AI’s rise is often framed as a disruption to the humanities, but the perennial wisdom of the Great Books offers the very anthropology, metaphysics, and moral vision needed to guide technological power toward the good. This talk shows how classical Catholic thought provides the intellectual architecture for navigating AI’s promises and perils.

Taylor Black is a venture architect with more than two decades of experience launching, nurturing, and scaling ventures across enterprise, deep tech, community innovation, and social impact ecosystems. Born and raised in Seattle as the oldest of eleven children in a Byzantine Ruthenian Catholic (convert) family, he was homeschooled from early childhood through high school. He went on to Gonzaga University, where he earned degrees in Philosophy, Classics, and Entrepreneurial Business (Honors), with minors in English and Biochemistry. He married his wife Anne at the end of his junior year.

After Gonzaga, he pursued graduate studies in philosophy at Boston College, where he also launched his first technology company—a venture he continued to build during law school at Boston College Law. Though admitted into the legal profession, he opted to keep building rather than practice, setting the course for a career defined by creating new pathways at the intersection of technology, human formation, and institutional transformation.

In his current role as Director of AI & Venture Ecosystems within the Strategic Programs and Communities team at Microsoft’s Office of the CTO, he designs and leads cross-company initiatives that weave together innovation strategy, product development, and community engagement. His work concentrates on shaping ecosystems that accelerate frontier technologies while fostering broad, distributed participation in AI capability-building.

In parallel, he serves as the Inaugural Director of the Leonine Institute for AI & Emerging Technologies at the Catholic University of America, where he is building an interdisciplinary hub that integrates research, venture creation, and the Catholic intellectual tradition. The Institute prepares leaders to understand the cultural, philosophical, and practical implications of AI and converts cutting-edge ideas into real-world outcomes through degree programs, fellowships, and ventures.

He and his wife are foster and adoptive parents, with three adoptions and six foster placements, anchoring his work in a lived commitment to service, formation, and community. Taylor is also in diaconal formation for the The Holy Protection of Mary Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Phoenix.