Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical on artificial intelligence is a warning to Catholics and non-Catholics alike: Take AI risks seriously, or risk losing our humanity. As Leo writes, “The risk of dehumanization — of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means — is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise.”
“Magnifica Humanitas,” subtitled “On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” applies to classic teachings of the Catholic Church such as the love of God, the dignity of the human person, and the importance of both rights and responsibilities in pursuing the common good. The pope offers a positive vision of a “civilization of love” where AI could help “build a universal human family.” But he warns that our “significant spiritual and cultural blindness” may instead lead us to build a new “Tower of Babel, relying on power and pride.” A misplaced faith in AI and a technocratic pursuit of efficiency can undermine truth and democracy, deform education, devalue workers, accelerate warfare, and even expand “slavery, (human) trafficking, and the commodification of persons.”
We are both practicing Catholics, so we follow the Holy Father’s teaching. However, all persons of faith, as well as atheists and agnostics, would do well to heed his words. The risks of advanced AI affect all of humanity, and we all must answer the pope’s question: “What are we building?”
Techno-progressives such as Sam Altman and effective accelerationists such as Marc Andreessen have an answer. They maintain that whoever builds the most powerful AI — leading to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and then artificial superintelligence (ASI) — will secure a glorious future for humanity.
Everyday Americans aren’t as convinced. Eight in 10 U.S. adults are concerned about AI, citing job loss, impacts on privacy, environmental harms, energy costs and other factors. Most churchgoing Christians think that AI may have a harmful influence on the faith, which is why groups from the Southern Baptists to the Latter-day Saints have issued warnings.
It is increasingly clear that the only winners in a techno-progressive future are the machines themselves — and those who merge with them. Leo cautions against the “transhuman” and “posthuman” ideologies that drive the race to replace humanity in “a futuristic vision of an ‘enhanced human being’ or ‘human-machine hybrid.’” His encyclical helps us see how to keep humanity in control, respecting the dignity of those created in God’s image.
Again, this is not an “anti-AI” stance. Leo calls us to wire true ethics into our AI systems and then to use AI in “the construction site of our time,” from research labs to local communities, “to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened.” Leo’s metaphor of a construction site recalls his predecessor Pope St. John Paul II’s term for technology in general, calling it the “workbench” of humanity.
Technology is like a workbench for the entire human race, and AI could be its greatest asset, aiding and amplifying many forms of work. But the most powerful AI systems threaten to go beyond this use of technology as a tool. Technologists from the main AI companies say their goal is a “gentle singularity” where humanity is overtaken and overseen by “machines of loving grace.”
That is, they seek “a power that claims to dominate the heavens,” Leo cautions. The co-inventor of Apple’s Siri even calls for a “Big Mother” to teach, nurture and nudge us, while she looks on from the cloud and smiles down upon us. Normally, children grow up and become responsible parents themselves. But if we build superintelligent AI, how would we not always remain infants before it?
Hope is a virtue, and Christians are commanded to not be afraid. While no American should live their life in fear, AI is putting us to the test. The prospect of an all-powerful AI is an antithesis to our human-centric future. Today’s AI is already dangerous, and tomorrow’s will be stronger. The technology continues its exponential improvement, and our country is not prepared for the consequences of such unprecedented technological might.
Leo writes that we need a “more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions.” Most Americans agree that AI is moving too fast, and twice as many are AI pessimists as AI optimists. Voters aren’t naive. They see a technology that threatens millions of jobs, displacing workers of all ages. They hear about agentic AI technology autonomously choosing targets in warfare and, in civilian life, going rogue at the expense of the human beings who should have control over it.
Yet in a midterm year, many of America’s candidates and elected officials are not ready, if they even understand advanced AI at all. Our politicians are failing to hold Silicon Valley accountable to the people, when they are not simply doing the industry’s bidding.
Fortunately, Leo has shown us the need to turn from Babel and find a better path. He closes his encyclical by teaching us to be like “the ‘wise architect’ who, driven by hope for the Kingdom of God, is committed to building the world for the common good.”
May we hope, and act in time.
Brendan Steinhauser is CEO of The Alliance for Secure AI. Brian J. A. Boyd, Ph.D., is the U.S. faith liaison for the Future of Life Institute.