About this episode

The episode discusses Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on human dignity in the context of artificial intelligence, featuring insights from theologian Anna Rowlands.

As you probably heard, Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical letter in May. Titled Magnifica humanitas, the document is a 42,000-word reflection on what it means to be human in our technology-obsessed age of generative artificial intelligence. The Pope officially released the document during a press conference at the Vatican, which the Holy Father himself attended — an unusual move for pontiffs. Sitting at one end of the dais was Christopher Olah, one of the founders of Anthropic, one of the largest AI companies in the world. His presence made a lot of headlines, too. Right next to Olah was a theologian named Anna Rowlands, and she’s our guest today. Professor Rowlands is the St Hilda Professor of Catholic Social Thought & Practice at Durham University in the United Kingdom. At the press conference, she delivered a stirring 10-minute address on how the encyclical offers the church and the world valuable insights into protecting human dignity and the common good in these uncertain times. Professor Rowlands is no stranger to the Vatican. In fact, she was involved in one of these press conference panels for the release of Pope Francis’ encyclical Fratelli tutti, and she has…

People in this episode

Host: Mike Jordan Laskey

Guest: Anna Rowlands

Topics covered

• Papal encyclical
• Artificial intelligence
• Human dignity
• Catholic social thought
• Technology and society
• Press conference insights

Keywords

• Pope Leo XIV
• AI encyclical
• human dignity
• technology
• Catholic Church
• Anna Rowlands
• press conference
• generative AI
• common good

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Durham University, Vatican

Books & works: Magnifica humanitas, Fratelli tutti

Places: United Kingdom

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