Leo’s new encyclical Magnifica Humanitas—a 42,300-word open letter to the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics about preserving dignity in a tech age—never mentions Trump at all. But across many sections, Leo offers pointed recommendations for reining in AI that directly contrast with theTrump’s administration embrace of the tech industry in his second term.
The main lens through which the Trump administration has approached AI is the so-called “arms race” with China. Last week, Trump delayed signing an executive order which called for pre-deployment testing of AI, explaining that he didn’t “want to do anything that’s going to get in the way of” the U.S. maintaining its technological lead over China in the race to build powerful AI systems. This viewpoint has been driven hard by top technologists; Politico reported that Trump pulled the EO after hearing concerns directly from the industry.
Instead of propagating a race, Leo argues for “disarming” AI. This does not mean that he wants a technological pause—as some have called for in the past—but rather a slowing of adoption to allow ethics, governance, and public oversight to keep pace with the technology.
Read more: Pope Leo’s Name Carries a Warning About the Rise of AI
Lack of government oversight
Leo, on the other hand, stresses the need for a “political system that does not abdicate its responsibility” around tech regulation. He then calls on governments to impose specific guardrails: to oversee algorithms and data management; to protect AI from taking jobs from humans; to tax those who have accrued inordinate wealth and power; and to protect minors from digital harm.
While Trump has encouraged and befriended executives at the top AI companies, Leo condemns the consolidated corporate power of the industry. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few,” he writes. “What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating.”
Another major AI flash point that Leo differs with the Trump administration on is the use of AI in war. In February, Trump’s Pentagon clashed with Anthropic over the company’s attempt to prevent its technology from being used by the government for piloting autonomous weapons or carrying out mass surveillance.
Leo writes that "it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems." He contends that AI could contribute to an increasing “normalization of war,” in part because its ability to allow armies to attack others without seeing their victims’ faces “lowers the moral threshold of conflict.”
When Leo released Magnifica Humanitas, he was joined onstage by Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, the company that sued the Trump administration after the Pentagon blacklisted it for refusing to let its AI be used in autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance. That Leo chose to platform a representative of the AI company most directly at odds with the Trump administration is notable in itself.
Potential impact
Whether Pope Leo’s encyclical actually has an impact on the direction of AI is very much to be determined. Many Catholics hold powerful positions in America, including Vice President J.D. Vance, who told NBC News on Tuesday that the parts of the essay he read were “very profound.”
Over time, Leo’s essay could influence an increasing number of Catholics in America, about half of whom are conservative, according to a 2020 Pew poll. Toscano expects the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to eventually implement the text across their dioceses and parishes, and for pastors to start teaching based on its tenets. He believes that some Catholic orders may go even further and advise digital fasting.
“It would be a gargantuan spiritual effort,” Toscano says. “But if the Church can institutionalize practices which limit the presence of screens—which is currently the primary mode by which people engage in artificial intelligence—I think that would put a check on the reach of AI.”
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