The Catholic Church today entered the relevant debate on artificial intelligence. With an encyclical considered as important as the one written 135 years ago about the Industrial Revolution.
Echoing scientists, Pope Leo XIV also thinks artificial intelligence is most important. Also echoing scientists, the supreme pontiff seems more critical than hopeful.
He doubts that artificial intelligence is a morally neutral technology. Concerned about the extent to which artificial intelligence deepens social manipulation and mass surveillance.
The pope addresses the issue of fake news, emotional control, political polarization and the weakening of human discernment. Via social networks and algorithmic systems concentrated in the hands of . Mainly .
The Pope again echoes scientists and condemns the military use of artificial intelligence. Which is already considered one of the main geopolitical risks. Because there is no sign that anyone is capable of imposing any type of control on artificial intelligence.
Instead, it is now concentrated in companies that function as geopolitical actors in their own right. In a kind of law of the jungle — including the governments of China and the United States — in which a decisive advantage is sought in the quickest possible time.
The pope warns in the encyclical of the danger of technological advancement without ethical limits. That’s where we’re headed, and very quickly.
