Sermon On The Algorithm: The Pope’s warnings on AI

An encyclical by the Pope is not as big a deal as it used to be because it has been many centuries since the Catholic church was the all-important sole influencer of the Christian world. But it is still a big deal because there are still close to one-and-a-half billion Catholics in the world, and the Pope has religious and moral authority over them. The encyclical by Pope Leo XIV signed on May 15 and published on May 25 came on the 135th anniversary of another encyclical called Rerum Novarum, and that legitimised workers’ rights for the flock. It led to trade unions becoming more accept­able to them. New political parties that shaped societies and influenced the course of global politics were born as a result.

The present encyclical has resounded mainly because of what it says about artificial intelligence. The Pope called for guardrails that should be common sense, except that commercial potential and competition have led to such sudden scale that even companies founded on the premise of the technology’s safety, like OpenAI, have stopped paying lip service to it. An article summarising the encyclical in the official Vatican News says, “The third chapter—Technology and Dominance. The Grandeur of Humanity in Light of the Promises of AI stresses the need to approach artificial intelligence with vigilance.” The Pope called for AI to be disarmed “in order to free it from the men­tality of military, economic, and cognitive competition.” It shouldn’t lead to widespread unemployment either.

One suspects that such sage wisdom will in the end be irrelevant. The guardrails will only come about from the inevitable hard churning of the social fabric. Technol­ogy’s impact cannot be preempted because there is always someone else with a lesser moral compass willing to exploit it, and by doing so, becomes more powerful. If the US holds back, China will take the lead. If China holds back, the lead that the US has will widen. A major calamity because of the technology will at some point make everyone get together and evolve some consensus, as with nuclear weapons. Till then, one can only wait and hope.