Notes on Magnifica humanitas

I woke up last Monday to find the AI discourse on social media buzzing about…a letter from the pope? Did I read that right?

After some more digging, I discovered that Pope Leo XIV had published and presented his first encyclical, titled Magnifica humanitas, on the topic of “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence”. It was published on May 15th to coincide with the 135th anniversary of Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical Rerum novarum about industrialization. The parallels between Rerum novarum and Magnifica humanitas and their respective eras were clearly intentional.

The public letter is structured into five chapters, along with an introduction and conclusion. The first two chapters are about the role of the Church in history and society, and the development of the Social Doctrine. The third and fourth chapters directly discuss AI. The last chapter discusses war, conflict, and the need for peace and justice. Throughout the letter, Pope Leo frames two paths before humanity for the AI era: the story of the Tower of Babel, and the story of rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem. Each story represents an approach to building: do we strive for unity through uniformity and power, or do we strive for unity through diversity and collaboration?

It took me a few reading sessions to get through the whole text. Personally, I deeply appreciate this document and that the reception to it has been generally positive.

It’s been a strange time working in the tech industry over the past couple years. My daily work has been completely transformed by AI tools, in both positive and negative ways. AI has been blamed for thousands of layoffs across the tech industry as companies chase efficiencies in a weaker economy, or direct capital toward computer chips and data centers. Industry leaders and fellow colleagues have pushed a narrative that the changes from AI are inevitable and that we as employees must adapt or get left behind.

Reading Magnifica humanitas was incredibly validating. I’ve often been frustrated at the extent to which tech and political leaders have brushed off the ethical concerns of AI, and I was starting to question whether I was crazy or missing something. I hope that this document can help us all refocus on developing this technology safely, and will inspire a new collaboration between developers and policymakers to ensure AI is built and brought to humanity safely and without harm.

Highlighted Quotes

There are a lot of good quotes in this text, but I’ve tried to narrow down my favorites to the list below. Any emphasis is mine, and I’ve added spacing to help break up the text for readability.

Section 100 from Chapter 3: A valuable tool that requires vigilance

“In personal use, three aspects in particular deserve careful consideration: the ease with which results are obtained, the impression of objectivity and the simulation of human communication.

The speed and simplicity with which information, complex analyses, media content and practical assistance can be accessed undoubtedly makes life easier. Yet they can also encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment.

The apparent objectivity of the responses and suggestions these systems provide can lead us to overlook the fact that they reflect the cultural assumptions of those who designed and trained them, with all their strengths and limitations.

The artificial imitation of positive human communication — words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love — can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful. However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject. When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance.

The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.”

Section 106 from Chapter 3: Responsibility, transparency, and the governance of AI

“Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family. This need is all the more urgent given the frequent imbalance between the speed of technological growth and the slower development of awareness, norms, safeguards and institutions capable of governing its effects.

It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required. Otherwise, change will be governed only by technocratic thinking and presented as necessary and inevitable, ultimately imposing rules shaped by those who control data, infrastructure and computing power.”

Section 150 from Chapter 4: The value of work

Note that the emphasis on agency matches the original text, other emphasis mine.

“Today, the convergence of automation, robotics and AI is rapidly transforming the very structure of work.

It is said that this will bring great improvements for everyone. In reality, however, the “new ways” of working are not necessarily better, for “while AI promises to boost productivity by taking over mundane tasks, it frequently forces workers to adapt to the speed and demands of machines, rather than machines being designed to support those who work.

As a result, contrary to the advertised benefits of AI, current approaches to technology can paradoxically de-skill workers, subject them to automated surveillance and relegate them to rigid and repetitive tasks. The need to keep up with the pace of technology can erode workers’ sense of agency and stifle the innovative abilities they are expected to bring to their work.” Precisely in order to avoid this drift, it is necessary to design systems that are centered on the human person and not solely on performance.”

Section 156 from Chapter 4: The problem of unemployment

“At this time of transition, it is not enough to react only when jobs disappear; we must oversee the transformation in advance.

One viable path is, first of all, to establish social criteria for innovation. Here, every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment, retraining and participation of workers. In this way, technology will be oriented toward freeing up human time and capabilities, rather than producing exclusion.

Second, we need proactive policies that make continuous training and professional transitions accessible to all, ensuring that the cost of adaptation does not fall solely on individuals.

Finally, there needs to be a corporate commitment to include quality and dignity of work among its indicators of success. When these conditions are present, innovation can serve as an ally of safer, more creative and dignified work; without them, innovation tends to become an accelerator of injustice.”

Section 173 from Chapter 4: Breaking the chains of new forms of slavery

“This distorted view of the human person is reflected today in various forms of servitude directly linked to the digital economy. Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. Every seemingly immediate and flawless response is the result of a long chain of mediation, involving vast networks of natural resources, energy infrastructure and, above all, people.

A significant part of the digital economy’s functioning relies on the silent work of millions of people engaged in essential yet largely unseen activities, such as data labeling, model training and content moderation, often involving disturbing material. In many cases, these workers are young people, predominantly women, working under demanding conditions for minimal wages.

Added to this invisible labor is the even harsher work of extracting the resources required for the production of the devices and microprocessors on which AI depends. In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted. The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.

Furthermore, criminal networks use online platforms, messaging systems, anonymous payment methods and profiling techniques in order to recruit, control and transport victims of trafficking — very often minors — reducing men and women to “data” to be tracked and “packages” to be moved around within the same digital circuits that support much of the global economy.

This reality deeply challenges the moral conscience of our time. It is not enough to invoke efficiency, nor to celebrate the benefits of innovation, if they are built on a chain of exploitation that remains deliberately hidden. If technology promises emancipation, yet produces new forms of global subordination, it stands in contradiction to the fundamental principle of human dignity.”