Something that frustrates me with modern media, both faith based and secular, is the obsession to be the first to get “a scoop.”
One of those “scoop” stories that is floating around the internet is a supposed confusion about what Pope Leo XIV means when he says we need to “disarm AI.” I have heard harsh critiques about this phrase, but as I am reading the Encyclical, it’s becoming apparent that there are outlets that are reporting without understanding or reading the actual text.
How do I know this? Well, Pope Leo did a fine job defining what disarming AI means in paragraph 110 of MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS. To help bring clarity to the reports of suppose confusion and some rather creative interpretations of this phrase, here is Pope Leo in his own words.
(Paragraph 110 MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS) I would like to employ the expression “to disarm,” which is close to my heart. Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of “armed” competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance. To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life. Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home. AI is already an environment in which we are immersed, as well as a force with which we must engage. For this reason, merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible.
