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Leo's first encyclical attacks technological messianism

119 points by 1vuio0pswjnm7

by js4ever

0 subcomment

https://archive.is/70IOq

by merelydev

16 subcomments

I believe the great problem of our age is deciding who controls technology.
The technologists who create it believe they should control it, the people who use it are starting to believe they should control it and the governments who write the laws believe they should control it. And now the priests believe they should also play role.
So is the next phase of "Democracy" electing who controls technology?

by kleton

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The real problem with Magnifica Humanitas is that it will be impossible to produce the first sentence of the canonical Latin version in which the first two words are "Magnifica humanitas" but carries the same meaning as the first sentence in the English version published.

by mijailt

6 subcomments

Somewhat related: Peter Thiel and the Antichrist [1]
> Thiel: [...] There’s a risk of nuclear war, there’s a risk of environmental disaster. Maybe something specific, like climate change, although there are lots of other ones we’ve come up with. There’s a risk of bioweapons. You have all the different sci-fi scenarios. Obviously, there are certain types of risks with A.I.
> But I always think that if we’re going to have this frame of talking about existential risks, perhaps we should also talk about the risk of another type of a bad singularity, which I would describe as the one-world totalitarian state. Because I would say the default political solution people have for all these existential risks is one-world governance.
> [...]
> The atheist philosophical framing is “One World or None.” That was a short film that was put out by the Federation of American Scientists in the late ’40s. It starts with the nuclear bomb blowing up the world, and obviously, you need a one-world government to stop it — one world or none. And the Christian framing, which in some ways is the same question, is: Antichrist or Armageddon? You have the one-world state of the Antichrist, or we’re sleepwalking toward Armageddon. “One world or none,” “Antichrist or Armageddon,” on one level, are the same question.
> [...]
> Thiel: [...] The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop. You talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate. It’s the opposite of the picture of Baconian science from the 17th, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius, evil scientist who invents this machine to take over the world. People are way too scared for that.
> In our world, the thing that has political resonance is the opposite. The thing that has political resonance is: We need to stop science, we need to just say “stop” to this. And this is where, in the 17th century, I can imagine a Dr. Strangelove, Edward Teller-type person taking over the world. In our world, it’s far more likely to be Greta Thunberg.
> [...]
> Douthat: [...] You’re an investor in A.I. You’re deeply invested in Palantir, in military technology, in technologies of surveillance and technologies of warfare and so on. And it just seems to me that when you tell me a story about the Antichrist coming to power and using the fear of technological change to impose order on the world, I feel like that Antichrist would maybe be using the tools that you are building. Like, wouldn’t the Antichrist be like: Great, we’re not going to have any more technological progress, but I really like what Palantir has done so far. Isn’t that a concern? Wouldn’t that be the irony of history, that the man publicly worrying about the Antichrist accidentally hastens his or her arrival?
> Thiel: Look, there are all these different scenarios. I obviously don’t think that that’s what I’m doing.
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We live in crazy times. The Pope is pleading for multilateralism and responsible regulation of technology. On the other side, Thiel says fear of technological progress could lead us to a one-world totalitarian government (which he relates to the antichrist, and to me seems like a straw man of multilateralism), while at the same time (arguably) building the technological infrastructure such a totalitarian government would need.
I don't know, I think I'm siding with the Pope on all future antichrist related issues.
1: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/26/opinion/peter-thiel-antic...

by joshka

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https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48265206

by RickJWagner

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John Henry said, “I feed four little brothers
And baby sisters’ walkin’ on her knees
Now did the Lord say that machines ought to take place of livin’?
And what’s a substitute for bread and beans? I ain’t seen it!
Do engines get rewarded for their steam?”
- “John Henry” sung by Johnny Cash

by mentalgear

1 subcomments

Never would have thought that I would defer to matters of Tech, let alone 'AI' policies, to the pope, but here we are: I have to say the 'Magnifica Humanitas' are a pristine work of meditation on AI's power, impact and most importantly the people that control it, while showing how we can make it decoupled from the predatory capitalism that it spawn from, to make it beneficial for humanity in general.
(downloaded the full PDF and looking forward to read it on my eReader)

by frankest

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It always has to do with leverage. When the seas were much bigger than empires, too big for a country to conquer, but the tech caught up to venture them, Elizabeth I commissioned pirates to go and pillage on behalf of the crown. Labor was needed and pirates had leverage to get an equal share of the pillage. Once the gold and spoils dried out, Pirates became criminals again so they took their spoils and settled in the new world. Democracy is handy when you need people to conquer territory. But once you people saturating the land, the teeth come out and those with any leverage start carving whatever is valuable among themselves (land, real estate, rail lines, energy supply, compute). Even with AI, as the tech came out everyone is allowed to play in the sandbox to surface all the valuable use cases. When cornucopia era starts leveling off, you will see the AI firms with leverage grab the lucrative corners of the industry and shove everyone else off. Thus a government that wants to not be taken over by oligarchs needs to enforce antitrust to keep competition from being artificially reduced. Compute is already trying to play the Energy playbook and look like a utility to get government subsidies and become a monopoly that can then dictate everything.

by greedo

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Frank Herbert was prophetic.

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by fschuett

2 subcomments

When it comes to the overarching ideology of the techbros, "In Pursuit of the Metaverse" by Dr. Douglas Mark Haugen is a much better read than this encyclical. On the other hand, if he doesn't condemn Gaudium et Spes to the trashbin of history where it belongs, then I don't really care what he has to say.

by steveBK123

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The interview with Thiel where Douthat asks him “You would prefer the human race to endure right?” And his response is 30 seconds of hemming&hawwing “well…” says it all about the VC bro class.
Enjoy Argentina bros.

by new_account_102

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by clear-octopus

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by new_account_102

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by Lapsa

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by erelong

2 subcomments

...as well as Catholic teaching...

by SilverElfin

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Yes that’s because the pope is pushing actual messianism. Are people forgetting what he stands for and which organization he represents? It’s silly that people are suddenly putting him on a pedestal. The Catholic Church is an evil force that has destroyed many other countries’ cultures and religions, not to mention enabled the mass systematic abuse of children.
The pope is against tech companies getting power but is happy for the Catholic Church to gather power and abuse it when it’s for his causes. No thanks. Tech companies are far less evil than Catholicism.

by mrbluecoat

2 subcomments

AI is eating the world and it's only a matter of time until Catholicism joins the wave: https://www.forbes.com/sites/sofiachierchio/2026/05/29/this-...