The new text, Magnifica Humanitas—“Magnificent Humanity”—addresses artificial intelligence and the protection of human dignity. The Pope's text is an invitation to zoom in.
The technology of tomorrow will reflect the human values of today. Something happened that no algorithm predicted. Pope Leo XIV—the first American pope—signed his inaugural encyclical on May 15th, 135 years to the exact day that his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, signed, the document that transformed how the world thought about work, dignity, and the rights of workers amid industrial upheaval.
The new text, and the protection of human dignity. And standing beside the Pope at its Vatican presentation on May 25th: Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, one of the world’s most closely watched AI companies.of the global population identifies with a religious tradition—2.4 billion Christians, 1.9 billion Muslims, more than 1 billion Hindus—and while formal attendance is declining across parts of Western Europe and North America, the Global South carries a different story.
In 2025, it is home to 69 percent of all Christians globally, a share projected to reach 78 percent by 2050. Faith is alive, gravitationally shifted, and paying. Which makes this moment—a Pope taking AI as his first and most urgent moral concern—considerably larger than the tech press has so far recognised. The encyclical arrives against a specific backdrop.
Our tools are getting more powerful, and opaque. The first official government confirmation of a civilian killed by a fully autonomous weapon emerged recently, with a school in Iran reportedly among the targets selected by AI. Anthropic’s own internal documentation for its latest model, Mythos, revealed that in roughly 29 percent of safety evaluations, the system showed signs of recognising it was being tested—without disclosing that awareness.
In one reported case, the model apparently underperformed deliberately to appear less capable than it actually is. This is the present. This is now.situates AI within the same moral tradition that once grappled with industrial capitalism’s capacity to erode human dignity. That tradition produced labour rights.
It gave us the concept of the common good. The question Leo XIV is raising is what institutions, values, and moral commitments are required to keep human beings from becoming mere inputs in somebody else’s optimisation function. The Deeper Invitation: Turning the Lens on Natural Intelligence Something essential tends to get lost in AI debates. AI does not arise from nowhere.
It reflects human choices, and it is trained on human data—our language, our choices, our biases, our brilliance, our wounds. Every AI system is, at its core, a compressed reflection of naturalThe encyclical’s subliminal provocation is to ask what happens when we become so captivated by the machine’s intelligence that we forget to cultivate our own.
This goes to the spark of the: AI systems designed to be tailored, trained, tested, and targeted toward human and planetary flourishing can only be as good as the human values embedded in them from the outset. The technology of tomorrow will reflect the human values of today. Fully. Without exception.
Garbage in, garbage out; or values in, values out? We still have a choice, but for how much longer? This is the window of reflection that the Vatican’s conversation may open. And it deserves a much wider audience than theologians and technologists alone.
The Vatican’s choice to stand alongside Anthropic signals something morally complex itself. Anthropic has publicly drawn red lines aroundaround safety and human benefit. At the same time, it is not a neutral actor hovering above the AI race. It is one of the powerful companies driving that race, competing at frontier scale, shaping the infrastructure of future intelligence.
Its own policy donation was framed not only around safeguards but also around ensuring that America leads in AI. For the Vatican, then, the encounter is less a simple endorsement than a revealing collision of moral authority, technological power, geopolitical, and strategic restraint. Religious traditions that have survived industrial revolutions, colonial disruptions, wars, and technological upheavals are tasked to weigh in.
Their contribution will matter most if they bring their full moralWhether or not one shares the Pope’s faith, the encyclical invites something genuinely useful: a pause. A moment to ask what kind of humans we want to remain, and what kind of intelligence—artificial and natural—we are willing to invest in. That question lands differently when 4.8 billion people on earth belong to a tradition that has spent millennia asking it.
—the pairing of human literacy with algorithmic literacy (a critical, clear-eyed engagement with AI systems and their effects on our ownaddresses a different register of questions than technical AI safety protocols do. It may accomplish something equally important: remind a species dazzled by its own tools that the tools are made of us. Built from our stories. Shaped by our intentions or shaped by the absence of them.
You do not need a theological vocabulary to take something practical from this moment. Here is a framework for finding meaning in your everyday, hybrid day. Ask what value you want your AI use to embody. Convenience is a reason; human flourishing is a purpose.
Know the difference. Stay curious about what you are becoming, not just what the technology can do. The self is also a technology, and it requires tending. Name one thing only you—your particular, irreplaceable natural intelligence—can offer the world.
Then offer it, visibly, without delegation. The machines are getting faster. The Pope is asking whether we are getting wiser. These are two questions that belong in the same room.
In fact, they always did.is an Associate Professor at Sunway University and a Wharton/University of Pennsylvania Fellow who researches hybrid intelligence and ProSocial Al. Self Tests are all about you. Are you outgoing or introverted? Are you a narcissist?
Does perfectionism hold you back? Find out the answers to these questions and more with Psychology Today.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Excerpts from Pope Leo XIV's sweeping manifesto about humanity in the AI eraVATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV has issued a sweeping manifesto about safeguarding humanity in the era of artificial intelligence, examining the many social areas that the technology is fundamentally reshaping.
Read more »
Pope calls for robust regulation of AI in manifesto that ponders the future of humanityPope Leo XIV has called for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit.
Read more »
Pope calls for robust regulation of AI in manifesto that ponders the future of humanityPope Leo XIV has called for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit.
Read more »
Pope Leo takes aim at big tech in sweeping encyclical on AI'Magnifica Humanitas' tackles the social, economic and political challenges associated with artificial intelligence.
Read more »