VATICAN CITY – Pope Leo XIV’s major new teaching on safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence (AI) is a forward-looking document, arriving at the precipice of what many see as a new technological age that will profoundly reshape human life.
“Magnifica Humanitas”, or “Magnificent Humanity”, is the American Pope’s first encyclical, a document that is considered one of the most significant papal teachings.
Pope Leo signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum”, known in English as “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labour”.
That encyclical, on labour in the context of the Industrial Revolution, was written by Pope Leo XIII, who was the inspiration for Leo XIV’s papal name.
Like his 19th-century predecessor, the current pope is consciously tackling what is expected to be one of the most pressing issues facing humanity over the course of his papacy.
The 42,300-word open letter to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics covers a lot of ground.
Here are some of Pope Leo’s themes and arguments that stand out:
“We must avoid the misconception of equating this type of ‘intelligence’ with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields.
Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing.
So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean.”
Pope Leo describes the field of AI as swiftly evolving, and with real promise as a “valuable tool”.
But he emphasises throughout the text that on a profound level, AI is not human, however closely it comes to approximating the human mind and even its soul.
This view clearly differentiates between machines and humans.
It directly counters a view of some AI researchers and thinkers, including some in the room who have recently raised questions about whether AI systems may actually feel or express human emotion.
“The various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency, but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration and the genuine possibility of participating in society.”
AI has already displaced many entry-level jobs, and while the final scope of its eventual impact is far from clear, mass automation of both white-collar and blue-collar work is likely to significantly reshape most sectors of the labour market.
Echoing many of his predecessors, including Pope John Paul II, Pope Leo acknowledges that economic and technological systems may undergo radical upheavals over the course of history, but insists that the essential dignity of the worker – which includes fair wages – must remain at the center of any new order.
In another section, he condemns “new forms of slavery” connected to the digital economy, including the young people who work for minimal pay in jobs like data labelling and content moderation, and the even younger ones who labour under dangerous conditions extracting the rare earth materials the industry requires: “The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.”
“We are living through a rapid phase of transition, a ‘change of era’, in which – while some are vying for the future of new technologies and others dedicate themselves to reflecting on the matter – most people are watching and waiting, observing from afar and merely hoping for the best.”
The Vatican invited people from Silicon Valley to the formal introduction of the encyclical on May 25, including, notably, Mr Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, who participated in the presentation.
But the encyclical itself reminds readers that the aspiring history-makers in the room are not the only ones who have worth.
Most of the world’s population will simply have to live with the fallout of how those leaders steward this technological revolution.
“Magnifica Humanitas” insists that each of those people “observing from afar” matter.
“The value of persons, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce,” Pope Leo writes elsewhere in the text. “There are rights that apply to everyone simply by virtue of being human.”
The document uses the word “dignity” 100 times.
“With the heart of a shepherd and a father, I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognise the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell.”
The biblical story of the Tower of Babel recurs as a touchstone.
The account appears in the Book of Genesis, and describes a world in which a unified human population that speaks only one language decides to build a tower “whose top reaches to the heavens” in order to exert its own power and domination.
In response, God scatters the people across the earth, in what serves as an origin story for the existence of different languages and cultures.
Pope Leo uses the Tower of Babel as an illustration of the pitfalls of pursuing uniformity and standardisation, and the limits of ambitious undertakings that appear able to compete with the claims of religion.
As many aspects of global culture homogenise, and technology becomes a kind of universal language, Pope Leo’s call for humility and diversity stands in contrast.
It is also a reminder that many of the seemingly new ethical and social challenges posed by AI have ancient roots.
“In recent years, psychological and psychiatric literature has documented with growing insistence how early and unsupervised exposure to digital devices and social media can negatively impact sleep, attention span, control of emotions and relationships, especially during the most vulnerable stages of life, at times with tragic consequences.”
For all its sweeping moral force, “Magnifica Humanitas” is also a practical document, showing how Pope Leo is focused on pastoral care for the church’s hundreds of millions of families.
It surveys research on the impact of technology on child development, including how early and unsupervised access to cellphones leaves children vulnerable to addiction, bullying and sexual exploitation.
Other topics include the regulation of data ownership and the use of AI-related weapons in war.
“For this reason, humanity – in all its grandeur and woundedness – must never be replaced or surpassed. We can embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities, provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love.”
The title of “Magnifica Humanitas” says it all: In the end, Pope Leo is less interested in technology than in humanity.
Humans are flawed, vulnerable and finite, the Pope writes.
We are increasingly inferior to the technology we have created, if we measure in only cold terms of performance.
But the Pope writes with great affection for humans.
The text ends with a wish “that we may bear witness to the grandeur of humanity, in which God has made his dwelling”. NYTIMES
