Jesuit Conference on Magnifica Humanitas’ Guidance on AI: Part V – Conclusion
Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) – On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence [Conclusion – Part 5]
In recent editions of the bulletin, we have been discussing the first encyclical letter that Pope Leo released in May, “Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,” (MH) this letter covers many topics, including Catholic Social Teaching, that go beyond the topic of artificial intelligence (AI), touching deeply on the dignity of each human person.
The Office of Justice and Ecology of the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States composed a letter to the leaders of the US House of Representatives and the Senate on June 2, offering highlights of Pope Leo’s guidance for policymakers related to AI – both ethical and practical. We are sharing highlights from that published letter with you here.
The letter from the Jesuit Conference emphasizes and summarizes six key areas outlined in Magnifica Humanitas, calling for a need for discernment:
– Truth and Accountability
– Supporting Workers
– Economic Inequality
– Protecting Children & Supporting Families
– Slave Labor
– Defense
To date, we have covered the first five areas listed above. This week, we’ll review the points regarding the final key area, that of Defense.
Pope Leo writes, “While AI can enhance the defense and protection of civilians, it can also lower the threshold for the use of force, shield people from responsibility, and foster a culture in which the enemy is reduced to a statistic and the victim to ‘collateral damage’” (183). Rigorous ethical constraints are needed, and we must avoid a new arms race for such technologies (197). Most importantly, only humans – endowed with “conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person” – should ever be entrusted with decisions involving life and death or otherwise irreversible consequences (198).
The Pope insists on the following:
1. Chains of responsibility must be clear and verifiable in the design, training, authorization, and engagement of military technology. Accountability must neither be delegated nor scapegoated to a machine.
2. Decisions to use lethal force must remain under responsible and self-aware human control, not delegated to AI for the sake of speed or efficiency.
3. Non-combatants and defenseless populations must be protected.
4. Countries must work together to avoid a new arms race and ensure that civilians and necessary infrastructure are protected (199-200).
The need for discernment is clear. The massive societal shifts that AI may provoke could help to develop a more just and fraternal world – or a more inhumane and divided one. “Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress,” Pope Leo writes; “instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family” 106).
You can download the entire text of Magnifica Humanitas through the Vatican website free of charge — just ink and paper for your printer! https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html
If you’d rather have a bound book to read, one source to purchase it is through Our Sunday Visitor at https://www.orderosv.com/product-category/books/pope-leo-xiv-encyclical