The pope’s AI encyclical isn’t really about AI

Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical on Monday, dubbed Magnifica Humanitas, on “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.” And while AI is the hook, the problems Leo focuses on are older and more pervasive: inequality, war, the erosion of democracy, and the concentration of power in the hands of those who don’t necessarily care whether humanity writ large remains magnificent. Throughout the 200-page document, which the pope presented alongside Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, Leo argues that technology built and governed by a small elite cannot, by definition, serve the common good.