Pope Leo XIV recently issued his first papal encyclical, titled “Magnifica Humanitas” or “Magnificent Humanity,” focusing on protecting human dignity during the artificial intelligence era. While it may seem paradoxical to seek AI ethics guidance from an ancient institution still addressing its own historical controversies, the Catholic Church’s billion-plus membership gives its leader
unprecedented reach. Pope Leo approaches the subject with genuine knowledge and earnestness.

The encyclical characterizes artificial intelligence as a
transformative industrial revolution fundamentally reshaping employment, economic distribution, and societal structures. Leo expresses concern that AI poses risks to human worth, authentic human connections, and our collective understanding of reality. The document emphasizes that AI technology cannot be considered morally
neutral—that embedded values exist within design decisions, making the construction process as significant as the application. The pope advocates for enhanced regulatory frameworks at both national and global levels, while addressing familiar concerns including employment displacement, manipulative practices, personal data protection, algorithmic discrimination, and weaponized autonomous systems.

The encyclical’s position on AI parallels a preacher’s stance on wrongdoing—entirely predictable. This recalls the classic anecdote about taciturn President Coolidge returning from Sunday services. When Mrs. Coolidge inquired about the sermon topic, he replied “Sin.” Pressed for elaboration, he simply stated the preacher opposed it.

However, one metaphor stands out. Leo repeatedly references the Tower of Babel, the biblical narrative where humanity attempted constructing a structure reaching the heavens to demonstrate their power and sovereignty. This comparison proves particularly relevant to current Artificial General Intelligence pursuits—efforts to create singular systems replicating all human capabilities represent perhaps the clearest contemporary parallel to that ancient ambition. Leo’s caution isn’t that such achievement is unattainable, but rather that civilizations pursuing god-like powers often lose sight of the ordinary people affected. The biblical tale concluded with dispersion and linguistic chaos instead of heavenly ascent—a conclusion AGI developers might prefer ignoring.

The document doesn’t remain entirely theoretical. Despite its broad moral framework, “Magnifica Humanitas” addresses specific issues. It examines research demonstrating how premature, unmonitored screen time damages children’s rest patterns, focus, and emotional growth. The encyclical condemns contemporary forms of exploitation underlying technology: poorly compensated data annotators and children extracting rare minerals under hazardous conditions to maintain uninterrupted computational processes. These aren’t empty statements but documented harms affecting real individuals.

Unfortunately, historical evidence suggests even powerful encyclicals rarely produce significant change. Pope Paul VI’s 1968 encyclical “Humanae Vitae” firmly restated the Church’s contraception
prohibition. Despite its clarity and force, it was broadly
disregarded, even among believers. Within decades, most Catholics in developed nations used contraception regardless. Whatever one’s perspective on that teaching, the influence lesson remains clear: papal declarations can be unambiguous yet fail to alter behavior. Moral pronouncements come easily; actual behavioral transformation proves difficult.

I understand this on a smaller scale. In 2018, I published a Hippocratic Oath for AI professionals, attempting a voluntary ethical framework, but it received virtually no attention. The uncomfortable reality is this: prophetic figures, whether popes or biblical leaders, can only guide us toward better futures if we’re prepared to undertake that journey ourselves. When moral language fails, it doesn’t invalidate the message—it demonstrates that language alone cannot move people unwilling to act.

Rather than acknowledging this, we’ve created narratives blaming external forces. We denounce technology’s oppressive nature and technologists’ power—the small group of individuals who can literally reshape government policy through brief conversations. Just recently, President Trump’s AI executive order was reportedly abandoned overnight following interventions from Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, and David Sacks. While such outrage is understandable, it’s also deflection. The fundamental tyranny comes from our own decisions.

Columbia law professor Tim Wu identified the problem years ago in his New York Times piece “The Tyranny of Convenience.” He argued convenience has become the most influential yet least scrutinized force shaping contemporary existence. Resisting it, refusing default options, proves remarkably challenging. We don’t select the
surveillance-heavy, attention-exploiting, deepfake-producing future through any single dramatic choice. We select it through thousands of daily convenient clicks.

Our failure mirrors the war on drugs. Regardless of efforts against cartels, consumer demand finances the operation and incentivizes continued production. Supply responds to demand. Identical logic governs artificial intelligence.

We criticize system designers while our behavior funds their business models. If privacy truly matters, why do we surrender our lives to Google and Meta? If democracy truly matters, why do we allow deepfakes to spread unchallenged? We want contradictory outcomes: moral superiority and frictionless content feeds, both righteous indignation and dopamine hits.

A superior AI future won’t arrive as a gift. We must actively pursue it.

The early 2000s adage warned we were drowning in data while starving for wisdom. Today, we’re drowning in AI while starving for moral direction. The pope has provided one—but will we actually follow where he’s pointed?