{"id":903,"date":"2026-05-26T23:07:31","date_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=903"},"modified":"2026-05-26T23:07:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-26T23:07:31","slug":"what-pope-leo-xivs-first-encyclical-says-about-the-power-of-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=903","title":{"rendered":"What Pope Leo XIV\u2019s First Encyclical Says About the Power of AI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><span class=\"lead-in-text-callout\">An algorithm decides<\/span> what we see, another filters what we read, and still others enter into the processes that govern work, information, and collective choices. In the encyclical <em>Magnifica Humanitas<\/em>. the first signed by Pope Leo XIV and published on May 25, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/tag\/artificial-intelligence\" class=\"text link\">artificial intelligence<\/a> is not viewed as just another technology; it is part of the invisible infrastructure of our contemporary daily lives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">But the text is not conceived as an exclusively technological reflection. Pope Leo XIV places the issue of AI within the tradition of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and directly invokes\u2014while updating it\u2014the <em>Rerum Novarum<\/em> of Pope Leo XIII (published on May 15, 1891) in the year of its 135th anniversary. That encyclical addressed the question of labor at the height of the industrial revolution in the late 19th century.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">If the \u201cres novae\u201d of that time were factories, labor, and industrial capitalism, today the new issues revolve around digital platforms, algorithms, data, and automation systems that are reshaping power, the economy, and social relations. For this reason, the encyclical does not present itself as a technical text about innovation, but rather as an attempt to interpret the digital transformation in light of human dignity and the common good. Technology, the Pope writes, is not evil in itself; on the contrary, it belongs to human history and creativity. But the current situation is different in both scale and depth: \u201cNever has humanity had so much power over itself,\u201d the text observes, describing technologies that now shape decisionmaking processes, the collective imagination, and social life in an increasingly pervasive way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It is from this point that Robert Francis Prevost chose to begin: from the growing concentration of power exercised through systems that are increasingly opaque yet increasingly decisive, and from the question that runs throughout the encyclical: What remains of human dignity, the protection of truth, work, social justice, and peace when decisions are transferred into algorithmic logic?<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall\">Disarming Technology<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In the encyclical there is an expression that becomes the key to interpreting the entire scenario: \u201cdisarming technology.\u201d The meaning is far removed from any attempt to slow the development of artificial intelligence or to deny its potentially transformative impact for good. For Robert Francis Prevost, disarming AI means preventing it from becoming a form of power capable of dominating human existence.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">For Leo XIV, the point is not the technology itself, then, but its organization and application. AI, the pope writes, is part of a global race today to the \u201chighest-performing algorithm\u201d and the \u201clargest data center,\u201d where competitive advantage also becomes geopolitical. In this context, a few players concentrate digital infrastructure, data, and computing capacity, which affects information, economics, and even democracy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">Disarming means breaking this equation between technical power and the right to govern. \u201cAs happens with every major technological turning point, AI tends above all to increase the power of those who already possess economic resources and access to data,\u201d the pontiff explains.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">In explicit terms, the encyclical states that it is not enough merely to regulate technology: It must be taken away from monopolies, made transparent and open to challenge\u2014that is, made \u201chabitable\u201d by a plurality of actors. Above all, AI must be prevented from becoming an instrument of economic, political, or military domination by a select few. This is not a moral metaphor: It is a call to prevent the logic of competition from transforming a shared infrastructure into a system of control.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"paywall\">Truth Within the Systems That Select Reality<\/h2>\n<p class=\"paywall\">If technology concentrates power, one of the first concrete effects concerns the way in which collective truth is formed. The encyclical addresses the issue of disinformation, but in a decidedly deeper way because perceived reality, or rather experience, is increasingly filtered by systems that decide what to show and what to hide.<\/p>\n<p class=\"paywall\">It is not just about fake news or fake content in various forms. The problem is that platforms and algorithms select information based on criteria of maximizing attention and engagement. In other words, what becomes visible is not necessarily what is most true, but what works best in generating reactions. In this way, truth does not disappear, but it becomes dependent on opaque systems that influence opinions, perceptions, and collective choices without it always being clear how.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/what-pope-leo-xivs-first-encyclical-says-about-the-power-of-ai\/\">Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An algorithm decides what we see, another filters what we read, and still others enter into the processes that govern work, information, and collective choices. In the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. the first signed by Pope Leo XIV and published on May 25, artificial intelligence is not viewed as just another technology; it is part of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":904,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[83,202,390],"class_list":["post-903","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-gadgets","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-europe","tag-religion"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>What Pope Leo XIV\u2019s First Encyclical Says About the Power of AI - Silvybrand Lifestyle Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"In \u201cMagnifica Humanitas,\u201d the pope places artificial intelligence in our daily lives, and decries the concentration of technological power in a few global players.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/silvybrand.com\/?p=903\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What Pope Leo XIV\u2019s First Encyclical Says About the Power of AI - 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