Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence
By Pope Leo XIV
While briefly visiting Lima, Peru in March, I saw the little girl in the photo above and, for some reason, immediately wondered what AI might do to her future. Seeing the innocent girl, with her “Isaac Newton School” shirt, reminded me that the economics of AI should be about the well-being of humans, not about efficiency, data centers, and trillion-dollar IPOs.
Academics have been working on the ethics of AI for many years, but Pope Leo XIV recently offered a comprehensive theological perspective about AI that, in terms of both substance and global influence, is by far the most significant.
Regardless of one’s religious beliefs, the fifty-five-thousand-word encyclical reminds us that the impacts of AI will depend on the upstream philosophies and values of whomever controls, governs, and finances the technology.
“We are living through a rapid phase of transition, a ‘change of era’ in which—while some are vying for the future of new technology and others dedicate themselves to reflecting on the matter—most people are watching and waiting, observing from afar and merely hoping for the best,” he wrote. “For this reason, crucial questions impose themselves on our conscience and can no longer be avoided: Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orient ourselves?” (p. 4).
Those questions are deeply shared by nearly everyone in the world, people who sense that they have no say in what AI will do to them and our societies. And so, arguing that technology is never morally neutral, the Pope’s encyclical compels AI technology leaders, investors, and governments to think carefully about ethics.
To make the questions less abstract, the Magnifica Humanitas presents two possible visions of the future. The first is illustrated by the Tower of Babel, the story of when humans sought to consolidate power and eliminate diversity in order to facilitate greed and power.
The second vision is illustrated by the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls, described in Nehemiah 2 to 6. This project was designed to restore dignity and economic well-being to everyone in a community. Nehemiah, the project leader, was not motivated by self-interest, says the Pope; rather, he sought to help people in need. The goal was human flourishing, including for future generations.
“We must avoid the ‘Babel Syndrome, wrote the Pope about today’s AI project, “namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language—even a digital one—can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance” (p. 5).
As hundreds of billions of dollars fuel the rise of the AI “tower,” the Pope reminds those who control and fund these technologies that they have a moral responsibility to design and deploy systems that promote and preserve the immeasurable dignity of every human being.
The Magnifica Humanitas argues that people around the world desperately need technology and economic systems that do not dehumanize workers, ruin families, or cause economic disasters (p. 10).
“The various kinds of job insecurity, fragmented career paths, and automation must not be evaluated solely in terms of efficiency,” he writes, “but in relation to the dignity of the worker, the right to sufficient remuneration, and the genuine possibility of participating in society” (p. 10).
He adds, boldly, that the entire AI project will be “worthless unless it leads to the flourishing of persons—men and women—with their inalienable rights.” In a comment directed at those who are already reaping extraordinary profits from AI investments, the Pope says, “It is an illusion to think that simply pursuing one’s own progress without caring for others is sufficient for contributing to the good of all” (p. 14).
The Pope also takes aim at the “technocratic paradigm,” which is so prevalent among today’s prominent Big Tech leaders and those who finance their endeavors. He defines this paradigm as “the tendency to let the logic of efficiency, control, and profit alone shape personal, social, and economic decisions.” To the extent this paradigm operates unchecked, he says, “it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency” (p. 19).
The Pope addresses numerous subtopics, such as the way that AI could impact military conflicts, harm children, facilitate corruption, erode the ability to discern truth, manipulate elections, and undermine personal relationships.
As for the topic of work and career development, he says that work is essential for people to “contribute to the progress of society and the common good, put to good use the capabilities we have received, improve and beautify the world, support our families, engage in cooperative relationships, and … learn to build something that no one could achieve alone” (p. 29). AI, he says, threatens to remove these vital aspects of life, causing the “grave evil” of widespread unemployment and a possible “social calamity” for families and children.
As AI takes a deeper hold in our economies and personal lives, the Pope reminds us that the technology requires millions of underpaid workers, mineral extraction, and energy production to function. Millions of people, in fact, do the “silent” work of data labeling, model training, mining of rare earth minerals, and content moderation (often psychologically damaging) for minimum wage or less.
“Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical,” he writes. “Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation involving vast networks of resources, energy infrastructure, and above all, people … The bodies of these people are scarred, injured, and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterrupted,” he writes. (p. 33).
One massive form of exploitation, as a growing number of US courts have ruled, is the tragic theft of books, articles, photographs, music, and other forms of intellectual property—the troves of data that AI systems must have to function. Communists and fascists in the last century stole private physical property for state benefit. Today, private companies steal the intellectual property of writers, publishers, artists, scientists, and musicians for corporate profit. The Pope did not address this important issue in this encyclical, but I wish he had.
Will the encyclical influence the Big Tech leaders, policymakers, and investors? Frankly, I am not too optimistic. The allure of power and money are hard forces to stop. But, at a minimum, I hope that the encyclical helps thoughtful economists, civic leaders, socially conscious politicians, and all citizens to not simply assume that AI is “inevitable.”
To those who feel impotent in the face of these well-funded technological changes, the Pope offers encouragement with a quote from J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
“It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting evil in the fields that we know so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.”
You can download the Magnifica Humanitas free here. If you are interested in reviewing our articles about AI and ethics, including reviews of books by scholars on the topic, please browse through our archives.
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