The pope didn’t take lengthy to clarify why he picked the identify Leo. Two days after his election, he cited his inspiration: the previous Pope Leo, who led the Church whereas the West confronted the social and financial disruptions of the Industrial Revolution. The world now faces “one other industrial revolution,” Leo XIV stated final month, spurred not by mechanized manufacturing however by synthetic intelligence. Specifically, he famous the challenges that AI poses to “human dignity, justice, and labor,” three issues that his Nineteenth-century namesake prioritized as he responded to the technological transformations of his time.
In 1891, Leo XIII revealed Rerum Novarum, an ethical and mental framework that addressed the rising inequality, materialism, and exploitation ushered in by the Industrial Revolution. The present pope has signaled that AI’s arrival calls for the same intervention; if the sooner Leo’s tenure is any indication, it may very well be essentially the most bold and enduring challenge of Leo XIV’s papacy. Rerum Novarum might be a guiding affect.
Leo XIII insisted in Rerum Novarum that labor is each “private” and “obligatory” for every particular person, and that societies ought to shield the dignity of their staff as they pursue financial development. Idolizing capital widens inequality, therefore the “distress and wretchedness” that many employers inflicted on a lot of the working class throughout the Industrial Revolution. The pope acknowledged that socialism was no answer, however that employers should assure their staff cheap hours, simply wages, secure workplaces, and the correct to unionize.
These statements by the Church gave essential backing to staff’ actions and civic organizations preventing for labor protections. In Europe, Rerum Novarum consolidated Catholic assist for staff and bolstered the political affect of labor unions, lots of which adopted Christian rules to advance their trigger. Leo XIII’s interventions performed a major function in the US as effectively. The pope supported American employee actions such because the Knights of Labor, and impressed Catholic reformers together with Monsignor John Ryan, whose advocacy for a common residing wage influenced architects of the New Deal. Leo XIII additionally commissioned the likes of Saint Frances Cabrini and Saint Katharine Drexel to broaden their missionary work, in the end seeding hospitals, faculties, orphanages, and public-housing complexes that addressed injustices confronted notably by immigrants, Black Individuals, and Native Individuals.
Rerum Novarum additionally had a profound affect on the Catholic Church itself. The doc inaugurated what’s now often called fashionable Catholic social educating, an expansive mental custom that emphasizes the frequent good, social justice, human dignity, and concern for the poor.
Now Leo XIV has a chance to replace this custom for the age of AI. Like his namesake, he might marshal the Church’s mental, cultural, and institutional sources, serving to construct an ethical consensus about the right way to use a brand new know-how that threatens to degrade humanity quite than serve it. Vice President J. D. Vance lately conceded that America just isn’t geared up to offer this sort of management, however that the Catholic Church is.
Leo has loads of materials to work with. Earlier this yr, two administrative our bodies inside the Vatican produced an advisory doc referred to as Antiqua et Nova, which makes use of the Catholic mental custom to argue that AI can not interact with the world as a human can. For one factor, no know-how has the capability “to savor what’s true, good, and delightful,” the authors write. Missing interiority and a conscience, AI can not authentically grasp that means, assume ethical accountability, or kind relationships. In consequence, the doc contends, builders and customers should take accountability for AI merchandise, making certain that they don’t exacerbate inequality, impose unsustainable environmental prices, or make selections in warfare that might consequence within the indiscriminate lack of life.
Each of us have contributed to initiatives that search to higher perceive AI within the context of Catholic social educating. Mariele is a member of an AI analysis group inside the Vatican that lately revealed a e-book, Encountering Synthetic Intelligence, that considers the moral impacts of AI in politics, training, the household, and different spheres of life. In well being care, for instance, AI may help enhance entry to sure sorts of evaluation and remedy, however it might additionally perpetuate disparities by way of biases mirrored in knowledge, or disrupt the connection between sufferers and health-care professionals. We’re each a part of a cohort on the College of Southern California investigating the moral and social implications of transhumanism, particularly because it intersects with AI. The group consists largely of theologians and Catholic bioethicists, however we have now discovered that many students working outdoors the Catholic custom are keen to have interaction with the Church’s pondering on these points. Encouraging such collaboration might be essential for Leo.
As was true of the know-how of the Industrial Revolution, AI will change into most harmful when economies prioritize revenue and technological growth over human flourishing and the dignity of labor. Left unregulated, markets will frequently select effectivity on the expense of staff, risking widespread unemployment and the dehumanization of the sorts of labor that handle to outlive. If the social order doesn’t put know-how on the service of individuals, markets will put the latter on the service of the previous.
Though the Church could not have the identical affect within the secular twenty first century that it did within the Nineteenth, there are indicators of a potential Catholic resurgence—notably amongst younger individuals—that might assist Leo attain a wider viewers. Simply because it did throughout the first Industrial Revolution, the Church has an opportunity to assist safeguard work that’s dignified, justly paid, and commensurate with human flourishing. The pope’s new identify is a hopeful signal that this accountability received’t go unmet.
