Blessed be the hallucinating chatbots, for they will inherit the Earth (after we destroy it). According to Bloomberg, Pope Leo XIV is building on his already expressed interest in artificial intelligence by planning his first encyclical—a letter with the Pope’s thoughts—on the topic. The launch is expected on Monday, May 25, at the Vatican and will feature an appearance from Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic. No word on if Leo will ditch the papal regalia for a Steve Jobs-ian black turtleneck and jeans for the event, though.
Per Vatican News, the encyclical will be called “Magnifica humanitas” (or “Magnificent Humanity”) and will be focused on “preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.” It’ll build on Leo XIV’s clear interest in AI, which he has expressed basically since the moment that he put on the robes.
When Leo first addressed senior clergy after becoming Pope, he told them, “In our own day, the church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.” He also previously said that he chose the name Leo to indicate his intention to follow in the footsteps of Pope Leo XIII, who served as Pope through the Industrial Revolution. Leo XIII famously issued an encyclical entitled “Rerum Novarum” or “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor”—a landmark text on worker rights.
Earlier this year, Leo XIV issued a message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications, an annual observation of the Catholic Church focused on its relationship with media. The message, titled “Preserving Human Voices and Faces,” included a call for people to “not renounce your ability to think,” and warned, “By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, consciousness and responsibility, empathy and friendship, the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems, but also encroach upon the deepest level of communication, that of human relationships.”
Leo’s decision to invite Olah is an interesting one. It’ll certainly bolster Anthropic’s ongoing efforts to brand itself the “ethical” AI option, assuming Leo is issuing a tacit endorsement of the company by having a representative there for his first encyclical on the technology. Anthropic has been cozying up to the Church, including tapping a priest to help craft its AI model Claude’s Constitution.
It’s far from the only company to look to land Papal approval, too. Silicon Valley, despite being made up largely of atheists, has been trying to suck up to the church for years now, seemingly realizing that power in Catholicism is concentrated in a way that winning favor just requires convincing a handful of higher-ups—not unlike the industry’s recent realization that it can win lots of power for a relative bargain by trying to buy off politicians and sway elections. Alas for tech evangelists, the church has not been particularly interested in their view of the world, particularly under the pro-human leadership of Pope Leo XIV and his predecessor Pope Francis.
Say what you will about the Catholic Church (and we absolutely do not have to pretend that it, as an institution, has made good on the beliefs that it espouses), but on paper, it does not screw around with the importance of human dignity, which is certainly something Silicon Valley could stand to learn from.
