Pope Leo XIV's Encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas' Addresses AI and Human Dignity

Pope Leo XIV's new encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas' goes beyond religious doctrine to offer a humanistic critique of the digital age and artificial intelligence. Drawing parallels to Leo XIII's 'Rerum Novarum' during the industrial revolution, the document warns against reducing humans to data and algorithmic functions under digital capitalism. It acknowledges AI's benefits in medicine, research, and education but questions who controls technological power and in whose interest. The encyclical was presented at a conference featuring Cardinal Victor Manuel Fernández, who wrote the introduction, and Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, alongside references to philosopher Amanda Askell, who contributed to defining the 'soul' of Anthropic's AI Claude. The text criticizes the libertarian ideologies of figures like Peter Thiel and the transhumanist dream of algorithm-governed societies. It introduces the concept of 'algorithmic trust' and argues that cultural institutions must preserve critical thinking, slowness, and divergent imagination against algorithmic homogenization. The encyclical is seen as a rare global institutional attempt to formulate a humanistic theory of the digital, relevant to artists, educators, entrepreneurs, and policymakers.