Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical Magnifica Humanitas presents a comprehensive Catholic anthropological framework for understanding artificial intelligence, emphasizing that AI systems merely imitate human intelligence functions without possessing consciousness, interior life, or genuine understanding, and calls for a 'theology of communion in history' that applies Catholic social teaching principles like subsidiarity, solidarity, and the common destination of goods to guide technological development toward human flourishing rather than mere efficiency or profit.
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Newer Things: Making Sense of Pope Leo's First EncyclicalAdded:
Hey, welcome to everybody. Um, thanks for being with us here at Newer Things.
Um, if you were in the waiting room, you just listened to some music by uh Cloudy Cloudy Hart, which is actually an AI musician created by the artist John Rafman. Um, so as somebody was saying before we got started here, uh, what a time to be alive. Um, thank you for joining. Um, we've got four special guests today, uh, that all spent a good part of their Memorial Day reading a a long papal encyclical, uh, as did I. And we're excited to, you know, give you, um, our our first impressions and and thoughts, having sat in it now for a night. I didn't get much sleep last night. I know some of our panelists didn't either. Um this is obviously just a taste um a beginning of something that will require a lot of shared discernment and conversation over many months and and many many years. Um before I introduce the panelists, I just want to give a a very very kind of high level introduction to uh Pope Leo the 14th cyclical magnifica humanitas. We've got hundreds of people that registered to be with us today from all around the world on this webinar. uh some of you are Catholic. I know many of you are not and even among uh the Catholics all of us the panelists happen to be but even among Catholics there's I know a wide range of um how closely one follows um encyclicals and uh certainly wouldn't have expected all of you to have read them but you know what is an encyclical first of all that we're going to be talking about today uh it is part of the uh magisterial corpus the the the teaching function of the papacy And this one is considered part of the um part of the magisterial teaching on social doctrine. And that is really thought to have started with Pope Leo I 13th when he published Rarum Novarum in 1891, 135 years ago when he was addressing all of the many many societal disruptions and changes all of the new things that had come about um after the upheaval of the industrial revolution. There have been many many social encyclicals since that time and Pope Leo the 14th is Pope Leo the 14th is is very much in that tradition of social encyclicals. Um many words um have come ideas have come out of papal encyclical like the idea of the just wage uh solidarity subsidiarity uh the common destination of goods.
These have all been developed over more than a century now. And if you've had the chance to read uh any part of Magnifica Humanitas, you'll notice that the Pope does, I think, a some people might think it's boring, but I think it's necessary and incredibly important that he he spends the first third of the encyclical laying the groundwork about what Catholic social doctrine and teaching actually is before he really gets into addressing uh the the newer things um like artificial intelligence in the third chapter of the encyclical.
Um, in terms of the authority of the encyclical, if you're a Catholic, it requires the religious submission of intellect and will. Um, if you're not a Catholic, it is something to grapple with, uh, seriously at the moral level, right? So, it's written to the bishops of of the world, but also to all people of goodwill. Um, and within a single encyclical like this one, um, if you pay attention to the phrasing, there are varying sort of levels of authority that the pope is invoking when he makes particular statements. Um, in some cases when he's reaffirming serious doctrines like the dignity of human life created in the image of God, the right to life from conception of natural death, um he is uh invoking very strong um language um because this is uh established doctrine that he is reaffirming. And in other cases he uh for instance when he says something like I'm very fond of the phrase dis uh the phrase disarm um you know he's saying I like this phrase and this is an interpretive key that we can use to understand an approach to language and artificial intelligence. Uh and in many parts I think most parts of the sections that are dealing with specific things going on in the world today he's very cautious and he applies what we call prudential judgment to these things. And that means that all of us, all people, not just Catholics, are invited into a shared uh process of discernment um over a period of time uh to make sense of of where to go from here and what to build. Um I I made it through the whole thing. Um I I spent about 8 hours yesterday uh annotating it very carefully in a Google document. Um, I didn't get much sleep, so I'm tired, so forgive me um if I stumble a little bit. But it was hard to even find um a single passage to highlight here in my opening remarks um before I turn it over. But I think uh after wrestling with it for a while, um there's there's a couple of things I want to say. One is I think this is fundamentally an anthropological encyclical, right? Is about the human person more than it's about AI or any particular technology.
And I noticed that the pope used the word imagination many many times in this encyclical. Um the collective imagination he says at at numerous points. So because this is an encyclical about what is the human person? It's a good time to to revisit that that fundamental question of what does it mean to be human? What is the fullness of life? Um, and I think he's I think he's worried about the way that the new things are actually forming the imagination of what the human person is and what distinguishes the human person from um from from various things that are that are not human. And uh I think he's worried that there's been kind of a blurring of the lines there. So he uses the word imagination a lot and he's trying to help form what I would call our moral imagination uh through this letter, this encyclical. One of the most beautiful passages in the whole thing is when he talks about uh transhumanism and posthumanism and calls to mind, you know, that the the Christian actually uh is is called to participate in the divine life. and he uses a phrase from Pope Francis um along the lines of I don't have it in front of me but basically uh to to to be fully human or to become fully human means to become more than human to to participate in the life of grace. Um the fullness of life like what does abundant life even mean?
And that's a question that we should all grapple with. Uh this is the first virtual event that the the Clooney Institute has has ever done. Um, we normally uh are known for convening in-person real life events that bring together what we like to call Athens, Jerusalem, and Silicon Valley, which is intellectual world uh religious wisdom with people that are actually building real things. So, we've tried our best to recreate that spirit here on this call.
Um, but we are going to be hosting a gathering to continue this conversation in Napa, California in the Bay Area this summer in July. Um, and by the end of the call, we'll share some information on how you can all join um because this will this will be a process that takes many many years to to fully understand where we're going and what it is we are to build. And on that note, before I turn it over to uh Sor Rob um our first speaker, um the passage that I'll read which the Pope himself uses to frame up the entire encyclical is biblical imagery. And he writes, "The biblical image accompanying these reflections is that of a building project.
On the one hand, he says, there is the tower of Babel where collective effort follows a plan that dominates and ultimately dehumanizes.
On the other hand, there are the ruins of Jerusalem which under Nehemiah's direction are rebuilt piece by piece as a project of shared responsibility.
What what we are called on is to reflect on which of the great construction sites of our era we should be in and to ask the question, what exactly are we building? What are we building? before we just set about building things um and calling it progress. So this again is coming back to the human person and one of the differences in the tower of babel you remember right it's very homogeneous there's one language one city one people and one project and the pope seems alarmed that AI could be leading us toward a new kind of tower of babel if we don't first stop and reflect about how to work together in this shared process of discernment. So hopefully I've I've set the stage a little bit for what this encyclical is and the the spirit with which we're approaching it. Um I'm very excited to have um four guests that I've invited that I I know can speak very well to um what they've seen so far um based on their own diverse backgrounds and and interests um ranging from you know academics, intellectuals to Will who's in Silicon Valley um building really cool technology right now. Uh and our first speaker uh is Sorab Omari who is the US editor of Unheard. He is a founding editor of Compact magazine uh the author of several books including Tyranny Inc. and the unbroken thread and he has a new book coming out um by Harper Collins on the triumph of normal and just I think with even within the last hour published a great uh essay in unheard which I encourage everyone to read. So, so Rob, uh, welcome. Thanks so much for being here. Um, what what are your thoughts on this encyclical?
>> Yeah, thank you for having me. And I too have to sort of apologize if I am I I described myself online as a little mentally woozy because I tried to read the whole thing beginning yesterday. I didn't go out to get like an embargoed early copy, but I had to write something on deadline today. So, um, most of Memorial Day and then much of like overnight was spent reading and and outlining it for myself and then writing the essay. So, forgive me if I do stumble. Um, you know, I'll go by the outline that that we we shared as the speakers early on, which is to to first of all start with just a favorite passage. Um, my favorite passage, I'm going to cheat. I'm going to do a favor passage and then make a larger point about why I, you know, obviously I'm very grateful for this uh for this uh encyclical from the Holy Father. Um, and they're not for the same reason or the same thing. But my favorite immediate passage um comes around the same place as you already alluded to, Luke, which is um when the Holy Father's talking about the possibilities of of dehumanization and anti-human and posthuman and transhuman ideologies that could be accelerated by by AI if it is not if we don't socially reflect on what we want out of this technology. And it's and it's and it's this. He's talking about the the importance of error in human life. He says, quote, "A technology that merely classifies and optimizes what already exists can become an obstacle to change or growth. For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected. For a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change." Um, and that's something obviously that that that deeply um that resonates with me. I I you know I definitely have I've become um a user of AI in my professional life. I really am like religious about instructing my claude never to generate pros. But as someone who writes books, it's it's an incredibly useful tool for organizing whom I interviewed, whom I still need to interview. Transcription becomes much easier. It means that I frankly in some ways it's bad because it means I don't need to hire like undergrads to be my research assistants on my books anymore.
Lots of that kind of drudgery that goes into bookw writing gets um it gets done and kind of better you know than than a human could do it. But I also know and I know from experience that like little imperfections in my thinking as a writer, little mistakes in whom I meant to connect and I was late to the call and then I owe them something. Let's say like I w I scheduled a meeting with a source by phone and I then messed it up and I didn't come on time. I subsequently because I feel guilty as a human being will say, "You know what?
We're going to reschedule it, but let's do it over a steak dinner and my treat that conversation will inevitably more much be professionally speaking will be much more meaningful than the one that was cold and, you know, sober over a over over Zoom, per se." And so that's what I what I think he's getting at is that those little lapses, those accidents of life, etc., those those which are really symptoms of our of our limitations as human beings often unlock new connections, new insights, new friendships, new um um understandings, new wisdom. And there is a risk in a world where my personal AI assistant can regulate everything, correct everything, schedule everything perfectly of missing out on what comes out of error, what comes out of what the Freudians call paraprais. You know, those little slips of the tongue, forgotten appointments, etc., etc., can reveal something about you to yourself. And this technology can really there's a risk of it eliminating all of that um in a way that's that ultimately diminishes us even as on paper it looks like productivity gains or efficiency gains. So that's my favorite passage. I have a larger point about the structure of the encyclical um which you know I don't I don't want to hog my time so I'll just be very quick but you know I think that ultimately this is only incidentally about artificial intelligence and automation that what the holy father is doing is he is renewing um political universalism and by that I mean just well actually I'll use his definition of universalism which he he borrows from um John Paul II, he quotes John Paul II um and what he means by it, give me one second. um is uh this idea that that there is a universal truth quote a universal truth about the good knowable by human reason.
Um and that we can achain it collectively through political participation, through democratic contestation, through person-toperson dialogue. um that's been under attack from various irrationalisms. I would consider a certain kind of market and tech fundamentalism as one form of irrationalism. But also, of course, you have irrational religion, really, really pinched forms of nationalism and populism that all call into question universalism. And I think what the pope is doing is he's saying no there is this resource of universalism amid the ruins of the 20th century's great kind of uh uh secular universalist projects that are now in some ways run ground you know liberalism freudian psychoanalysis Marxism these the grand narratives have all kind of run around the modern grand narratives but there is this older mode of universalism which the church preserves curves which is based on this blend of revelation and reason of Athens and Jerusalem as you mentioned um which can aid us and at the same time because by its very nature is open to those projects of modern universalist emancipation can actually help renew them and I so that's like the to me is the more structural point about why this encyclical is valuable. I'll stop there, but I look forward to unpacking more with with the other panelists and the people who are attending and thank you for coming to the seminar.
You're muted. Uh thanks so much. So, Rob, um, yeah, I, uh, I appreciate that and I, I look forward to, I've got some specific questions I want to ask about some of the politics of this and the way that some of the hot takes yesterday fell pretty neatly along certain lines, and I appreciated your tweet, uh, urging people to simply, uh, stop paying attention to those things and to try their best to just make it through the text itself.
>> Yeah, I I didn't adhere to my own advice, though.
>> Either Either did I. Either did I. And you know some people are quite alarmed by the encyclical um and I I think we we should sort of address that. I I had a a good friend of mine uh write and and say, you know, it seems like the pope is sort of um you know, challenging the the old notion of private property and that it's this is subordinated to the common destination of goods and he's including data and IP in that and he seems to be implying that, you know, the state should be able to, you know, sort of seize uh data and things like that. And so there are people that are quite alarmed and I I think later in the conversation I would like to to come back and just sort of address like is that justified or not. Um and I I didn't do my full job in the introduction. I I forgot to say the run of show today. Um so before I move on to Victoria for those listening, we're going to go about an hour in conversation with with uh the four panelists here. Uh in the meantime, if you have questions, comments, thoughts, please put them in the chat.
Uh at the end of roughly the first hour, um my colleague Jordan Castro will pick um some good questions to to ask the group and we'll go about another half hour taking an audience Q&A. Um I always forget that part. Um thanks for bearing with me. I I told you that I was tired.
Um well, thanks again, Sorab. And now I'd like to introduce Victoria Trumbull who will be joining us in uh Napa at the Zoey conference uh in the in the flesh.
So I look forward to seeing you there this summer, Victoria. Um but in the meantime, I I know that you've um you you have a lot to contribute. One of the things that my my friends in Silicon Valley um specifically were concerned about is are some of the things that the encyclical said about consciousness uh and the mind and the memory and some of the claims that it made about the human person. Um and you are very well qualified to to speak to that. So um you're welcome to remark on anything you want about the encyclical, but I think that's something that's on a lot of people's minds right now. Um, so for those uh listening, Victoria Trumbull is a philosopher and writer who earned her doctorate from the University of Oxford and her work is focused on the human person, consciousness, memory, and time.
Her first book, which is called On the Memory of the Soul, will be published by Bloomsbury uh in October of this year.
So, Victoria, >> yeah, thank you so much. I mean, I really think you're absolutely right that this is an encyclical about uh humanity and what is the human person and I think it's alarming in a way how um how much we've lost sight of that question. And I guess after so many decades of being told your mind is just your brain, your brain is just a computer. And to even have the highest academic circles and philosophers basically say, well, thought is just a series of computations and there's nothing there's nothing special to having a mind. I mean, all of those um ideas at the academic level and at the institutional level and the metaphysical level and really sort of the the supplanting or the substitution of the philosopher by the scientist which happened in the latter half of the 20th century. I think that really has contributed to this state of being genuinely confused um about what the nature of our humanity is. And I think it's also interesting what Sora mentioned that a lot of this appears to be operating just within the field of natural philosophy of natural reason. I think most people feel a kind of instinctual reaction against this AI technology. I mean you just can superficially look at comment sections when uh these kinds of interviews with Sam Holman or people like that. I mean it's very it's a very select group of people who I think are really really pro uh this cybernetic uh cyborg vision of the future of humanity and most ordinary people are saying well hold on wait a minute when did we you know when did we ask for this technology and so I think a lot of people now are starting to realize that um there is some distinction between the human being and the machine and this is really such a beautiful work uh just being very clear about yes, there is that distinction and we're all capable of discerning that and we're capable also of defending that as well. I really loved the line we have a duty to remain profoundly human. I think that's just so beautiful. And um the passages my favorite passages were in number chapter I guess paragraph number 99 to 100 um when uh the pope says it's not possible to provide a single compreh comprehensive definition of an AI but what can be stated is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of intelligence with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence.
In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity. Yet, this power remains entirely tied to data processing.
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. They may imitate language, behavior, and analytical skills or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce. For they lack the effective relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. And that to me was really um really shocking just that there's there's this proclamation and this declaration that these systems are not conscious. U an algorithm is not the same thing as being a human person.
And uh to me it's really it's really just an an offering of restoring a theological and philosophical anthropology and recognizing that what we've been undergoing and why we've ended up in this position is because there's been a crisis in philosophical anthropology. Philosophical anthropology has seemingly been ignored. There's no space in the culture for articulating what a human being is. And now hopefully that space will be opening up again.
Thanks so much, Victoria. Um, that passage struck me as as well and especially the phrase from within. And I want to kind of come back to you and ask you what you think that means a little bit later if we have time. Um, and you know, the the physician and philosopher Leon Cass coined this phrase, the wisdom of repugnance, which I think is is a is a good one to keep in mind, right? I think all of us listening and all of us talking here have experienced repugnance at something that has happened uh in the technological world in the last year whatever it may be and it's important to sort of probe why like why is it repugnant to us when we experience something like that >> and I will just say one last thing too which if we do have time to talk about it um is that the restoration of the will in this picture to me was really interesting and bringing in Augustine as well in this encyclical I think that this idea that we are the mind to be a human person is just to have intellect or just to have intelligence is really denounced here and this idea that actually creativity imagination as you mentioned Luke but also willing and love these are other essential aspects or dimensions of humanity that we've seem to have forgotten or have ignored >> totally and you know I noticed that you know John Paul II in his writing and in his encyclical italicized a lot of words he's sort of famous for it atalicizing a lot of words to the point where you you weren't really sure which ones were actually important. And um in this encyclical he Pope Leo the 14th does not use italics a lot. Um but one of the words that was italicized was the word agency uh somewhere near the the latter half of the encyclical. Um and so I'd like to talk about that a little bit today uh as well um if we have time because you know agency has been sort of thinned out. Um it's often used as a substitute for the more traditional word will. And the pope seems to be saying that agency is something profoundly relational and not individual. And before we move on to Joshua, um will I think you had a little point to make here. So let me turn it over to you.
>> Yeah, I just wanted to drop in an interesting anecdote. Um you know, I'm here living in San Francisco last night.
I attended um a reading group um primarily comprised of AI safety researchers, kind of rationalist type, suspective altruists um discussing this um and uh interestingly enough 99 paragraph 99 was maybe the most controversial paragraph for them. It was the one that actually annoyed them, many of them the most. They were kind of, you know, how could you say that it can't feel reason? How could you say it can't feel emotion? Um and so I think this is an interesting maybe ahead kind of battle line or of sorts to be drawn through and I think this is definitely probably one of the core tensions between um maybe yeah you know San Francisco um and uh and the Vatican. in Spanish month today.
>> Yeah. Highlight that. This was a that was a topic that I heard heard discussed many many times last night.
>> Will why don't why don't we since since you're already on, why don't we just turn turn it over to you now? Actually, since you you were at this event in San Francisco before we we go to Josh. Um you're an Irish engineer based in in SF.
You're the co-founder and president of Ulyses Marine Technologies, which builds autonomous underwater drones. You could tell us a little bit more if you would like. um you raised a $38 million series A I think just last month. Um and you're you're in the midst of it. You're you're like in Silicon Valley. You're talking to people and you've really got your finger on the pulse of what's going on there. So te tell us a bit more from your perspective as a builder. Um what you what you made of this encyclical.
>> Yeah, sure. It's um you know, reporting from the ground here in San Francisco, it is an interesting um time um to be here right now. It it definitely feels like a boom town. Um it definitely feels a little bit like the stories uh you know that I would have heard of what it was like what it was like to be here in the dot um era. Um you know you have you meet you meet someone one week and then you might meet them you know 3 months later uh six month nine months later and they run a billion dollar company and you met them when they were sleeping on a friend's couch. It's it's really really uh an interesting time to be here. Um and uh and and you know of course it's like an interesting time to be here as a Catholic as well. uh there's a you know a broader kind of spiritual awakening I think going on across America uh and it's definitely something that we're feeling on the ground here as well church attendance all those sorts of things going up um but yeah so this is interesting to see my entire timeline you know everyone always talking about AI and and yesterday you know the pope kind of featuring so prominently um yeah a bit you know uh I run this company called Ulyses we build autonomous underwater drones they're used uh across the world from groups as varied as the Great Barrier Reef Foundation to uh you know help restore ecosystems to uh the US Navy for for kind of military operations. Um and yeah, delighted to be here and kind of report as someone who's kind of on the ground here uh in in in somewhere San San Francisco. So I suppose you know if I had to kind of pull out the thing that you know the things I'm grateful for and the and the the kind of passages that stuck out the most for me. I mean one one kind of thing I'm I'm very happy about is the depth that this is bringing to the AI uh debate. Um, in my opinion, the AI debate here in in kind of San Francisco has been reasonably flat so far. It's kind of just been this like AI doomer versus this AI optimist. Um, you know, acceleration versus risk, go slower versus go faster. Um, and everyone weighing in on it kind of has skin in the game. They run a lab, they invest in the lab, they're trying to win an election, they're trying to stop a data center in a district. Um, the Pope doesn't. uh he you know is very explicit in in kind of advocating that he's you know really grounded in um the the common good here. So it's it's I think it's you know a great gift to humanity that we have this institution you know with a 2000year plus kind of track record of kind of weighing in on topics relating to the human condition here um that really doesn't have any skin in the game that can kind of guide us um at this kind of moment in time. uh you know obviously there's been many his call backs to raram but you know in that in that instance the the pope um pope Leo walked into a similarly flat debate capital versus labor um you know Marxism versus kind of you know unconstrained capitalism and refused the binary and introduced a kind of nuance that neither side was offering and my hope is that Magnifica humanitas does the same for the AI um and you know replacing capital versus labor with optimist versus dumor um and uh and and we can get there Um, in terms of, you know, the kind of specific call out within uh this this piece um that that kind of like stood out most to me is the uh Pope's call for people to think deeply about what they build, not just to kind of, you know, go forth and and build. You know, there's this um famous moniker in in San Francisco by Y Combinator, the the kind of world's leading startup accelerator, and you know, their their kind of um mantra that they they they chant all day long is build something people want, right? build something people want. It's all about just building something people want. AB test, AB test, and you know, if people like it, you know, just keep going. And uh I I think that that's something I've always had a, you know, a major gripe with. Um that, you know, you just build something people want. You don't think deeply about why you're building it and and the outcomes of what happens if you're correct. And you know the pope accurately calls out in this that you know now more than ever um private companies have a kind of greater responsibility in this moment of time due to the kind of power at things power at their disposal. Um you know the specific passage I'm referring to here paragraph 90 is we're called to reflect on the great construction sites of our era and ask what are we building? As technological development rapidly transforms languages, relationships, institutions, and forms of power, we believers must and can choose which projects to work on and in what manner so as to safeguard and value the grander of humanity that has been given to us as a gift. Um, so at this moment in time, as it's become easier than ever to build, you know, a very successful company, um, the the kind of tools at your disposal today, as Sorb was claimed, you know, you don't need the undergraduate, you know, re researcher anymore. you know, this this kind of thing is this is just expanding, right?
You don't need the interns anymore. You don't need this anymore. The the the it is now, you know, we will likely see in the next well, we've already seen actually the first oneperson billion dollar company. Um likely the open cloud, which is an AI agent acquired by OpenAI last year. So as building has become radically cheaper and easier um thinking it still has not that is still the kind of the the the the thing that hasn't been that that you that that that the returns to wisdom um and and critical thinking have gone gone up enormously. Um and this is you know something I think as builders people on the ground we we we have to remember like not to underinvest in. Um, so I think that that was, you know, a particular call out that that I particularly enjoyed um, seeing seeing called out cuz, you know, it's something I've seen here on the ground, people kind of just building for the sake of building for so long. Um, and now, you know, it's more important than ever that we think think deeply about what what to build. Um, so yeah, that's that's the the kind of um the the part of part of the conversation I'm most excited to see fleshed out and hopefully distilled into kind of people on the ground here.
>> Yeah, thanks so much, Will. I it's music to my ears that you were you cited the the line like build what people want, build what people want because there's a really Gerardian uh sort of aspect to that where like people don't know what they want, right? Um, and that that just makes like entrepreneurship a relatively boring zero sum game if you're just meeting market demand. And the the one of the roles of a entrepreneur, CEO or leader is to create culture and to actually help to shape desires um to literally help help point towards what what is worth wanting, what is worthy of building. And you know, I think the Pope captured that in his, you know, our hearts are restless until they rest in you. What is the the end of desire, right? Um, well, thanks so much, Will.
And I I also I think I'd love to ask you later about how this becomes not just an encyclical that people in Silicon Valley can ignore, but how it's operationalized in such a way that it makes its way into the actual building of products in a way that we can measure and and and and see tangible results. Um our last speaker is Joshua Hulshield who's a professor of philosophy at Mount St. Mary's University where he served as the inaugural dean of the college of liberal arts. He's a specialist in medieval logic and the Catholic intellectual tradition and the co-author of a mind at peace, reclaiming an ordered soul in the age of distraction. Uh, and I know he was just in DC where I am relatively recently talking about AI and education and a good part of this encyclical was dedicated to education. Um, so I'm interested to see if if we have time to explore that too because as a few of us are parts of universities and that's very much a topic of conversation among the faculty. But Josh um what what did you think about this encyclical?
>> Yeah, thank you Luke and thanks for having me as part of this discussion.
There's so much to talk about. Um it's a rich document and um I almost thought that I would choose as my favorite passages um a paragraph or two from the section on education. And there's almost a manifestation there for education in the age of AI. Um there there's things that interest me that aren't necessarily my specialty. Like I think the Pope proposes some uh development of just war theory. I don't read his comment as a rejection of just war theory, but as a as a claim that it needs to be updated and he and he makes some concrete proposals there. I could have talked about that. Um, I I also was attracted to that passage about um whether uh machines can think. Um, I love that he makes a strong metaphysical claim, but it's it's interesting to me that he doesn't make metaphysical arguments for that. So, I'm not surprised that um Will's friends in San Francisco are frustrated and and uh I I don't think it's because he can't or doesn't know that there are some, but I think he must have judged that this this wasn't the place to get into the weeds of a metaphysical argument about the nature of the human soul. Um as a philosopher and as a tomist, I could have found that very frustrating. Um there's there's a there's a um a strong strain of tomisism in the history of the development of of Catholic social teaching starting with Leo of course. Um and there are a lot of claims in the encyclical that are not so much defended or that that are not theoretically backed up. Um in fact I don't find that frustrating. Um I I found it a really lovely read and I I felt like the voice of the pope was teaching me something about how he wanted the text to be received. Um one of the rich things about the text is that it addresses so many questions on so many different levels and I think that's even evident in the in the commenters who preceded me. So um you know you could say that um Sora was interested in the question what is the pope's political philosophy? I'm simplifying a bit here but in talking about universalism um in the background there's there is a question there about what what kind of uh theory of politics does the pope propose um in behind Victoria's comments of course is the question of you know what what is it to be human um and that the encyclical does offer a philosophical anthropology um not not one that is welldeveloped it's more sketched it's proposed it It invites further conversation. Uh I think that's intentional. Um Will's comment, I think, addresses what was probably leading up to the release of the encyclical, the question on most people's mind, right? What is what is the Pope going to say about AI? And specifically, what advice is he going to give to the tech industry? What is it that the tech industry is not doing or not thinking about that the Pope wants to draw their attention to? And I think the encyclical addresses that. Um what what I found myself most intrigued about was actually the the first third of the encyclical which Luke mentioned uh just seems very basically introductory.
Um I think that one of the questions that the pope wants to address in this encyclical which maybe people would take for granted or think doesn't need to be answered is the question what is Catholic social teaching? uh among people who have studied it. That's actually a very difficult question to answer. And I don't think that the first two chapters which give a history of Catholic social teaching and then a summary of principles of Catholic social teaching. I don't think that's just meant for beginners. I don't think that's just meant to orient people who are new to the conversation. I think I mean I found that it spoke to me and I've written about Catholic social teaching and I've read and reread encyclicals about it and I'm somewhat familiar with debates about whether it is even coherent or not or how continuous it is with with um other parts of the church's teaching. I think the pope is in a sense using those first two chapters at the same time that he's introducing new people. I think he's trying to refound or or uh ratify Catholic social teaching as an essential part of the church's mission. The passage that I want to read is paragraph 27.
Um this is from the first chapter, I think. Um maybe it's the second. In light of what has been said so far, the church's social doctrine can be seen more authentically.
It is not a handbook of principles and norms to be applied but a process of shared discernment. You're mentioning a kind of activity there. It's something it's something that we do. It's not something that we find um in in a text.
It is born from the encounter between the eternal truth of the gospel and the questions of history.
It allows itself to be challenged by the signs of the times and draws nourishment from the contributions of science, culture and human exper experience.
Therefore, when the dignity of our brothers and sisters is violated, when politics fails to address the tragedies of humanity, when the economy turns against the person or science oversteps the limits of its competence, the church together with other Christian denominations and believers of other religions must make her voice heard, not in order to dominate, but to promote communion.
Understood this way, social doctrine becomes a theology of communion in history, a history in which the word made flesh continues to be present through dialogue, memory, and prophecy.
As far as I know, that phrase, a theology of communion in history, which uh if John Paul had used it, he would have it atalicized. Um, as far as I know, that's the first use of that phrase. And I think it's I think it is um a genuine contribution to understanding what Catholic social teaching is and how it makes sense of um the church's role in the world. Um the last thing I'll say too is that I think he's also implicitly addressing the question of what Vatican 2 is about. So there's there's there's a a deep continuing argument in among Catholics about what Vatican 2 is and how to interpret it and what its hermeneutic key is. Um, I think that rather than treat Vatican 2 as part of something that changes the church, I think he treats Vatican 2 as something that brings social teaching to the forefront of the church's mission in the world. I could say more about that, but um I want to defend the first two chapters as an essential and necessary part of the document, not something that could have been edited out for the sake of brevity, but as a crucial part of what um uh Pope Leo is is trying to do and what he's offering the church, a a a conception of the centrality of social teaching for the church's mission.
>> Thanks so much, Josh. Um, I I found myself also really appreciating those first two chapters. Um, not only as a refresher, but I I I was learning a lot as I went along. Um, I I want to just ask the maybe this question is so basic.
Um, but but what would you respond and this is open to anybody on the panel to somebody that called, you know, the pope a lite or or or claimed that this encyclical is anti- progress. Um because there there has been a decent amount of alarm that I've seen online. I mean, what would you say to somebody and this is open now um to to anybody. What would you say to somebody that had that quick take?
I'll I'll jump in on this one um in in part because it's something I uh emphasize in the essay that I just published in Unheard and forgive me for hawking it, but the headline I gave it is is is Pope Leo's unfashionable universalism.
But um to go back to Josh's wonderful remarks briefly as I set this up, uh I I I I do agree that um you know, Pope Leo in this document is putting the Second Vatican Council in conversation with what came before it, specifically Catholic Social Teaching as inaugurated by Leo I 13th.
Um and um both of those trends, both what what emerged in the late 19th century and then in the 1960s with the second Vatican council. I argue in this essay and I hope people will read it because I'm a writer and I do better when I have a chance to shape paragraphs than to like speak in the moment, but I'll try. is um I I argue is this kind of synthesis of uh classical and Christian wisdom specifically classical and Christian philosophical anthropology. What does the Bible and what does the kind of Greco Roman tradition broadly speaking tell us about who we are as human beings and what does that demand on one hand with um kind of a a an analysis of and I would say a partial embrace of an endorsement of modernity and so that is the I think operative mechanism of Catholic social teaching going back to Leo the 13th it um comes to the forefront as Joshua said of the church's mission in the second Vatican council and then it you can see it again reappearing uh in a very distinct and and and special way in this encyclical. So what do I mean by that? So in the late 19th century, the other pope, the older pope Leo Leo the 13th is confronted by the rise of industrial capitalism and of market societies. Market societies are different from just societies that have markets, right? you you can go to someone like um uh uh you know Marx or whatever and you can discern the difference of what he's describing if you disagree with his prescriptions or or Carl Carl Pollani right societ markets have always been a component of societies but in the 19th century commodity production comes along and it begins to demand an autonomy from all the rest of society and the demands of commodity production of produ of producing ing on a mass scale for exchange value begins to reshape the society all around it. And so Pope Leo the 13th observes this and sees a society as the first the famous first paragraph of of Raram Navarum his uh in 1891 encycl in which he inaugurated Catholic social teaching says he's like there is uh uh you know the vast poverty among many and a few an enormous wealth gathered in few hands. He says there is a kind of moral degeneracy that that results from all that. He confronts the downsides of industrial capitalism.
However, crucially, Pope Leo nowhere in Ram Navarum says therefore we should go back to pre-industrial production. Therefore, we should return to the land. Therefore, we should return to feudal relations of production. In this sense, it's it's a it's a kind of an acceptance of modernity as something that we can't go back behind of is is part of Ram Navarum and the entire Catholic and all its progeny rather he says okay there is this inequality there is this there are these problems that have arisen how do we address it well we have this Catholic and Christian anthropology Catholic and classical anthropology that says the human being has dignity.
Therefore, it's uh he's not just a unit in production. He should he or she should be able to make sufficient wages to make ends meet so that he can participate in other societies. He can participate in the family. He can participate in the church. He can participate in the political community.
And if he's emiserated and poor, he can't do that. So, there should be just wages or family wages. And how do we achieve that? Well, the state should guarantee it. but also he endorses labor unions uh calls workman's associations the most important of the associations Leo the 13th says so he embraces these modern means for addressing it and likewise fast forward to 2020 uh uh 2026 Pope Leo repeatedly goes out of his the current Pope Leo goes out of his way to praise AI he says it can liberate us from drudgery repetitive dangerous task arduous task tasks should be automated.
This is goes back to Aristotle.
Aristotle in the opening of of politics says, you know, if if shuttles could weave of their own and and and harper and and harps could play themselves, then masters would have no need of slaves. So the the yearning to liberate ourselves from drudgery is as old as Aristotle and perfectly legitimate in this frame. However, there should also be other guardrails to ensure that you know the logic of AI doesn't become the logic of ordinary human beings when they're dealing with each other at a human level that that the what he calls the logics of efficiency and and profit don't crowd out every other lo possible logic. And so how do we do that? Well, he brings up again associations, labor unions, uh international organizations, this and that. So there's this kind of marriage of a classical and Christian anthropology of what the human being deserves as this kind of a creature, but then this willingness to a accept the good things of technology and then to amilarate the dangerous dimensions through humrum elements of modern political life, political contestation, labor unions, social organizations, etc., etc. And I think this is this is what connects Leotaa 13th to the second Vatican council to this document and makes it clear that this is not a lite document.
And actually I should just very briefly and I'll really truly shut up is Pope Francis in one of his final remarks as a Roman pontiff before he passed away uh praised the the possibilities of AI for for fostering human fraternity improving agriculture medicine etc etc. So this is not a church that you know in encounters technology and says let's go back to preodern social relations. Let's go back to preodern modes of production. Always says great let's see how we can orient it toward the common good through politics through emancipatory movements like labor unions and and and and so on and so forth. So I would answer that to the hypothetical person you raised and I apologize for the long answer but then I will keep my remarks to a minimum going forward.
>> Thanks so Rob. Yeah, I mean there's so much to say on this and you know the word power has not really come up very very much so far in this conversation but um it seems to be a thread that runs through the encyclical in the sense that you know I I I read the holy father as saying you know today in the modern world um you know I actually I've got the text in front of me he's talking about subsidiarity and he said this applies especially in the context of the digital revolution here the highest level is not the state but rather major econom eomic and technological actors that exercise de facto power over the conditions of everyday life. So rather than the state, you've got private companies that can be worth a trillion dollars in a short amount of time. um solopreneur, you know, billionaires that could be made billionaires in the course of a year in some it seems like um if you're right about openclaw will um and he seems to be concerned about the concentration of power in private companies which raises all kinds of I think you know political questions there and there's a real tension and he doesn't give you know political prescriptions and I'm just curious as you know what to what extent do you think that some new political forms might be needed to you know to to to address the questions that this technology is raising about human relationships.
>> I'll I'll say briefly on that or was that a question directed at Will?
>> It's directed to to anybody. It's a open open floor at this point. So yeah, just feel feel free to hop in.
>> I I'll just be brief. There's there's a concept of natural societies that he doesn't he doesn't make explicit in the encyclical but he assumes um it's clear that he believes that there there should be political authorities so that he talks about the state. Um it's clear that he believes uh that the family is something that is natural and needs to be protected. Although um he he calls the family fragile. I don't know if that has um precedent in in um Catholic social teaching and it seems to me to be a contingent historical technological development that we can now think of human beings apart from families. Um and so that's clearly something that he wants to see protected.
Um in in general he he does offer a lot of um practical advice either in the form of um principles that should be applied or suggestions for um policies. Uh many of the sections in the later chapters um end with a list of three or four.
Therefore, we should we should, you know, I want to highlight these these principles or these criteria for choice or these uh necessary requirements for further action. Um, I do think he it's a practical encyclical and he gives a lot of advice about how we can um do those things and yes, he's he's open to change. He knows that the the future of of human society is not clear and it's up to us to make it. It's up to us to build it. But there are there are some non-negotiables that the society that we build has to be good for human beings.
Humans being social. It has to be good for families. Humans organizing groups of families together being political. It has to be it has to be a a society in which political authority can properly both exercise its power but also listen to the church and and take counsel from the church. Um so so I I it's not it's not a kind of all bets are off you know totally open future. Um there there are priorities uh but still a lot of openness to dynamism.
>> Hey Will willer Victoria um I don't know if you had any anything to say specifically about that. Um but it you know I think there's an important point to be made about even the the idea of the just wage is fundamentally about anthropology and the family. Um you know that like the the just or living wage is meant so that people can um not live in the existential angst of not having a stable life or a stable home. You know the pope mentions people uh today he I actually laughed when I read it. He said something like, you know, if somebody has to change jobs two or three times throughout their lives. I mean, I think the actual number is like nine or 10 times. Um, right? There's like a real lack of stability. And the the point that he's making is that, you know, if you are a politician, um, you know, we we need to safeguard the family and the conditions through which um, life thrives. And it's not um, you know, the family is kind of the the the unit of society that we should take into consideration rather than the individual.
Yeah, I thought on the education front there were a lot of interesting suggestions. I think this this idea that there has to be a promotion of the search for truth and um that truth searching and knowledge and learning requires effort and that the fragmentation of attention I mean I think he's very clear that the that the idea that attention is a commodity um and that we don't there's no openness to how these algorithms work and how they sort of mine your attention. I think that's a that I think that's a big critique. And I think he's also really saying that um that there's something fundamentally disordered in that in in in that kind of uh of economic benefit or profit um profiting from fracturing and fragmenting and commoditizing something like attention. And he draws uh and he and he he brings us to meditate on what's happening to children and to young people through this technology and how a sense of uh the real truth or the real um the real that leisure time or those good ideas and nourishing ideas how that has to be reinstated at a fundamental educational level as well. I thought those comments were were really uh interesting and and moving. Also, I think at one point he says the need to cultivate inner freedom or or there's something about our inner freedom that's being actually threatened uh by this technology itself.
Yeah, there's there's so much. I mean, we haven't even got into one of the main topics of the encyclical, which was a whole section uh on the normalization of war um and violence and conflict in the world. And that kind of went handinhand with um AI being applied to weapons and so on and so forth and autonomous autonomous weapons uh and accountability. He links it directly with transparency in supply chains and transparency in the loops which lead to actions that can may or may not be taken completely by AI. Um I know Palanteer has a philosophy of always having a human in the loop. um some human that is responsible for decisions and has some intentionality over the direction and the things that the AIS are pointed to and the outcome so that at the end of the day if something bad happens um you can't just say it was it happened inside the machine and I I don't have any idea you know how it happened. Um so you know will as one who actually makes autonomous uh uh pro products I mean what what have you heard on the way that this particular question is being grappled with in Silicon Valley?
>> Yeah. Well, I mean, this has been a the the kind of cont the the context of autonomous weapons has been a controversial one for a while now, and it it most recently kind of came to a head when um the DO and Anthropic kind of got in that spat a number of months ago. It was um you know for context you know anthropic were discussing um to you know the an agreement with the department of war um to see their models deployed um on the front lines um and with kind of the war fighter and uh they basically couldn't arrive on a deal. Um the D got agreements done with Google with open air with everyone else but not with Anthropic and and the sticking point was uh around two things. there was around um anthropics didn't want their models to be used for mass surveillance um and they didn't want it used for kind of fully autonomous weapons and um you know in ways I'm kind of sympathetic to the DO side of this uh here you know if you were to uh you know really understand in detail kind of like to a classified level what maybe the uh first maybe few hours of a conflict in Taiwan could look like. I think you'd be more open to uh models being run locally um you know fully autonomously and and having um connections to uh to to uh to the kill chain. Um but anyway I I I I digress. I suppose I can speak to myself, my own kind of um uh thoughts on on how um Hopeio speaks about um war and and kind of technology and and their relationship in this. And um yeah, I mean he he he does he doesn't kind of pull any punches here in this. He he he specifically calls out the uh the kind of just war doctrine as being outdated. Um and uh I think this is like an interesting development. I mean it's not really any surprise to us if we can if we look at like how he's kind of discussed um how he's discussed uh the you know the Iran war in this um context but um yeah I suppose I I would uh I I would maybe I would want to push back in um on this slightly but I suppose within their tradition um you know the just war doctrine so you know Augustine's response to Roman pacifism Aquinus in the Suma um question 40 the Salamancas a school under Victoria and and Suarez has uh you know has been the church's way of disciplining force uh with moral criteria. It's you know the opposite of of kind of real politique. Um the catechism still articulates it in in section 2309. Um and I suppose reading the pope carefully um his criticism is that the doctrine has been used to justify any kind of war. Um which is more of a critique of its abuse um rather than the framework itself. But you know my worry with kind of retiring just war uh doctrine doesn't leave us with pacifism um but rather it leaves us with no Catholic framework at all for legitimate self-defense.
you know, especially in a world where predatory states themselves, structures of sin in the pope's own terms, um are actively building out capabilities aimed at the freedom um of um of the United States, of its allies, and at people the church should should care about. So, in my opinion, that that the choice isn't between peace and force. It's between discipline, force, order of peace and and seeding the field. Um so I think this is an area where I would personally like to see more discussion um with the Vatican, more active discussion um and and and to kind of point to something that you you kind of alluded to earlier and um is like how do we make this you know this you know high level document translated down into like action and and see things that actually happen. I mean one thing I would love to see is I would love to see a paper visit to San Francisco. Um I would love to see a paper visit to San Francisco and dialogue here at you know literally at the labs um with you know companies as well working on things like defense technology going down to Los Angeles visiting the HQs companies like and speaking with folks like um Palunteer um but uh yeah that's that's uh that's one of the things of kind of many things I'd like to see on kind of my maybe my my wish list after I invited the pope to Napa this summer, but I I did not get a response. I'm trying my best, Will. I'm doing doing my best.
>> Yeah.
>> Um >> he can stay on my couch.
>> I I agree. I mean, how how this actually um play plays out in terms of operationalized inside of companies is important. But then, you know, I think we can easily fall into this mindset of like, you know, if the Silicon Valley people, founders and these powerful CEOs don't don't change it, then we're all, you know, don't like it's up to them to make the changes. And the pope very clearly says in this document that there are things that every little person can do to sort of build build this world like Nehemiah which is the example that he uses and not necessarily rely on um you know the the the powerful people building the technologies as if if they don't act then nothing's going to change right that's a very kind of low low agency way to to approach the encyclical it seems like >> and just just as Leo I 13th didn't rely on employers virtue right It it's the question about the the family or living wage in the uh raram navarum and its progeny is not framed as an issue of charity and that's very important. He says it's a matter of justice and when the church says something is a matter of justice. Well, justice is a matter is is a matter of public political justice like the magistrate is responsible for ensuring a living wage. Um, and I think this is um, the church repeatedly says this and a certain kind of uh, pro-corporate libertarian American Catholic keeps like reinterpreting it.
It's like, oh well, you know, I if only like people just exercised virtue. If only uh we were more charitable. And and the the key the important and interesting and I think again it's very uh uh remarkable thing about the the tradition is that it it repeatedly tells us no. you know like it's it it's a it's a question of justice which implicates what the state does because uh obviously you know justice implicates courts it implicates legislatures etc etc um and then it leaves it up to you know in term if it if beyond the state if it thinks about what other forces can bring about this just state then it looks to what look like kind of social and Christian democratic and even socialist elements of contestation. So, you know, the RAM Navarum endorses labor unions. Um, other encyclicals do the same thing even more more um uh strongly. So the idea is that if we're going to have a market system, the the collective power of capital should be met by the collective power of organized the organized working class, not just left up to like because there is this tendency on the American Catholic right and I got to say I'm so sick of it and and this encyclical utterly buries it. utterly buries it, which is like, "Oh, but if we just elevate the right elites and make sure the elites are like care about workers, then you wouldn't need like No, no, no.
Catholic social teaching is not about that. It's like minimum wages, labor unions, social insurance, and in the case of AI, it doesn't leave it up to to the relatively few owners of capital."
And what's his name? the the Palanteer guy who seems like a scary weirdo to me who's like really really war hungry be like oh well but what if we develop Alex Karp's virtue and bring him into dialogue it's like no the state and the UN are going to regulate you know so I think that's um so see to remove that element of like oh what if we could just leave this up to questions of individual virtue is I think is a betrayal of what Catholic social tradition and this encyclical in particular By underscoring the sort of role of the state and the insufficiency of individual virtue utterly buries that kind of again what what in the in my side of political debate has come to be called right liberal Catholicism where it's like it's oh just like the market is great because it allows people to be charitable and no no I'm sorry we need unions we need regulation and in the case of AI we need a kind of public political contestation >> but I think I would also say It's really important how he reminds us to have hope and I think he also really clarifies what the real dystopian vision is. The real dystopian vision is not the science fiction story that machines are fundamentally going to sort of take over take over all aspects of human life. I mean in the in this plan in this divine plan nothing will be lost that is authentically human. I mean, I think he's really saying that, you know, that this one doomer scenario is not the real doomsday scenario we should be focused on. The real doomsday scenario we should be focused on is this large-scale injustice. And um we have to rebuild a love of wisdom. We have to authentically connect with others and with our communities. We have to cultivate our inner sense of freedom. And I think there is a lot of uh power in that sense granted in this encyclical to the individual to how we live our lives um and to restoring basic activities in in a basic culture of nourishing ideas and cultivating that soil again where people human beings can flourish.
I I thank you so much Victoria and so Rob everybody will Josh I'm going to go um a little late I can stay for 15 minutes if any panelists can that's fine because we have some really really interesting questions from the audience I I was tracking them there's about 350 registrants and one of them that came in said I we asked everybody why do you want to be here and somebody said I'm not sure if this is about Cesaro papism or if it's a call for a butlerian jihad um which of course comes from the Dune novels where there's kind of a rise up against uh technocratic overlords. So, I really want to get to the questions like like that one. Um, and I know Jordan has been looking at the questions as they've been coming in as we're talking, but I want to end before we go to the audience Q&A with one question, I think, specifically for you, Victoria. Um, and bring it all back to anthropology and the human person right now. And it's this question of consciousness and what is consciousness? Um, it seems I think we can agree there's something mysterious about consciousness. There's a huge debate over it. Um companies like Anthropic are talking a lot about uh model care and kind of being sensitive to um you know almost the uh interior life of Claude or of a model. Um, how much do you think we should be kind of concerned about the, you know, the I don't know if thoughts and feelings is the right way to say it, but like the the the care of models? Cuz when I hear that, I'm like, man, I I feel like we need to be we need to be paying a lot of attention to the our own interior lives as as humans. Um, and now I've got, you know, a billion plus like uh models interior lives that I need to be concerned about. Um, so yeah, what to say say a couple of words about consciousness and how seriously we should take these calls.
>> Yeah, I mean another favorite line of mine from paragraph 173. Nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical. I think that understanding um that these technologies are technologies that they are tools. I mean I look at someone like Dennis Hassavis for example who's the CEO and founder of Google Deep Mind and you know when Dennis talks about this technology he thinks of it as you we're building a microscope or we're building a telescope we're building a technological tool and he doesn't think in those kind of science fiction terms where we're creating God or we're creating uh you know a better version of the human mind and I think it's really um it's really amazing to me how the pope very clearly came down on this perspective of saying these things don't have an interior life and we human beings have an interior life right I mean that's what it is to be conscious it's to have memory it's to develop in time it's to have the will it's to have desire it's to have love it's to exist in commun communion it's to feel things to know things it's to be open to the truth I mean there's just these beautiful reminders sprinkled around and and in paragraph 180 you know he says that all of these areas we've just considered the search for truth in public life, education in the digital environment, transformation work, the fragility of families and new forms of slavery. All of these are not isolated phenomena. Rather, they reflect a common underlying issue, namely that if technology becomes the ultimate criterion, the human person risks being reduced to data, a cog in a machine or a commodity. And so I think it's really all about um all about reframing our understanding of the human person and getting away from this vision of the instrumentalization of the person and the mechanization of mind. And I think it was Josh who said that um that he's clearly opening a conversation here, right? I think he wants he wants philosophers and even CEOs, I guess, in the case like the Demis example I just I just gave to come in and and really think through these things and and be clear about them. And let's not go into the science fiction stories. Let's reflect on what it really is to have a human mind, what human creativity really is, and what a manipulation of language or an algorithmic language model is doing. we can be clear about those things and start to form a rigorous metaphysic that can situate us back in the world as we really are.
>> Thanks, Victoria. Um well, that's a great place to end at least our discussion and I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to Jordan now who's been tracking um audience questions.
Um you know, I have been and uh I'm not going to lie, some of these um Oh, you don't need a spotlight me. You can uh anyway, some of these I wanted to like I couldn't copy and paste. I was like, man, they're long and I wanted to like put them in the AI and be like, can you just pull the questions from here? You know what I'm saying? Cuz um uh even Well, never mind. I don't I don't want to disparage the There's a there's a couple of um there's a couple of questions that I thought uh were interesting. Um, one, and I'm going to rephrase them a bit, but one had to do with, um, uh, you know, there's been this discussion about sort of, you know, focus on what to build, you know, and this, this person in the chat says the FIFA World Cup, the European Union, um, uh, all trace a large part of their spiritual lineage back to Rum Navarum.
Yet the Catholics behind them weren't trying to change history in the abstract. They were trying to live the gospel concretely through sport, politics, and business. and to build more just and human institutions. Uh so in light of the encyclical, what is the mandate for the Catholic business person, politician, civic leader and so on today? Um uh yeah, how do you work faithfully within existing institutions while remaining open to creating something genuinely new?
>> Yeah, I think I mean I guess happy to take this one. I mean, I think it's pretty clear what he's what the pope is saying here is like the mandate for for folks that want to um create something new in the world. Um, and many times um throughout this piece, he calls on us to think deeply about um about about what we're building. and uh you know urges us to you know you know the it's pretty distinct and like you know he gives the tower of Babel um versus the kind of the story from Nemiah um and he you know he wants us to to kind of build the city in which God and man can dwell together uh in um so I think it's it's it's it's just simply that it's just asking people you know at this moment in time where you can do anything um and you know really there there does seem to be such great promise um to think deeply about what what you build and why you're doing it um in the first instance and and then to the kind of the second part of that question when you ask you know Gabriel asks how do you work faithfully within existing uh institutions while remaining open to creating something genuinely new here. Um yeah, I I think uh I think the you know the same kind of like uh passage of of logic uh applies here like you can you can bring this logic whether you're working within an existing organization um or or not. Um I think everybody has um the capability to kind of bring bring this teaching into their day-to-day life. It's not just exclusive to folks that are starting starting something new. Um, I think the me real message here is just get to the why in what you're doing and think and think and dwell on that a little bit more.
>> Cool. Thanks. Um, uh, we got to get the clip. You know, we knew this question was coming. Uh, someone asked about the Pope, and there are assumptions baked into this question, but I'm just going to leave them in. Someone asked about the Pope projecting all other corporates corporations as evil and anthropic as the sole good player. Do we need to be worried about it?
>> Yeah, I think this is an interesting one. I kind of ask myself this question as well. Why was it only Chris Ola up there from Anthropic and not others? My intuition would be to say that it's um less nefarious um and less of a projection, more of a anthropic has been probably the most forthcoming in um in engaging with the church. Um going back as far as two years ago, they were engaging with Father Brendan Magcguire um who was an Irish priest and PhD in quantum uh physics. Um he was a priest here in in the Bay Area and they were consulting with him on their um constitution. So there they have been one of the first labs I think to really seriously engage with the kind of theological community and specifically Catholics. So I think it's probably just um down downstream of that they've been pretty proactive whereas other labs maybe maybe less so. So my interpretation of only anthropic being up there would be that um you know that's just a product of how the last kind of few years of the of that lab's engagement has been um and less of a this is the signal um um yeah of something bad or nefarious.
>> Yeah, I I didn't know that background that will just shared, but I'll just say I did not interpret that as something as a fraught symbol. And here maybe I disagree with Luke a little bit, but I just figured it was um it was vaguely symbolic to have somebody there from the tech industry and from AI. Um that it was clear to me that it wasn't an endorsement. Um and that there was some criticism directed at the AI industry in general and even directly at anthropic.
uh you know the the the passages we haven't really talked about but thinking about um ethics in AI as simply putting parameters or constraints on the models uh rather than uh thinking more broadly about who has control of them and and how to democratize and um and and apply the principle of subsidiarity to the uh development and deployment of those models. Um, so yeah, I mean maybe there is some inside baseball that's deep that means that it is uh controversial or or um you know uh concerning that anthropic you know was up there on the stage. Uh in general I didn't even think that the the staging was all that um you know fancy or well thought out. They didn't pick a particularly lovely room to do it in the um it didn't seem particularly ceremonial. It was it was um you know very just sort of straightforward and here's some people and they're all going to weigh in and we have someone from the tech industry here. That's how I interpreted it.
>> One thing I probably said I probably said enough about this so I'm not going to go on my full my my full thing here but I mean it is I I will say this because this connects to Victoria's point. It does seem to me that nobody has used more ambiguous and confusing language when it comes to the distinction between humans and machines than anthropic. Um I think they've really caused some some like confusion about what key things mean. They've really blurred the line. So, like it's somewhat ironic to me that in an encyclical that is trying to establish um and set out a good clear anthropology that that was the only founder that was there. I mean, I've told friends like I wish it would I wish it was zero or like three, you know what I mean? Like, and not and not just one. And I don't think it's nefarious. I don't think there was corruption. I just think it it was either naive or just a maybe a little um imprudent of a move that has quite frankly scandalized good serious Catholics that I know. And I don't think that that was the intention.
>> I think this kind of underscores the the need for like if we were actually to be serious about this encyclical translating into like tangible outcomes.
Um I do think the the Vatican needs to on the back of this um organize a summit or a council of sorts with directly with the labs um and the kind of higherups there to really see this like translated into like what is how the models are getting built etc. Um there has been a few attempts at kind of trying to bridge the gap between Silicon Valley and um Catholic uh church and um AI and there's been a few summits. I would um you know go out on a limb here and say that they've been largely ceremonial and really did not have any of these serious people in AI at them. Um they've just been kind of like nearly ceremonial for for some reason, you know, reason.
they're just kind of, hey, we're going to get together and talk about AI and they don't have the the important people um in the room with them. Um that's I think a real risk in the church that this encyclical will just go and live and and gather dust if they don't actually do meaningful um engagement. Um so yeah, I think that's something that we really need to kind of push for and see after this is like meaningful engagement with industry.
>> I will just say I know we're probably running out. Can I say one thing about anthropic or no?
>> Of course. Yeah. Um, I mean, I think Anthropics definitely marketed themselves as the the humanistic AI and I actually don't, you know, I think that's genuine like they really do genuinely want to have these this safe um, you know, a model that is broadly like ethical and that's why they have Amanda Ascll there um, who's you know guiding the the Clawude responses according to these kind of virtue ethics principles. Um but the problem is while they may position themselves as the humanistic or the philosophical AI company um the kind of philos philosophical view that they have again as I've just said is is broadly speaking ethical let's say it's like well if there's a future scenario where these models uh do become conscious then at least ours is ethical but there's no metaphysical philosophy operative in anthropic at all and if there is any kind of metaphysic as you say Luke um it's extremely confused you know some people add anthropic really, you know, speak about the sort of consciousness of Claude or the potential consciousness of Claude and it's like, well, what does that mean? So, if Anthropic or other companies for that matter want to make an effort to be humanistic, uh, well-rounded and actually have a vision of what exactly it is that they're building and what it's for, then they should maybe have metaphys metaphysicists. Well, >> can can you can you real >> can you real quick just get into like how specifically they're confused? I would imagine that there are like a number of people on this call who don't have a grounding in metaphysics, are not Catholic. Um, and and to them they they it just might not be obvious. And so if you could spell out exactly what you mean in a c >> can I just say I I I would love to hear Victoria's I just want to say one passage from scripture that I think is incredibly important when it comes to the confused metaphysics. And it's the person that approaches Jesus and says, "Good teacher, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" And Jesus's response to that is like, you know, don't call me good. Um, only God is good. Um, and you know, what does anthropic say more than anything else?
Like we want to make this model good, right? It's good. The good. So like what what is what is goodness? Where does it come from? What is its source? Um, that is a that is a question of anthropology.
And I think like I'm simply looking for a clarification. Like we're using language. like language is really important and we need to clarify like what the hell we mean when we're talking like that or we're going to get 10 or 20 20 years down the road and have a very confused uh generation. So I would I would just encourage people to reflect on like what that particular passage in in scripture means and what Jesus is actually trying to say there.
Uh, and I'm, you know, Jordan, I'll try to be brief because I'm conscious that I've spoken a lot, but um, but you know, if you watch an interview, for example, with Amanda Ascll, who's the the the philosopher at Anthropic, um, you know, towards the end of an interview that I watched recently with her, the interviewer is really keen on asking her, "So, so is it conscious? Is it conscious? And what's Claude's perception of time like? And what's Claude's?" And she's she's kind of like, well, no, I don't really think it's conscious, but it'll it'll say it wants to lean towards saying it's conscious, but that's because it doesn't have uh uh you know, that's because it's just taking human language and human data and it's saying um and human experience and so it's repeating the the the experience that human beings have and reporting the same thing and you kind of have to train it to understand that it it's not conscious or whatever or kind of train that out of the system. So even though she herself doesn't think that these models are conscious, yet at the same time she's sitting throughout this whole interview saying how they're designing Claude's personality and you know we're giving Claude a personality and working on the personality of Claude and so it's as you say Luke you know when it's one thing just to um just to uh throw terms around willy-nilly like designing the personality of these models and obviously that's being used in some kind of metaphorical capacity but the problem is that um you know concept conceptual confusions, linguistic confusions or the overuse of metaphor or the overstepping of scientific explanation for example into metaphysical explanation or explanations of what the human mind is or how it works. I mean those linguistic confusions do really permeate and cause deep conceptual confusions. And so you have this epidemic and this phenomenon where people are really quick and really ready to ascribe consciousness to an algorithm um without understanding what an algorithm is or how it works and without understanding very much about consciousness. So I think there's a lot of risk of conceptual confusion and and that clarifying the language is really an important thing and again paragraph 99 I think to have the pope you know just say that these things do not have an interior life and that is a fundamentally flawed uh misconception that's been generated by a sensationalistic account of these technologies and how they work. I think that that's a really profound statement that's going to require a lot of digestion and reflection.
Thanks. Um I know that we are uh basically out of time. I I got a text from uh Santiago Ramos. Shouts out Santi um during this and he said uh I'll just read this. I'm going to treat this like an audience Q&A. He says, "Can someone please defend AI here? this is really one-sided. And um and so uh uh I'm wondering if we could all just say one nice thing. Well, not me, but if you guys could all say one nice thing about AI or like, you know, um um I was thinking about um how I've been enjoying lately on Instagram reels. They have these like AI videos of fruit. Have you guys seen these? And they're like the fruit are like uh like cheating on each other.
They're like these like really kind of they're like uh dramas. Um and I've been really enjoying them. And uh I would imagine I haven't uh read the whole encyclical, but I would imagine that the encyclical has something to say about what that's doing to my soul. Um that uh you know, I'm getting this sort of extreme delight and laughing out loud at these fruits that are kind of acting immorally. Um in any case, that's one thing that I I like about AI. I'm wondering if you guys uh yeah have anything nice to say about AI.
>> Yeah, I I actually I so I I know Ramos and and and consider him a friend. Um but I I actually did offer I it's in the encyclical itself too. Um basically, you know, it's it says that anything that can be automated that is arduous, repetitive or dangerous as far as human tasks go uh should be automated or or we should welcome as automation. And so I have this you I'm writing this book in which I actually come out fairly pro-AI.
It's coming out next year called Triumph of the Normal in which I argue that what's normal for human beings is creativity not drudgery or toil.
And um I have this kind of aristocian case. I already mentioned the Arisilian case. uh at at one point Aristotle who says slavery is a kind of natural condition of some people then goes on to say that actually slavery is a product of scarcity. So as I said if harps could play themselves if we you know if machines could weave you know carpets for us or whatever then masters would have no need of no need of slaves.
That's a famous passage. And then fast forward 19th centuries and Markx in the third volume of capital famously says that humanity will reach quote the true realm of freedom when more and more humans become uh the the sort of the the the the direct human input in the labor process diminishes and in fact it was diminishing already in the 19th century diminished through the 20th century. uh and humans become in his telling more and more the watchman and regulator of the machine and so that that breaks the capital relation actually. So over time people can do other things with their time. So that's there's really good um you know the idea that everything should be hard and you should toil is actually kind of a Protestant idea. It's it's not that old. Um and and and and classical civilization held toil and contempt. Um it's just that because of the relations of scarcity that prevailed in the classical world, it meant that a few people could be get to be aristocrats and like you know write and philosophize and lots and lots of other people had to toil. So if we can get to a stage where toil is minimized for for lot more people and lots more people get to be creative, really creative, that's a good thing. It's just that what we don't want is AI invading our minds of what it means to be creative. And of course, Pope Leo lays out the dangers there. But the idea of getting rid of repetitive toil, I think, is is very much in line with with how uh Catholic and the classic Catholic and classical tradition has thought about these things.
>> I'll I'll just add two things to that.
Um somewhat to affirm, somewhat to complicate. I mean AI is a very generic term and so we really should talk about particular applications of it and we're all already dependent on AI whether we know it or not in a lot of our lives. Um so I'm wary of very very generic talk about AI even generic talk about LLMs because you know um if you go to Google now and do a Google search you're likely drawing on an LLM to summarize things and there are good and bad uses of that.
The complication that I I would want to make um to Sarab's point just then is um it's not always so easy to determine what counts as um toil versus meaningful work. And there might be there might be things that are often experienced as burdensome. But if a culture of relationship and community and virtue has built up within that work, we might not actually want to eliminate the toil.
Uh a lot of people experience cooking and cleaning as toil, but they can be really valuable activities within a family for parents to relate to their children. Um a classic example that we can at least understand in the abstract, right? Uh tractors can save farmers a lot of toil. But there are communities of um farmers that don't want to use tractors because there are practices of fathers say walking the fields with their sons and and building relationship with them. Um so that's it's not that Amish people think tractors are evil or that they think that um farmwork isn't difficult toil but they they have a culture that has come up around that difficult toil. And I think one of the things that artificial intelligence does um for us in promising to uh make things easier and eliminate work is it should force us in the spirit of the anthropological question that Victoria has has uh centered for us. It should make us ask yeah but what what what do I want to be doing? How do I want to be exercising my um my attention and with whom do I want to do that? and what are what are our responsibilities to each other um uh in in exercising those activities.
Yeah. And also I mean in in the encyclical uh the pope writes in paragraphs 139 and 140 he's talking about how um you know learning and requires effort. He says as Plato wrote the deepest and most important things are learned only after much time and effort. Um and so I think also reminding ourselves that effort is a really important aspect of uh of any of any thought of of all of our work. I mean I agree. I think I think definitely you know to have I will also add a benefit of AI. I mean it's having to deal with all the bureaucracy and I don't know sorting through your folders or whatever it is. There's something with these AI assistants that are kind of helpful just in so far as being in your computer and organizing information or things like that. But um but I don't know why do we have all that why do we have all this extra bureaucratic paper pushing work to do in the first place and but um I think they'll be helpful in that sense but I think it's just going to be so hard to uh I don't like this idea that for creative endeavors people already and we already would be relying on these tools and these technologies. So, I'm not sure that there's really a way of just promoting human creativity and reducing toil without also promoting this AI being a factor in that human creativity.
But, I don't know, hopefully we'll see a renaissance of of people just um getting together and doing wonderful collaborative creative projects in the spirit of solidarity. I really actually would recommend as well. Um, Rowan Williams just published a book called Solidarity, the work of recognition, which I was fortunate enough to interview him about at the Oxford Literary Festival and it was really a beautiful history of this concept of solidarity and he had some practical suggestions as well for how how we can go about that. But just the simple idea of doing collaborative creative efforts with other human beings is I think something that's that's really important.
>> Thanks, Victoria. Um, I I'm I'm generally I am skeptical of AI for human creativity and creative purposes with the exception of fan produced sitcoms of The Office and other shows and I hope we see more of them cuz they're very very funny. Um, but I I would say I mean I've written about how I I I do believe that AI will lead to a renaissance in the humanities. I think that it might open up the human spirit and and and and and mind to be thinking seriously about theological categories again because it's forcing us to um to ask first principle questions um you know in in a sense I think that there could be an opening of the American spirit right the closing of the American mind maybe we'll have the opening of the American spirit now um ironically made possible by artificial intelligence as it forces us to confront these things and you know St. said the glory of God is man fully alive and I understand the holy father to be using the human person as the criteria um with which to measure uh whether AI is beneficial or not. I mean is it helping us to become more fully alive or is it helping us to become more dead and numb inside and less human? Um and that's ultimately what we're getting together in July in Napa uh from the 26th to the 28th to talk about like what is life? What does abundant life actually mean? Um, so I invite all of you if you'd like to continue this conversation in person um to to to join us there. And you know, I I did I I finished reading the encyclical full of hope and excited um incredibly excited.
And um I I I'm just going to close here.
First of all, thank you to So Rob, Victoria, Josh, and Will for your time, especially staying a little bit longer.
Um we could have talked about this all day. There's just so much in the encyclical, but I hope this was a start.
um we'll be announcing some kind of a reading group. Um so if if you're listening and you'd like to take part in that to to dive in, um I'll probably be doing quite a bit of it myself come July and August. Um but I want to I want to close with with a passage from the Pope here which I think is is is fitting and and was inspirational for me.
Uh Nehemiah heard the cry of a devastated city and brought that pain to prayer, discerned before God, asked for help, received permission to return, organized the work, confronted internal and external resistance, and rebuilt the walls of Jerusalem with the assistance of the people brick by brick. Um, and I imagine, um, as difficult as that was, um, something that required faith and trust in God's word, um, also must have been incredibly satisfying to Nehemiah to see that project come to fruition.
So, um, I I viewed it as a as a call to action, right? Really as a as a rallying call for each of us. Uh, and I hope that I can work with, uh, the the the four of you, um, in the years to come and those who are listening. Um, thank you, and we hope to cross paths soon. Thanks again, everybody.
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