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As the AI backlash continues to grow, critics of the tech have found an unlikely voice of support: the Catholic Church.
In perhaps his strongest rebuke of the tech industry’s rampant obsession with AI yet, Pope Leo called for the tech to be “disarmed” in his first encyclical, which is a special letter sent to bishops to outline the Catholic Church’s perspective on a topic.
“The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention,” the Pope said in an accompanying statement.
In his letter, titled “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” the bishop of Rome did not beat around the bush. Despite being a “valuable tool,” Pope Leo slammed AI as “merely” imitating “certain functions of human intelligence,” contradicting tech leaders’ claims that AI might be gaining sentience or consciousness.
“So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean,” the document reads.
The pope went as far as to warn of parallels between tech and slavery, warning of “new digital slaveries” that normalize the exploitation of those tasked with labeling data for AI models or moderating content on social media.
“The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly,” the letter reads.
In his letter, the Pope also criticized the use of AI in war, writing that “no algorithm can make war morally acceptable.”
Therefore, Pope Leo called to “disarm” AI to prevent it from “dominating humanity,” as well as “freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate.”
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