DELTA? I hardly know her.
Critical Systems Heuristics + DELTA, a general-use tool for you
Since sharing the DELTA framework, the most consistent response has been: this resonates, now what do we actually do with it?
And we have been working on that. We have a growing number of partners in a variety of contexts (think classrooms, churches, and boardrooms) doing the hard work of applying and operationalizing DELTA in their specific settings (more on that in the coming months). But we also wanted to start putting some general-use tools out into the world, things that might spark better conversations at any organization, regardless of where they are in their AI journey.
The resource we’re sharing today, however, is deliberately not about AI (not explicitly, anyway). Our view is that before any institution can evaluate an AI tool or use case against DELTA’s principles, it needs to know what those principles actually mean in its present context. What does dignity look like for the people you serve? Where is human presence genuinely irreplaceable? What does care require that can’t be delegated?
The guide offers a series of questions drawn from Critical Systems Heuristics (CSH) and mapped to the DELTA framework. If CSH is new to you, think of it as a diagnostic tool for something the Catholic tradition of integral human development has insisted on for a very long time: that persons can’t be reduced to any single dimension of their lives, and that the people most affected by a decision should be part of making it.
In his recent encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV warns that organizations focused only on immediate pressures risk letting “the succession of emergencies dictate the direction of our path.” So in a world of growing pressures and anxieties to move fast or get left behind, this guide is a small attempt to interrupt that.
This resource (and those to come) are for you, so please let us know what you think. What’s useful? What’s confusing? What’s missing? What specific questions or issues is your organization grappling with? Drop a comment below or send a note to Meg McDermott at mmcderm6@nd.edu.
I’d love to get this in front of my local Young Catholic Professional and Junior League chapters! Looking forward to more :)