Pope Leo's Encyclical: "Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed."

Pope Leo released his encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence” today, May 25.

(Read the encyclical here. And find America Magazine's extensive coverage of the encyclical here.)

Pope Leo presented the encyclical at the Vatican along with the panel of experts, including Christopher Olah, a co-founder of one of the world’s leading AI developers, Anthropic.

In a speech at the presentation, Leo stressed that the encyclical had been born out of a process of listening–to scientists and engineers developing AI; political leaders, parents, and teachers; and people concerned about autonomous weapons systems and various forms of exclusion happening on the basis of mass data gathering.

Leo recaps the evolution of Catholic Social Teaching through its major documents and by explaining its key principles, in many places anticipating and rebutting criticisms that the church should either stay out of politics or completely rule it.

He then moves on to the explicit examination of AI, its development and its effects on humanity in the spheres of education, labor, technology addiction, democracy and many other areas, giving concrete recommendations on how AI development could be better supervised by various configurations of local and international civil, religious and educational authorities. He denounces repeatedly the ways in which A.I. will exacerbate global inequalities, and how it is already concentrating power and decision-making in the hands of a minority of powerful individuals.

Leo stresses that, for all of us, the ethics of AI cannot be simplified into “good use of A.I. is good, evil use of A.I. is evil”—AI is not, he says, a morally neutral tool, but “embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations.” In other words, the moral discernment of AI cannot merely look at the uses to which it is put, but also how it is designed and what vision of the human person and society” is embedded into it .

As expected, Leo turns to the use of A.I. in war. In a particularly interesting paragraph, he dismisses just war theory as “outdated,” saying it has “all too often been used to justify any kind of war” and that “Humanity possesses far more effective and capable tools for promoting human life and resolving conflicts, such as dialogue, diplomacy and forgiveness.”

The document ends with a long meditation on peace, in which Leo outlines “five paths toward daily and public responsibility.”

Magnifica Humanitas includes challenges and fruitful insights for everyone no matter their position in society, and we highly recommend giving it a read. You can find our full coverage, with many forthcoming analysis pieces, at AmericaMagazine.org, and tune in for an episode later this week in which we’ll dig deeper into this major encyclical.

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