First, before we get to AI, it has been an absolute privilege this weekend to participate in the ordination and installation of Susan Wallace as bishop in order to be Te Pihopa o Te Hui Amorangi ki Te Waipounamu (for overseas readers, Susan is a bishop of the Anglican Church In Aotearoa, New Zealand and Polynesia, whose territorial/people jurisdiction is over the Maori Anglicans of the South Island/Te Waipounamu).
When it is posted I will make a link to Anglican Taonga's forthcoming report. I manage to snap the two photos above after the service, the first of Bishop Susan with Archbishops Justin, Sione and Don - our three Archbishops, who led the service.
The second photo is of Bishop Susan with fellow women bishops who were at the service: Archbishop Kay Goldsworthy (Perth), Bishop Waitohiariki Quayle (Te Upoko [south North Island, NZ], Archbishop Marinez Rosa dos Santos Bassotto (Bishop of the Amazon, Archbishop of Anglican Episcopal Church of Brazil).
It has been a weekend in which the "grandeur of humanity" has been on display.
Now to AI and Pope Leo's Encyclical Magnifica Hunamitas. This can be read in full at this link.
Before we get to my less than magnificent thoughts, here are a few links to head to, either about the encyclical or about AI more generally:
- A Living Church article "An Anglican Reception of Magnifica Humanitas".
- A critique of Magnifica Humanitas which questions its Thomist metaphysical perspective on who the human person is. (I have a critique of this critique developing in my mind - I may come back to this in a future post).
- Edward Feser's appreciative review of MH is here.
- Some charts on the rise and rise of AI, its capabilities and costs (though not charts about effects on power prices for households everywhere).
- A reminder that AI has profound uses as a tool in research to speed up development of medical capabilities to rid the world of that which kills us. A correspondent, for example, has pointed me in the direction of a local researcher, Dr Arthur Morley-Bunker who is exploring the role of AI in research on cancer.
There are many more links to be found on the internet.
Something which has some thoughts from me on it - a panel discussion = podcast, so there are other, better thoughts on it can be found at "Leo's letter & life". This podcast is part of Food for Faith podcasts, run by Fr John O'Connor, a Catholic priest based here in Canterbury NZ.
OK - to some of my thoughts - very briefly - and in no particular order of priority, but numbered for the sake of my rational process!
1. This document is a (pun intended) magnificent recitation, and extension of Catholic social teaching. A wonderful primer on subsidiarity, solidarity, synodality (i.e. human participation in the church), common good, the family in society, the dignity of work and so forth. In the context of the elucidation of this teaching, Pope Leo sets out his major thesis, "the grandeur (or magnificence) of humanity" means that AI must serve humanity rather than diminish or even enslave humanity.
2. The encyclical is wonderful as a document of public theology - theology engaging with, appreciating and critiquing an important issue of our day, AI, and, as well, related issues of our day, including work, war, attitudes to women, slavery (with an apology for the church's slowness to condemn slavery) and its modern forms, and truth in democracy. The world, if it ever looks to the church, looks for guidance which converts the divine word into a word for humanity. This document does that.
3. The Pope is fair. He finds good in AI (which he should, which we all should, it is a tool which enables important advances in human understanding and problem solving) and he warns against the bad in AI (it has capacity to enhance rather than diminish the gap between the world's "haves" and "have nots."
4. While AI is not the sole focus of the encyclical, it is the whole focus in the sense that the Pope keeps weaving his way back to and then out from AI as his "social theology" survey of the world connects AI to topics such as war and work.
5. Nevertheless, I think there are some weaknesses in the document, and by that I mean, areas I would like to see further work on if and when there were ever a second edition. These are:
6. There is one paragraph in which the ecological cost of AI re its power and water usage is touched on, and an appropriate plea for work on sustainability of AI is made. But I think this is the major issue for our reception of AI, not something to make passing comment on. The sheer consumption of power and water to run AI datacentres is extraordinary and it is pushing the price of power for households and industries up. It is insufficient to say that some datacentres are powered by new power sources (such as a windfarm or a solarfarm built nearby to provide power for a datacentre). If we can build more power sources, shouldn't we be doing to do make life better for people as they do the basics of life: cooking heating/cooling homes etc? It is not as though we do not have an alternative to AI. (Hint: it's called "God-give brains."). That is, there is a significant ethical issue about the draining of resources in our world to produce something we do not strictly need (that is, we have gotten by for millennia with our God-given brains). But the encyclical has no urgency about this issue (even as it rightly has urgency about other ethical issues concerning AI).
7. The encyclical has a continuing and correct set of themes about AI's development and implementation. There needs to be accountability for AI (e.g. those controlling the rise of AI, tech moguls and so forth should be accountable for the non-neutral moral character of what they are doing) and there needs to be regulation of AI, so that it is used wisely and well rather than, say, wrongly (such as controlling courses of wars) and unjustly (such as contributing to greater poverty for the poor of the world). But I do not see the encyclical as saying anything helpful about how such regulation (with consequences for accountability) will actually take place. Whatever the merits to date of global tech phenomena such as Google, Facebook and X (and I use each of these), we have seen regulation of these giants (e.g. to get them to pay more tax on their earnings) as limited and often ineffective. On what basis do we think that we will have success in regulating AI?
8. The articulation of Catholic social theology is superb and inspiring. As an Anglican I wonder where we have anything similar well-developed, globally adhered to and regularly updated? But this same superb and inspiring teaching raises questions! If social theology endorses justice for all, including women, and inspires creative momentum towards true participation for women and men in the life of the church (i.e. in modern Catholic parlance, synodality), why is the possibility of women having a full share in the ordained ministry of the church ruled out again and again, at odds with the teaching Catholics have magisterially developed on social theology?
9. Back to AI: I don't think the encyclical goes far enough in assessing the dangers of AI for humanity because AI-in-robots has capacity to generate new AI-robots (no other tool developed by humanity has had procreative abilities). Such capacity could yet dominate and eventually rid the world of the human species. Of course, in 2026, this sounds alarmist and fantastical, but is it not a question to be considered? Everything about AI is about its rapid development. No one know what capabilities AI-robots will have by 2030 let alone 2040.
10. Nevertheless I do take on board the relentless optimism of Jonah Lynch (on the Leo's Letter & Life podcast noted above): AI is for our good. Humanity has survived all threats to its existence to date. We are remarkable and adaptive!
But, please, please, if you have time, read the encyclical. It is deep and wide, it takes us to the heart of being human, and it offers needed commentary on a fast moving phenomenon of this era which has implications for all future eras of humanity.
2 comments:
Fabulous you got these photos +Peter! What a wonderful occasion. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks Peter for gathering these sources and beginning a critical reception conversation.
It is good to be having a conversation about AI, a meta (not Meta!) conversation, rather than just rolling on uncritically.
I will follow up the sources and absorb, though the length of the encyclical is daunting!
I was at a meal last night with two people who teach in a liberal arts faculty at our local university. They said that their students are on the whole very critical of AI, of its uses, politics, and environmental impact. So very good to see young people so well informed. But they also felt a pressure to use it, to upskill for the new AI world ahead.
Interestingly, both said they could spot AI written essays - they are "flat", "over-confident", and "lacking in depth and an appreciation for uncertainty, ambiguity"; in some sense, bearing the human imprint of their Tech Bro creators. I note that the above values are central to spiritual maturity.
I resonate with your appreciation and criticism of Catholic (social) theology in general:
"If social theology endorses justice for all, including women, and inspires creative momentum towards true participation for women and men in the life of the church (i.e. in modern Catholic parlance, synodality), why is the possibility of women having a full share in the ordained ministry of the church ruled out again and again, at odds with the teaching Catholics have magisterially developed on social theology?"
Similarly, for Anglican leaders and members, too: why is the possibility of queer people having a full share in ordained ministry ruled out again and again?
I wish we would stop talking about justice for the world until we've sorted our own house out first. Hypocrisy is, of course, what Jesus keeps noticing and denouncing in the religious establishment around him.
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