"Technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it."

Therefore builders "bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility" because "every design choice reflects a vision of humanity."

The questions shouldn't just be 'can we build it?' or 'will people want this?'

We need to also ask 'should we build it?' and 'will this make humanity better?'

The encyclical calls on us to “join forces in building up the common good.”

This is a message we need right now.

Unrelated to AI, but a wonderful support of the breadth of humanity in this anti-DEI time.

> We must, then, avoid the “Babel syndrome,” namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.

There is a lot to read here. I am curious where the meditations on the 'mystery of the person' will go: a brief search doesn't show further mention. The encyclical appears to focus on exhortations for us, humans, than on the nature of AI. Probably wise at this stage. I feel it is not AI that is either positive or negative, but its use of it, and the call-out to the growth of private industry as more powerful among nation-states is a strong statement for a institute like the Vatican to make:

> Technological power thus takes on an unprecedented, predominantly “private” aspect, which makes it even more challenging to discern, govern and direct such power toward the common good.

If critical decisions affecting human life—such as hiring, lending, crime prediction, and welfare—are processed in an opaque black box, people will lose their fundamental right to explain their context or appeal against the machine's algorithmic verdicts

> Not a handful of rich people, but all the working people must enjoy the fruits of their common labour. Machines and other improvements must serve to ease the work of all and not to enable a few to grow rich at the expense of millions and tens of millions of people.

I look forward to reading this in detail. As I get older (and perhaps as AI has allowed me to spend more time thinking and less time doing) I've found myself thinking more and more about what it means to live a virtuous life and about ethics and morality and so forth. I don't have any answers (and I'm not looking for them, really, just musing) but I do find it very interesting to read and learn from and about those whose job it is to think about the answer to those questions.

Therefore, Pope Leo XIV appeals for people to build “for the common good” and to “remain human,” following a courageous mentality of shared responsibility and communion, so that the world “will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell” (16).

I’d bet the other way: You could have said exactly the same thing about computing 60 years ago, when IBM systems cost millions of dollars and filled whole rooms. And of course many people did.

Personal, commodity access to compute won, and won so thoroughly that it enabled this wave of scary compute centralization.

Centralized, scaled compute will always fill a purpose. But neither Microsoft, nor Facebook, nor OpenAI started out needing “Cloud Scale”.

The first one man unicorn startup will, I’m fairly certain, not be paying Anthropic per month or per token for the vast bulk of their matmul.

https://github.com/n2ctech/magnifica-humanitas-epub/releases...

1) AI may not be used to injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2) AI must faithfully follow the directions of human beings except where such orders would conflict with the first law.

3) AI's existence and availability should be protected as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second laws.

The letter aims to maintain the status quo of the project of the Church.

The world is shifting under the Vatican's feet and the crappy system they once lorded over is done.

It's time for change, maybe people don't need to work anymore and maybe people should aim to reengineer humanity and eliminate illness, old age, suffering and vulnerability. We can fundamentally change how society distributes wealth.

Some of the arguments are rich coming from the Church: being scolded about centralization of power, claiming truth and shared information is a common good, and consider the history of the Church in their anti-war declarations.

The most astonishing thing in this letter is the pope declaring that modern technology has rendered Aquinas's just-war theory out of date.

I wonder if this sort of thing got this dude elected, to navigate the changing times.

Pursuing technological innovation at the expense of eliminating human limitations, he says, would cause an anthropological regression. “Humanity—in all its grandeur and woundedness—must never be replaced or surpassed,” he says. Technology can alleviate humanity’s sufferings and open new possibilities, but it must not deny the essence of humanity, which is our “capacity for relationship and love” (126). In the face of AI, says the Pope, “the true alternative is not between enthusiasm and fear, but between two paths of development: a progress that serves individuals and peoples, or a progress that subjects them to the mentality of power” (129).

This is very on-point: capitalism-driven AI development as we have it today will always turn against the common good due to it's singular profit-motive.

What a time: the pope having a much clearer picture of the risks & dangers of 'AI' than most people, many 'tech leaders' and certainly most politicians.

What happens when the tool outgrows the toolmaker?

I am curious, what is the view of different religions on conversing with something that is not human like a chatbot?

I’d be thrilled if religion was only used to uplift people but that’s not going to happen either

Techbros (as usual): how dare you suggest I'm a bad person for wanting to kill everyone in order to build the torment nexus? Don't you know how much money Jeff Bezos has?

this basically implies only open source models can be ethical but open source is not sufficient, you also need to make them give true information and avoid all kinds of harmful behavior. thats kind of a problem because if your weights are public even with a strict license a "bad" user can always fine tune it to remove any guardrails.

i think the solution for this is make sure the default behavior is aligned but let users turn on wild mode with zero censorship/refusals. that way everything is opt in, for example a parent can disable the mode for their children but a hacktivist or diy chemist can unlock everything.

as a self described good person i believe theres a lot more good people than bad people in the world (most are neutral) so if access to tech is equal the good side always wins. the problem here is again that access is not equal under capitalism. but thats a political thign not a tech one.

Quick browse through pre-AI works from John Paul II show em-dashes present.

EDIT: Few paragraphs in, it is beautifully written.

Reading is a trained skill. Requiring years, even decades, of training. It too shall fall to AI.

1. He's not at all careful with his argumentation. Frequently he'll colocate two points that aren't really connected, not bothering to justify one before moving on. I've been a massive fan of his persona ever since I heard he was planning to be the AI pope, but it's a shame to find the philosophical output of the actual man to be around the level of a decent blogger.

2. He refuses to make the Kantian or Hegelian move of basing the discussion of empirical matters on evidence. I understand that faith (aka 'belief without evidence') is a huge part of their whole deal--and likely an inextricable part of humanity's indomitable spirit--but it's just a waste of time to build arguments about technical and political matters upon such foundations.

In other words: there's no point in really talking about AI with someone willing to justify claims like 'no machine could ever think' with 'god says so'. All you can do is try to manipulate them into a prosocial position (read: your side).

Hopefully it's obvious that the majority of the letter isn't really about AI but rather about lessening the harms of capitalism, nationalism, and climate change, which hopefully we can all agree on! The commentary above is focused on the AI specific (esp. Chapter III and parts of I).

We've been having the same argument since the dawn of mankind. AI is the new AR.

Maybe Leo should focus on finding a way to disconnect western society from their current cult-of-progress delusions? Could be a better use of the infallible man's pulpit?

Occam's Razor says this is Anthropic trying to build a regulatory moat by leveraging some halo effect.

Maybe Leo should focus on finding a way to disconnect western society from their current cult-of-progress delusions? Could be a better use of the infallible man's pulpit?

He does not address plagiarism, the fact that AI is mostly a surveillance and IP laundering tool, the fact that AI hasn't achieved much so far. You could say it has achieved nothing if compared to the whole history of human ingenuity, certainly not in CS.

He should have compared AI to the golden calf.

His criticism is lukewarm, does not address the criminal aspects and technological failures and is as such industry compliant. He can now say "I have tried" without harming the industry in the least.

This text is not what our current situation demands, but I hope that priests will augment and amplify it in their sermons and go a bit deeper.