Why the Pope wants to disarm AI

0:01NPR.

0:06In May, Pope Leo XIV issued his very first encyclical. Catholic popes have been doing this for hundreds of years. Encyclicals are letters that they write to the Catholic Church, often laying out their thoughts on social and moral issues. Kind of like album drops of the Catholic world. And Pope Leo convened a gathering at the Vatican for the release of his encyclical, entitled Magnifica Humanitas, Magnificent Humanity. Dear brothers and sisters, I want to thank all of you for being here today, for your interest. Popes get to choose their papal names, and Pope Leo XIV picked his name to honor Pope Leo XIII.

0:45135 years ago, my venerable predecessor, Leo XIII, observed the situation of factory workers, their families, uprooted, and new forms of poverty generated by rapid industrial transformation. He understood that the church could not remain distant. Pope Leo XIV invoked his predecessor to warn against a different kind of technological upheaval. Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. This is The Indicator from Planet Money. I'm Waylon Wong. And I'm Darian Woods. It's not often that we cover religion on this show, but we are in a moment where the Pope himself is calling for AI to be reined in for the good of humanity.

1:31And he's directly addressing tech leaders. In fact, Anthropic co-founder Chris Ola was invited to that event at the Vatican. So today on the show, we look at two Pope Leos more than a century apart and their takes on the economic and technological disruptions of their days.

1:55This message comes from Edward Jones, where they believe rich means opening yourself to new possibilities. That's why your dedicated financial advisor meets you where you are, helping you move forward with confidence. Let's find your rich. Edward Jones, member SIPC. This message comes from Capella University. You know that feeling when there's a spark building inside you, that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Capella University gets that. With their FlexPath learning format, you can set the pace and earn your degree without putting life on pause. You've built experience and know what you're capable of.

2:37Now, this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do? Learn more at capella.edu. This message comes from NPR sponsor Charles Schwab with its original podcast on investing. Each week, you'll get thoughtful, in-depth analysis of both the stock and the bond markets. Listen today and subscribe at schwab.com slash on investing or wherever you get your podcasts. Starting in the late 1800s, an Italian pope named Leo XIII wrote more than 80 encyclicals. Arguably, his most famous one was called Rerum Novarum, which translates to Of New Things. The new things of that time were socialism and social democratic labor parties.

3:22Workers in Europe and the U.S. were interested in joining these movements. That's according to Janine Giordano-Drake. She's a history professor at Indiana University who studies both Labor and American Christianity. The Pope was asked to take a stand on the question, can Christian workers be socialists? Can the church support a socialist democratic organization? This is one of the questions the Pope tackled in his encyclical, and his short answer, no. He says that families deserve the opportunity to own private property because that provides a certain sense of dignity. And he's really concerned about the possibility of sort of radical state socialism where there's no more private property.

4:02So that was a strong warning against a certain kind of socialism. But Janine says the pope did side with these 19th century socialists on some important points, like the idea that the current economic system was unfair to workers. It does extract value basically from workers and concentrate it in capital. And the pope does call on workers to try to rectify that problem by forming unions and making demands for workers on behalf of human dignity. Janine says the Pope was concerned about the unequal distribution of wealth. He encouraged workers to form mutual benefit associations. These were groups that offered members certain kinds of life insurance or health insurance.

4:44And the Pope was also in favor of trade unions. Here in the U.S., one of the dominant labor unions at the time was the American Federation of Labor. Its president, Samuel Gompers, was not Catholic. Even so, Janine says, he recognized how powerful the Pope's encyclical could be for recruiting workers. He knows that such a large number of workers in these factories and mines are Catholics. And so by using that language, it's a very pragmatic decision to try to get workers to agree to join these unions. The Pope's letter wasn't just an effective recruiting tool. Janine says the American Federation of Labor took some of the Pope's ideas and made them explicit priorities.

5:24These included better working conditions, protection for women and children, and shorter work weeks. Janine says the Pope also supported what we today call a living wage. That's in some ways the most important part, the most radical part of this document, is saying that workers deserve more than just enough to live on. It's very exciting to many people that the Pope or the Catholic Church doesn't just want you to get by and doesn't just want you to make, you know, as many profits as possible for the owners of capital. That particularly is the part of Rerum to Rerum that many people hear and get excited about.

5:58These issues are still relevant for workers today. And there's a significant new challenge, worker displacement from AI. And this is where the new Pope Leo comes in. Today, we find ourselves facing a transformation of similar magnitude with perhaps even greater consequences. Artificial intelligence already touches many areas of our lives and affects decisions that shape human coexistence. Pope Leo says he recognizes AI can make things more efficient. I mean, just look at the speed and simplicity of accessing complex information. Other Catholic leaders agree. Father Enzo del Brocco is a priest in Chicago with degrees in human resources and healthcare ethics.

6:43He's currently the president of the Catholic Theological Union. a graduate school of theology, and also Pope Leo's alma mater. He says AI is very useful for research. The question here is not so much AI itself, but really who are we as human beings in this age and how can we keep ourselves human and how can this new discovery really serve us as human beings and serve the common good. He can recall some AI experiments in the last couple of years. For example, a Catholic media platform created a priest chatbot called Father Justin. This AI priest gave one news outlet conflicting answers about whether it was authorized to hear a confession.

7:25That checks out. I mean, people look to chatbots for advice in friendship and romance. I guess they also want absolution, too. Yeah, and this is kind of what Pope Leo is warning about in his encyclical. He says AI can create the illusion of a real human relationship. And the danger to people is that they might gradually lose their desire to form actual bonds with other humans. I think the risk of confusion that can happen in some people, because AI, you know, the way it relates, we give almost like a person's name, actually. Yes, right, we like anthropomorphize it, right? Yes, and when you anthropomorphize AI, it says, wait, what are we really doing here?

8:04Like, you know, the way they're kind at the beginning, and they always are condescending. It's almost like they're treating you with real feelings, but it's not. Pope Leo's encyclical addressed concrete economic concerns with AI, too, like environmental impacts and who controls and owns the technology. The letter says data should not be treated as something to be sold off or entrusted to a select few. So does the pope want to get involved in regulating big tech? Well, he acknowledges that he's not a technical expert. He says what he and the church bring to the table is wisdom concerning the human.

8:39Maybe something even the smartest AI can't replicate. Reminded, the Indicator newsletter comes out tomorrow morning. We bring you the news that we talk about behind the scenes every Friday. This week, we're talking about the latest champion of electric vehicle charges, which is the fried chicken chain, Bojangles. How did that happen? We have the answer and much more. If you haven't already signed up, the link is in our show notes. This episode was produced by Corey Bridges and engineered by Anli Huang. It was fact-checked by Sierra Juarez. Kicking Cannon is our show's editor and The Indicator is a production of NPR.

9:17This message comes from Capella University. You know that feeling when there's a spark building inside you, that you were meant for more? That's your own drive pushing you towards what's next. Capella University gets that. With their FlexPath learning format, you can set the pace and earn your degree without putting life on pause. You've built experience and know what you're capable of. Now, this is your time to turn that momentum into more. The only real question is, what can't you do? Learn more at capella.edu. This message comes from Mint Mobile. If you're tired of spending hundreds on big wireless bills, bogus fees, and free perks, Mint Mobile is for you.

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