AI Illuminates Magnifica Humanitas

Pope Leo XIV of Chicago will drop an encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas (”Magnificent Humanity”) on “the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence” on Monday, May 25. This is going to be big.

I present to you a useful, independently fact-checked artifact created by a human using AI within hours of a human deciding it would serve a beneficial human-centered purpose.

I set my publishing system to work, and I am now shipping the first English-language theological biography of Pope Leo XIV — eleven chapters tracing the long road by which a Chicago-born Augustinian, formed in Peru, became the first American Pope and chose his name in deliberate echo of Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum Novarum. This companion volume to the as yet unpublished Magnifica Humanitas is available direct from publisher or via online bookstores (see e.g. https://amzn.to/4a1mj21).

Contents

1. The Conclave of May 2025

2. Chicago Origins

3. An Augustinian Formation

4. Peru — Chulucanas and Trujillo

5. Prior General of the Order

6. The Dicastery for Bishops

7. The First Year of Pope Leo XIV

8. Augustinian Anthropology

9. The Mission and the Listening Church

10. Technology and the Pope

11. The Encyclical and the Man

Forty-six thousand words of high-caliber analytic prose; an independent two-stage verification process checked approximately 280 high-risk claims against primary sources (Vatican.va, Vatican News, the Catholic News Agency, the National Catholic Reporter, America, The Pillar, Crux) and corrected every contradiction before press. Back matter includes a glossary, an Index of People, an Index of Concepts, an annotated Further Reading list, About the Publisher, and full Production Notes documenting the verification process.

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This book was brought into existence by human will using tools built by human ingenuity operating lawfully under the system of legal authority now in force in Augustine’s “earthly city” (civitas terrena) (cf. Matt. 22:21). Judge the work on its merits.*

Once Magnifica Humanitas drops on Monday the 25th, Big Five Killer’s agents will immediately set to work interpreting its full text. I have 16 ideas in the B5K Karpathy-style autoideation queue:

1. Magnifica Humanitas: A Reader’s Companion

2. Magnifica Humanitas in 30 Minutes

3. The Pope’s AI Letter

4. Imago Dei in the Algorithmic Age

5. From Rerum Novarum to Magnifica Humanitas

6. A Parish Study Guide for Magnifica Humanitas

7. Magnifica Humanitas and Bioethics

8. Pope Leo XIV: The Augustinian Mind Behind Magnifica Humanitas ← shipped

9. The World Responds: Magnifica Humanitas Across Traditions

10. Magnifica Humanitas for Educators

11. The Worker, the Migrant, the Algorithm

12. Magnifica Humanitas: A Visual Edition

13. Magnifica Humanitas: The Sources

14. An Evangelical Reads Magnifica Humanitas

15. A Catholic Tech Worker’s Guide to Magnifica Humanitas

16. A Glossary for Magnifica Humanitas

*A limited number of PDF review copies are available to subscribers.