Pope Leo's Encyclical: "Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed."

About this episode

Pope Leo discusses his encyclical on safeguarding humanity in the age of artificial intelligence, addressing its implications and recommendations.

Pope Leo released his encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence” today, May 25. (Read the encyclical here. And find America Magazine's extensive coverage of the encyclical here.) Pope Leo presented the encyclical at the Vatican along with the panel of experts, including Christopher Olah, a co-founder of one of the world’s leading AI developers, Anthropic. In a speech at the presentation, Leo stressed that the encyclical had been born out of a process of listening–to scientists and engineers developing AI; political leaders, parents, and teachers; and people concerned about autonomous weapons systems and various forms of exclusion happening on the basis of mass data gathering. Leo recaps the evolution of Catholic Social Teaching through its major documents and by explaining its key principles, in many places anticipating and rebutting criticisms that the church should either stay out of politics or completely rule it. He then moves on to the explicit examination of AI, its development and its effects on humanity in the spheres of education, labor, technology addiction, democracy and many other areas, giving concrete…

People in this episode

Guest: Christopher Olah

Topics covered

• artificial intelligence
• Catholic Social Teaching
• global inequalities
• education
• technology addiction
• democracy

Keywords

• Pope Leo
• artificial intelligence
• Magnifica Humanitas
• Catholic Church
• global inequalities
• technology
• education

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Anthropic

Books & works: Magnifica Humanitas

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