Pope Leo XIV must guide church through dangers of AI
New Pope Leo XIV used one of his first public appearances to expound on a critical issue for our time: the dangers posed by artificial intelligence.Catholics familiar with the church’s social teaching immediately made the connection to the last Pope Leo, whose encyclical “Rerum Novarum” (Of New Things) provided a coherent, nonpolitical, thoroughly Catholic response to the social challenges presented by the industrial revolution.Leo XIII offered a response to radical economic and political ideologies, each of which denigrated the dignity of the human person.Simultaneously, the 19th-century Leo ushered in a revival of philosophical studies in the Catholic world, demonstrating that faith and reason are partners, not enemies.The new pope chose the name Leo, in part, precisely because he believes the world is again in the middle of a major revolution, one caused by the rise of AI.Unlike the prior technological revolutions, AI poses more insidious, invisible threats hidden in unknowable algorithms that are, frankly, beyond the comprehension of most of us.AI is touted as ushering in the golden age of man.
Yet a crucial element of this brave new algorithmic world is missing: us.Like its predecessors, a main goal of the AI revolution is an increase in productivity.Where the industrial revolution physically denigrated humans through harsh working conditions or the elimination of traditional forms of labor leading to abject poverty, the AI revolution eliminates human beings altogether.You and I become nothing more than a series of data points assessed by impersonal and opaque algorithms used to manipulate our behavior.AI has already invaded our lives and is now busy changing not only our work and our world, but also our desires and our self-understanding.Some manipulations are subtle: Advertisements pop up while we consume social media.Others are more sinister: Millions of innocent images of children are manipulated using AI to generate child pornography.
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