26 May 26
Disarming AI
Today I read through the entirety of Pope Leo XIV’s newly issued encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, subtitled On Safeguarding The Human Person In The Time Of Artificial Intelligence. It’s a very rich document which anyone who is concerned with the ethical and moral issues around AI should add to their reading list. Pope Leo’s namesake predecessor Pope Leo XIII in 1891 wrote the encyclical Rerum Novarum about the condition of the working class. In its first two chapters Magnifica Humanitas traces the history of Catholic social teachings from the time of Rerum Novarum to the present. These themes of human dignity and working towards the common good structure the discussion of AI beginning in chapter three.
Whether through direct study or not Pope Leo XIV has absorbed a lot from the discipline of science and technology studies. For instance there is no such thing as morally neutral AI:
In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations. If a system is designed or used in a way that treats some lives as less worthy, or excludes them without the possibility of appeal, then it is not merely a tool “to be used well,” since it has already introduced criteria that contradict the inalienable dignity of the human person. (Section 104).
Discussions of digital colonialism are readily found among academic critics of information technology but it is much weightier to hear this topic coming from the leader of the Catholic church:
Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information. Entire regions, especially those marked by structural fragility and limited geopolitical relevance, are currently subjected to a new mindset of extraction: that of health data, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic information…Here lies one of the most urgent moral challenges of our time: to ensure that shared knowledge becomes a true common good rather than an instrument of dominance. This requires restoring to individuals not only the data that describes them, but also the ability to decide how it is used, by whom and for whose benefit. Otherwise, the digital age will not be post-colonial, but colonial in another form. (Section 178).
Pope Leo XIV is fond of the expression “to disarm” and this phrase is at the heart of his critique of AI:
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. Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home. AI is already an environment in which we are immersed, as well as a force with which we must engage. For this reason, merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible. (Section 110).
It is easy to find blanket rejections of AI in many quarters but I am heartened that there is a lot more nuance in this encyclical. Technical innovation is part of the divine act of creation but going along with that comes a responsibility towards affected communities and cultivation of the common good.
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