Why the pope wants to ‘disarm’ AI

Source Domain: www.wbur.org

Pope Leo XIV has published his first major document. The encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas” focuses on AI and what the pope calls the “distorting effects of technological power.”

Guest

Father Michael Baggot, associate professor of bioethics at the Pontifical Athenaeum Regina Apostolorum. Adjunct professor of theology at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas. Member of the Scholarly Advisory Board for Magisterium AI, a Catholic AI chatbot.

The version of our broadcast available at the top of this page and via podcast apps is a condensed version of the full show. You can listen to the full, unedited broadcast here:

Part I

MEGHNA CHAKRABARTI: Pope Leo XIV has published his first major theological document. It’s an encyclical called Magnifica Humanitas, Latin for Magnificent Humanity. Its subtitle is On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.

POPE LEO XIV: 135 years ago, my venerable predecessor, Leo XIII, observed the situation of factory workers, their families uprooted, and new forms of poverty generated by rapid industrial transformation.

He understood that the church could not remain distant. Today, we find ourselves facing a transformation of similar magnitude, with perhaps even greater consequences.

CHAKRABARTI: Pope Leo presented the encyclical at the Vatican last week, and he laid out some of the key arguments in his encyclical about the promises and dangers of AI.

POPE LEO XIV: Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity.

The Church has long been working for nuclear disarmament. In a similar sense, artificial intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death.

Like nuclear energy, it must be at the service of all and of the common good.

CHAKRABARTI:…

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