AI and the pontificating Pontiff (1/2) - what humanity - and our political and techno masters - must learn about morality

Pope Leo XIV - the American Pope - staged a dramatic, if lengthy and at times dense, intervention in the debate around AI ethics and morality yesterday with the publication of Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), a 42,000 words encyclical to Catholic bishops that also took some hefty pot shots at Silicon Valley and will have rattled some doors in Washington with its criticism of many Trump 2.0 policies.

We’ll come back to the tech sector and political reaction to the publication in a second article, but first, what does the Pope actually have to say. As noted, at times the document makes for some heavy reading, including as it does many religious precedents and exemplars.

In fact it begins, rather unpromisingly, with a clichéd allusion to the Tower of Babel, “where collective effort follows a plan that dominates and ultimately de-humanizes”, this to raise the important question of, “What are...

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