Pope Leo's Challenge for the Age of Artificial Intelligence
from the Dean
Many of you may have seen recently that Pope Leo has published his first Encyclical, entitled Magnifica Humanitas. When he became Pope, he took the name Leo because he said he wanted to mark continuity with his predecessor Leo XIII, the Pope who had, in his Encyclical Rerum Novarum of 1891, warned against the massive and rapid industrial change affecting social relations at every level. Leo XIII pointed to the shifts in the relationship between labour and capital, and the increasing commodification of the whole person. He also alerted readers to the erosion of spiritual values and the rise of alternative ideologies that promise salvation, gods of the market, of the state, or of the nation.
Now Pope Leo XIV picks up similar themes in the light of the development of Artificial Intelligence. He argues that the conviction that the morally unconstrained application of AI will ultimately bring great public benefit is widespread, not least amongst the ‘wealthy high-tech oligarchs’ who are its pioneers. On the contrary, writes the Pope, ‘more than ever, in the age of AI and robotics, it is no longer possible to rely solely on the invisible hand of the market. AI has to be ‘disarmed’:
‘Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance. To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.’
Pope Leo’s examination of the fundamental difference between intelligence as understood in the context of AI, and real human thought and feeling, along with respect for truth, is a vital and long needed contribution to debate. Relationships, he also argues, are not just the business of transaction or self-fulfilment. They draw us into communion, self-giving, a shared life that enables us to live a ‘negotiated’ common life directed towards true goods. He makes a beautiful case for ‘limits’ as the place where we meet God and are transformed by reciprocal relationships of labour, care, and love. As an Augustinian, as indeed is our Cathedral in origin, Pope Leo refers to the struggles between two loves that St Augustine explored: ‘Two loves have built two cities: the earthly city, the love of self even to the contempt of God; and the heavenly city, the love of God even to the contempt of self.’ Our own age is no different, he says.
I found Magnifica Humanitas an enlightening and provocative read. I commend it to you as a document that is trying to bring some human compass into view as a seismic shift is taking place whose long-term effects are not yet known. It will stir up your own thoughts as it seeks to outline a Christian response to developments that seem out of most people’s control. Some of Pope Leo’s words have stayed with me:
‘When questions about truth lose their appeal, and a pragmatism takes hold that is content with what appears useful or effective, then democratic life is weakened. ...Indifference to truth leads, slowly but surely, to a descent into totalitarianism’.