Pope Leo XIV released an encyclical on Monday on the growing concern of artificial intelligence for humanity. In his Magnifica Humanitas, Leo encouraged the "safeguarding" of "the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." This encyclical is a response to the AI and tech revolution and concerns that human beings are attempting to replace God with themselves.
Leo states in the first sentence that "humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together."
He describes the story of the Tower of Babel, an iconic lesson in a people facing hardship after not putting God first. He recounts the people of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, as settling in Shinar and deciding to "build a city and a tower 'with its top in the heavens.' Fearing being scattered across the earth, they sought to guarantee stability and power for themselves, and above all to 'make a name' for themselves.
"It was an impressive feat," Leo continues, "a single language, a single technology, a single direction. However, the project concealed a profound danger. It was a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion. When a city is built on pride and the claim to self-sufficiency, communication breaks down, languages are confused and people no longer understand each other."
He contrasts that to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem in the Book of Nehemiah. People came together, designated sections of the wall to specific families to complete, and worked together with God at the center of their mission, to rebuild the wall that had been destroyed in strife. "In light of these two images," Leo writes, "the Holy Spirit challenges us today regarding our relationship with technology and the ongoing digital revolution."
The building of AI and technology, Leo says, must be "for the common good," meaning that it must "accept the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected."
The United States and China are engaged in an AI race for the software and hardware that will facilitate even greater AI integration with human life and human bodies. Data centers are being built that will house the computing power necessary to develop and run AI elements and AI companies are clamoring to enhance and perfect their large language models. AI is taking over the search function of internet search engines and being embedded into everything from phones to cars to refrigerators to missiles.
Leo also speaks about the use of AI technology in war, saying "...the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms."
Leo asks: "what does it mean to safeguard our humanity? The risk extends beyond the misuse of certain technologies. More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion."
The Pope warns against transhumanism and posthumanism, saying that while transhumanism "envisions the enhancement of human beings through technologies — such as biomedicine, body engineering, devices and algorithms — with the aim of increasing performance and capabilities," posthumanism takes that a dangerous step further.
"Posthumanism," Leo writes, "especially in its more radical forms, goes further: it challenges anthropocentrism and envisions a hybridization of human beings, machines and the environment, even anticipating a threshold where humanity surpasses itself in a new evolutionary stage. Even when such ideas remain largely speculative, they gain relevance by altering the collective imagination and thereby influence social, economic and political choices."
In discussing posthumanism, which along with tech-induced fascism and dictatorship is one of the top concerns of AI critics, Leo frames his concerns as regards the Church's Social Doctrine, saying "the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy." As such, he warns against being "guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technological form of 'salvation.'"
Leo states in the first sentence that "humanity, created by God in all its grandeur, is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together."
He describes the story of the Tower of Babel, an iconic lesson in a people facing hardship after not putting God first. He recounts the people of Genesis, the first book of the Bible, as settling in Shinar and deciding to "build a city and a tower 'with its top in the heavens.' Fearing being scattered across the earth, they sought to guarantee stability and power for themselves, and above all to 'make a name' for themselves.
"It was an impressive feat," Leo continues, "a single language, a single technology, a single direction. However, the project concealed a profound danger. It was a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion. When a city is built on pride and the claim to self-sufficiency, communication breaks down, languages are confused and people no longer understand each other."
He contrasts that to the rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem in the Book of Nehemiah. People came together, designated sections of the wall to specific families to complete, and worked together with God at the center of their mission, to rebuild the wall that had been destroyed in strife. "In light of these two images," Leo writes, "the Holy Spirit challenges us today regarding our relationship with technology and the ongoing digital revolution."
The building of AI and technology, Leo says, must be "for the common good," meaning that it must "accept the limits and weakness of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected."
The United States and China are engaged in an AI race for the software and hardware that will facilitate even greater AI integration with human life and human bodies. Data centers are being built that will house the computing power necessary to develop and run AI elements and AI companies are clamoring to enhance and perfect their large language models. AI is taking over the search function of internet search engines and being embedded into everything from phones to cars to refrigerators to missiles.
Leo also speaks about the use of AI technology in war, saying "...the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms."
Leo asks: "what does it mean to safeguard our humanity? The risk extends beyond the misuse of certain technologies. More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion."
The Pope warns against transhumanism and posthumanism, saying that while transhumanism "envisions the enhancement of human beings through technologies — such as biomedicine, body engineering, devices and algorithms — with the aim of increasing performance and capabilities," posthumanism takes that a dangerous step further.
"Posthumanism," Leo writes, "especially in its more radical forms, goes further: it challenges anthropocentrism and envisions a hybridization of human beings, machines and the environment, even anticipating a threshold where humanity surpasses itself in a new evolutionary stage. Even when such ideas remain largely speculative, they gain relevance by altering the collective imagination and thereby influence social, economic and political choices."
In discussing posthumanism, which along with tech-induced fascism and dictatorship is one of the top concerns of AI critics, Leo frames his concerns as regards the Church's Social Doctrine, saying "the key issue is not the use of technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy." As such, he warns against being "guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technological form of 'salvation.'"
