Catholic social teaching in times of artificial intelligence

The sentence most quoted in the first reports was that of “disarming” artificial intelligence (AI). This means, the Pope writes, “excluding them from the logic of armed competition, which today is no longer just military, but also economic and cognitive.” Leo in no way positions himself as a cultural pessimist or enemy of technology and progress. He emphasizes their blessings several times, but also points out possible undesirable developments (“at the same time, every phase of progress has also revealed the ambivalence of tools that are capable of causing harm if they are not aimed at good”). It is about the distinction “between progress that serves people and nations, or progress that subjects them to a logic of power”.

From the industrial to the digital revolution

You have to read “Magnifica humanitas” in the broad sweep of the papal social encyclicals. The first comes from Leo XIII. (1878–1903), which the current Pope consciously followed with his choice of name: Exactly 135 years ago, on May 15, 1891, “Rerum novarum” (literally “of the new things” – meaning the human urge for innovation) was published: If the industrial revolution and its effects on people and society were the topic back then, for the current Pope it is the digital revolution with the associated disruptions. Leo

The pontiff contrasts two images, both taken from the Old Testament: the Tower of Babel (Gen 11) – a symbol of human hubris that ultimately leads to misfortune – and the reconstruction of Jerusalem (Neh 2 ff.), a “city in which God and humanity live together”. The former describes man’s constant temptation, the latter is the vision that Pope Leo advocates.

What remains irrefutable for the author – in the spirit of the title of the encyclical – is the certainty that artificial and human intelligence are not the same. Because AI systems “do not have experiences, do not have a body, feel neither joy nor pain, do not mature in relationships, do not know from within what love, work, friendship and responsibility mean.”