It was “impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many,” the Pope wrote, adding that he “sincerely asked for pardon” in the name of the Church.
Leo mentioned the slave trade in relation to AI, suggesting that the world was in danger of normalising the exploitation of people again – both in its production and in its applications.
Some of the Pope’s strongest imagery in the document related to slavery, warning parallels between the historical tragedy of traditional slavery and the emerging threats of “new digital slaveries”.
He suggested a risk of similar normalisation of exploitation and that humanity was at a similar moral crossroads.
Unusually, Pope Leo chose to present the encyclical – titled “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”) – himself, at the Vatican, alongside AI experts including Christopher Olah, co-founder of US AI giant Anthropic.
In remarks following the presentation of the encyclical, Olah said that every AI lab including his operated “inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing”.
It would be a mistake to believe that matters of AI were best handled by computer scientists like himself, Olah added: “The questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community, not just in their implications, but also in their nature.”
The Pope’s encyclical – which also acknowledged the many potential pitfalls in AI – is also a stark and direct message to those in positions of power about their responsibilities in kerbing the “threats” it poses.
For example, the Pope condemned the use of AI in warfare, saying that reducing human control of weaponry makes it even harder to consider a war “just” and warned against launching an AI arms race.
