The Pope Leo XIV He’s been doing something similar to what he did for weeks. Silicon Valley they would call a product launchbut with speeches and warnings. Finally, this Monday Vatican has announced that the new Pontiff will promulgate his first encyclical lettertitled Magnificent Humanityon the custody of the human person at the time of artificial intelligence.
The encyclical will bear the signature of the Pope dated May 15coinciding with the exact 135th anniversary of the New things of Leo XIII, the social encyclical par excellence, a gesture that does not seem coincidental: at that time, Leo moral response to the industrial revolution and its ravages on workers, suggesting that this Lion could do the same with the algorithmic revolution. The document will be presented on May 25 in the Synod hall, with the presence of the Pope, although a presentation to the press for the 22nd.
What is truly unique about this announcement is not only the encyclical itself, even though it is the first of the pontificate and is on one of the most debated issues of the moment, but the list of those who will present it. Along with Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, prefect of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Cardinal Michael Czerny, prefect of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development, a name appears that delightfully chirps in the Vatican protocol: Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic (Claude) and one of the world’s leading researchers in interpretability of artificial intelligence (AI). That a San Francisco AI company appears at the presentation of a papal encyclical is, without a doubt, one of the most revealing images of the time we live.
Commission on AI
The decision to now promulgate the encyclical also comes just three days after the Vatican had already moved in the same direction for more discreet ways. On Saturday, May 16, Leo XIV approved by means of a rescript the creation of a interdicasterial commission to reflect on the ethical challenges of artificial intelligence, under the direction of the Dicastery for the Service of Integral Human Development.
The new structure brings together seven organizations of the Holy See and was born to address the ethical challenges posed by the accelerated expansion of this technology and its possible effects on the dignity of the human person. It’s not a detail either. It suggests that the Vatican sees some emergency in the current situation and that is why it launches its machinery in a transversal way.
The man, in the center
The issue, in fact, has been filtering into the pontiff’s public gestures for weeks. This Sunday, in his usual Regina Caeli, Leo XIV dedicated a few words to the World Day of Social Communicationswarning about the challenges of artificial intelligence and demanding forms of communication “always respectful of the truth of man”. The phrase is more political than it seems: in a world where voices are synthesized and faces are generated, the Pope asked that technology serves man and not the other way around.
The Magnificent Humanity will have a cast of narrators that also seems to reflect Leo XIV’s willingness to speak both in and out of the Church. Along with the two cardinals and Olah, Professor Anna Rowlands, a specialist in political theology and migration ethics of the Durham Universityand Dr. Leocadie Lushombo, theologian of Catholic social thought in the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara. The conclusion will be carried out by the Cardinal Secretary of State Pietro Parolinand the Pope himself will close the event with a speech and his blessing.
Subscribe to continue reading
