I’m relieved to see that the AI hype expert Paris Marx also seems to agree with my glimmer of hope for a Church opposition to the AI push.
Disconnect Will Pope Leo XIV be an ally against AI? The Catholic Church has a striking clear-eyed critique of artificial intelligence Paris Marx May 15, 2025 Even criticism can become a veiled form of AI hype, particularly the position that chatbots are on the cusp of gaining sentience that could threaten humanity’s very existence — a perspective often termed “AI safety.” Yet there are reasons to believe that isn’t where Leo’s talk of AI is coming from. His reference to Rerum novarum suggests a particular concern for tangible impacts on workers, rather than science fictional fantasies. That’s also reflected by the limited statements he made in the days after his election.
Sure, the connection Pope Leo XIV made between AI and the industrial revolution encyclical Rerum novarum. Maybe it’s not as important that the pope understands what AI is (and what it isn’t), as he understands and opposes the harmful effects to people.
Some say this means that Pope Leo XIV will get American Catholics to oppose universal healthcare, or even insurance pools, team sports, public schools, Medicare, will support no police outside private security forces employed by the rich (such as was the case during the Roman Empire), and that the pope is in favour of an end to public roads or any cooperative “common good”… because Pope Leo XIII said he wants to reject socialism and “community goods” in Rerum Novarum. Good luck with that if you want a functional society with no common good and nothing “socialism”. People, including Catholics, love Medicare and Social Security (both socialism, just like public schools and public roads and the fire department). But think about this for a moment — how convents and monasteries and the Church itself operates on “community goods”. Either that was mistranslated, poorly stated, or misunderstood, because I doubt Pope Leo XIII was condemning his own religious institution’s convents and monasteries. There is no survival without community, this has always been the case, and it’s hard to see a way it could be otherwise. This push that everyone should say “f you” to all your neighbors, and abandon community, may just be the end of the survival of humans. But more specifically, it even opposes stuff preached by Jesus.