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Pope Leo XIV’s major new teaching on safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence 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.
Leo signed “Magnifica Humanitas” on the 135th anniversary of “Rerum Novarum,” known in English as “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor.” That encyclical, on labor 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 Leo’s themes and arguments that stand out.
A.I. is fundamentally not human.
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.
Leo describes the field of artificial intelligence as swiftly evolving, and with real promise as a “valuable tool.” But he emphasizes throughout the text that, on a profound level, artificial intelligence 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 A.I. researchers and thinkers, including some in the room who have recently raised questions about whether A.I. systems may actually feel or express human emotion.
Humane labor practices and just wages remain essential.
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.
A.I. 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 labor market.
Echoing many of his predecessors, including Pope John Paul II, 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 labeling and content moderation, and the even younger ones who labor 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.”
No technology can take away the dignity of ordinary human beings.
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 Monday, including, notably, 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,” 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.
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Pope Leo XIV speaks during the presentation of “Magnifica Humanitas,” his first encyclical, at the Vatican on Monday. Credit…Yara Nardi/Reuters
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