Pope Leo warns AI boom can give Big Tech and the people who run it too much power

An encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas - On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence presents warnings about AI and concentrated power. AI systems are described as imitating functions of human intelligence while remaining tied to data processing. The teaching states that these systems do not experience life, do not have bodies, and do not feel joy or pain. It adds that they do not mature through relationships, do not understand love, work, friendship, or responsibility from within, and do not possess moral conscience. It argues that platform, infrastructure, data, and computing power often sit with major economic and technological actors rather than states. When power is concentrated, it becomes opaque, avoids public oversight, and increases risks of dependency, exclusion, manipulation, and inequality.

"“These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence,” he wrote. “In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. 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. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.”"

"“In many cases within the digital context, control over platforms, infrastructure, data and computing power does not rest with States, but with major economic and technological actors,” he wrote. “These entities effectively set the conditions for access, determine the rules of visibility and shape the very possibilities for participation. When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities.”"

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