ASK FATHER TIM - EP 9
Magnifica Humanitas - Pope Leo XIV Encyclical
I wanted to share with you today, the first encyclical of Pope Leo the 14th. It is called Magnifica Humanitas - On safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.
If you, like me, rely more and more on computers and seems that every time we enter a search engine to look for some information, we always get the AI analysis before we get all the sources they drew it from. This is something that's touching, it seems more and more, areas of our everyday living. And Pope Leo is getting out in front of it, warning that perhaps we need some guardrails on new technologies.
It's a beautiful encyclical, kind of on the long side. But chapters one and two take us on a beautiful trip through the church's teaching on social doctrine, which really started with his predecessor, Pope Leo the 13th, in 1891, when he wrote in cyclical called rerum novarum, which was trying to address issues of how Catholic faith was to intertwine and intermingle with the Industrial Revolution of the late 19th century, and draws great correlation between what was going on in the world of technology and industry, faith and morals at that time.
In comparing what's happening in our modern day, I was reading up on this topic and found a wonderful article on that was a synopsis of Magnificat. Humanitas ten points that Cardinal Fernando Shomali, the Archbishop of Santiago, Chile, believed were pertinent for our reflection. Ten points from magnifica Humanitas on safeguarding the human person at the time of artificial intelligence.
This Archbishop from Chile offers ten insights that he gained from reading the whole encyclical.
1. The human person lies at the center of all technological progress.
2. The great challenge of our time is not technical, but human and spiritual.
3. Artificial intelligence must be placed at the service of the common good.
4. Human dignity does not depend on productivity or capability.
5. Fragility is not a defect that must be eliminated.
6. No artificial intelligence can replace human experience.
7. Truth is a common good that must be protected.
8. Human work cannot be subjected to the logic of machines.
9. Freedom is threatened by new invisible forms of control.
10. And lastly, peace and the civilization of love constitute the true alternative to technological power.
2. The great challenge of our time is not technical, but human and spiritual.
3. Artificial intelligence must be placed at the service of the common good.
4. Human dignity does not depend on productivity or capability.
5. Fragility is not a defect that must be eliminated.
6. No artificial intelligence can replace human experience.
7. Truth is a common good that must be protected.
8. Human work cannot be subjected to the logic of machines.
9. Freedom is threatened by new invisible forms of control.
10. And lastly, peace and the civilization of love constitute the true alternative to technological power.
I believe that the Archbishop has laid out very succinctly in this article, the points that hopefully the 14th would have us remember with regard to the use of technology. Technology sometimes seems to surpass that of its programmer, but reminds us, in the end, technology is only as effective as he who is programing it. And so we see in the encyclical that our Holy Father goes to great lengths to explain the dignity of the human person and how technologies and advances in technology, since we considered advances, inasmuch as they truly benefit all people, he cites.
That was one of the problems that his predecessor, Leo the 13th, was dealing with back in the time of the Industrial Revolution of the late 1900s and the end of the 1800s, that people were becoming very wealthy captains of industry. But they were doing so by breaking the backs of cheap labor. And that was the birth of labor unions. And the churches always stood on the side of labor unions trying to advance the dignity of workers, the rights of workers. And of course, that's another concern that Pope Leo addresses in his encyclical is whether or not AI will replace the need for humans in the workplace.
We, of course, as Catholics, value the human person above all
and we don't want any technology to take the place of the work of humanity and the great gifts that God has endowed us with.
Pope Leo goes on to make it very clear that AI could be something that could be of benefit. And yet, because it is so new and untested, there's also very little that's regulating it. It would be very easy for companies or countries to try to monopolize its power and the assets that can generate and thus make the poor poor and enrich the richer, thus growing the disparity between the social classes.
I think this is a beautiful start to Pope Leo's pontificate, which we hope will be a long one. It's a lengthy document, it's a good read and a beautiful walk through the history of the Catholic Church's social teaching. You can always read it for free on the internet, and I hope that many of you will benefit from it as I did.
But as we hope that the world will benefit from artificial intelligence, we want to make sure that we always have technology at our disposal,
but don't become disposable because of it.
ALL ROADS CATHOLIC MEDIA
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