Leo XIV’s balanced view of Artificial Intelligence

The Spanish writer Javier Cercas reflects on Pope Leo’s Message for World Day of Social Communications.

By Javier Cercas

Pope Leo XIV’s Message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, entitled, “Preserving Human Voices and Faces”, is an important text. It is important for Catholics and non-Catholics, for believers and for non-believers. It is important because of its many implications — political, religious, moral, social, economic — and because of many more reasons than I am unable to comment upon here. I will mention just a few of them.

I am not an expert in Artificial Intelligence, but I am surprised when I hear the same or similar apocalyptic forecasts that have been repeated throughout the course of history, every time there was a big technological revolution (and there is no doubt that AI is that). In Plato’s Phaedrus, King Thamus complained of the advent of writing, an extremely dangerous invention that would “implant forgetfulness in their souls” and cause them to “cease to exercise memory” because mankind would rely on what is “written”. Moreover, Plato’s character said that writing would make the relationship between teacher and student irrelevant — a relationship that is essential for all learning. Writing he continued, will not give people wisdom but “the conceit of wisdom” which will lead to the end of authentic culture.

Centuries after Plato, the same or similar complaints resurfaced when Guttenberg invented the printing press. Many predicted that, with the new discovery, culture would expand beyond the limits known until then, leaving the exclusivity of the libraries where it had been stored until then, to reach a very numerous public. In this way, knowledge would lose value and become vulgar in order to reach the wider public. And thus, the more demanding culture — the new, authentic culture — would be degraded and in the end, disappear.

Not too long ago we heard similar things about…

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