AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot miniature are seen in this Dec. 14, 2023, illustration. (OSV News photo/Dado Ruvic, Reuters)
Publish Date: 2026-06-03 08:22:00
Source Domain: www.cathstan.org
xShortly after the May 25 release of Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas,” which calls for artificial intelligence ethics to be grounded in Catholic social teaching on God-given human dignity, OSV News spoke with clinical medical ethicist Daniel J. Daly, the founding executive director of the Center for Theology and Ethics in Catholic Health.
Daly, author of “The Structures of Virtue and Vice” (Georgetown University Press, 2021), and an associate professor of moral theology at Boston College – shared with OSV News his thoughts on the current state of AI in healthcare, and how the Catholic vision of the human person can shape AI ethics in that sphere.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
OSV News: How would you summarize Pope Leo’s main message in “Magnifica Humanitas”?
Daly: I’d say the main theme or core argument that he’s making is that he wants the peoples and the leaders of the world to engage in a participatory discernment about how AI should be used to promote human flourishing, or “integral human development,” which is an older term in the tradition. It’s really a focus on the whole person, and on all persons: that we might be well in every way.
And what’s interesting is he offers no ready-made solutions. Outside of the section on war, which is very pointed, he’s really interested in raising up values that stimulate that participatory discernment.
And I think that’s where he sees the Church’s role. It’s the language that St. Paul VI used back in the day, that the Church is an expert in humanity and God, but really in nothing else. The Church is not an expert in AI, but what it can do is raise up values that are essential to thinking about how AI should be used to impact human beings, human life, human community.
The encyclical is also a really strong rejection of the “technocratic paradigm,” the term Pope Francis used to describe the view that all problems are essentially…
