, share expertise, and cultivate thoughtful, mission-driven approaches to AI.
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming teaching, learning, research, and society. As AI becomes more capable, the most important questions are no longer simply what AI can do, but how it should be used and toward what human ends.
Grounded in Marquette's Catholic, Jesuit mission, Discerning AI is an interdisciplinary Community of Practice that brings together faculty, staff, students, and community partners to explore how ethical discernment can guide the teaching, use, and governance of artificial intelligence. Through workshops, conversations, collaborative projects, reading groups, and public events, participants learn from one another while developing practical resources that support thoughtful, mission-driven engagement with AI across Marquette and beyond.
Discerning AI invites the Marquette community to engage artificial intelligence through the Jesuit practice of ethical discernment by asking questions such as:
Why Discernment?
In the Ignatian tradition, discernment is an intentional process of reflection that helps individuals and communities make wise decisions amid complexity and uncertainty. Rather than offering predetermined answers, discernment encourages careful attention to context, competing values, relationships, and the consequences of our actions.
Applied to AI, discernment encourages us to move beyond questions of efficiency or capability toward deeper questions about:
Rather than viewing AI as simply another technology to adopt, discernment provides a framework for asking how AI can – and should – shape our teaching, research, institutions, and communities.
What is a Community of Practice?
A Community of Practice (CoP) is a group of people who share a common interest and learn through ongoing collaboration. Unlike a committee or task force, a Community of Practice is not created to produce a single report or recommendation. Instead, it supports sustained learning, relationship-building, and the development of practical knowledge over time.
In Discerning AI, faculty, staff, students, administrators, and community partners come together to share experiences, discuss emerging challenges, develop teaching resources, pursue collaborative research, and explore how ethical discernment can inform the responsible use and governance of artificial intelligence.
By bringing together diverse perspectives across disciplines and roles, the Community of Practice helps build a stronger, more connected culture of thoughtful AI engagement at Marquette.
How is the Discerning AI Community of Practice supported?
The Discerning AI Community of Practice is an interdisciplinary initiative coordinated by the Center for Data Ethics and initially funded through an Explorer Challenge from the Office of Research and Innovation. Read our proposal narrative here.
A Community of Practice is more than a committee or working group. It is an ongoing community where people with diverse experiences learn from one another, develop practical resources, explore new ideas, and strengthen their work through sustained collaboration.
Communities of Practice recognize that expertise is distributed. Faculty, students, staff, technologists, and community partners all bring different experiences and perspectives that enrich how we understand and engage AI.
Whether you are experimenting with AI in the classroom, deploying it into your workflows, supporting students, studying its societal impacts, developing new technologies, or simply curious about these issues, we invite you to join the conversation.
Together, we hope to build a distinctly Marquette approach to artificial intelligence – one grounded in ethical discernment, interdisciplinary collaboration, human dignity, and the common good.
Dr. Michael Zimmer
Director, Center for Data Ethics
Professor, Department of Computer Science
Cudahy Hall, room 404
(414) 288-5226
michael.zimmer@marquette.edu
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