3 key takeaways from Pope Leo’s 42,000-word AI encyclical

Pope Leo XIV issued his first official piece of religious guidance to billions of Catholics. And it’s all about AI.

It came in the form of a 42,300-word papal letter entitled “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Good Humanity”). Encyclicals are not papal law, of course, but serve as authoritative guidance on social and moral issues for members of the Catholic Church. This one, the first since the election of Leo, came with extra pomp and circumstance, with the leader himself attending the launch along with Anthropic founder Chris Olah.

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The Pope has previously spoken about regulating AI, urging industry leaders to carefully consider the effects of AI on their work. Last May, when explaining why he chose the name Leo, the pope specifically cited AI as one of his main reasons.

“There are various reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum dealt with the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our day, the Church offers to everyone the economy of her social doctrine in response to another industrial revolution and developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges to protect human dignity, justice and work.”

The encyclical goes further, delving into the impact of AI on jobs, education, and child safety in a message to leaders around the world.

“We need moral words that can’t be bent,” Olah said. “Today is just the beginning – the beginning of a long collaboration between us who build this and those who can see what we, inside, can’t.”

Here are the key takeaways from the Holy See:

AI is dangerous for workers

The Catholic Church is worried about AI taking over jobs, too. Drawing on “Magnifica Humanitas” and other labor-related encyclicals throughout the Church’s history, Pope Leo calls out automation as a threat to labor, citing the widespread disclosure of skills and mass surveillance of workers by existing AI systems.

“Today, the convergence of automation, robotics and AI is rapidly changing the structure of work. It is said that this will bring great improvements for everyone. However, in reality, the ‘new ways’ of working are not very good.”

Don’t believe the AI ​​hype

The leader warned that the current AI hype is like a modern Tower of Babel, comparing the pursuit of advanced technology to the biblical story of a group of people trying to reach heaven. He urged the leaders to reduce their ambitions and recent personalities.

He also joined a growing number of child safety representatives and regulators who want to address screen time and its impact on children: “Psychological and psychological literature has written with increasing emphasis how early and unsupervised exposure to digital devices and social media can negatively impact sleep, attention span, emotional regulation and relationships, especially during the most vulnerable stages of life, sometimes with tragic consequences.”

In addition, Leo called out the role of AI in increasing misinformation and undermining critical thinking, especially in schools, saying that technology has the potential to dehumanize the classroom.

Big Tech has created a “new form of slavery”

While at the same time issuing the first official criticism of the transatlantic slave trade, Pope Leo called the production processes of exploitative technology and the training of global AI “a new form of slavery.”

“In other regions of the world, children and young people work under dangerous conditions, crushing materials from which rare earth elements are extracted…The bodies of these people are scarred, damaged and worn out so that the flow of statistics continues without interruption,” he said. “This fact challenges the conscience of our time.”

The Pope also linked the rise of artificial intelligence to ongoing global wars, calling for private incentives and warning against giving AI systems “lethal decisions.” He called for “stronger ethical constraints” to be placed on weapons developed using AI.

“A subtle temptation may arise, namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, will not make a difference,” the Pope wrote. “Of course, not all people have the same ability to make a difference. However, no one is without responsibility. We all have our workplaces.”

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