Magnifica Humanitas (2)

 See part 1 for thoughts on methodology and stance.

The content of Magnifica Humanitas has been reported in terms of a critique of AI; actually I think it is rather broader, and therefore actually more helpful, than that.  The encyclical is concerned with the spread of "technological paradigm" for understanding human life, "the tendency to let the logic of efficiency, control and profit alone shape personal, social and economic decisions." (92) The point - and here I am reminded of Jacques Ellul - is that technology "is not simply a tool", but shapes our way of thinking about reality. (92) Can human beings be regarded as ends rather than merely means in a world which is radically shaped by the technological paradigm?  "When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion." (112) That, I think, is really the problem which the encyclical addresses (and it is worth noting that this is not a specifically Christian question; framing it in terms of means and ends, as the encylical does, sounds rather Kantian).  Insofar as AI tends to supercharge the technological paradigm, it has to be particularly considered as a potentially problematic development.

On AI in particular, the encyclical lays out some helpful groundwork.  Nobody, not even the human developers, really have an exhaustive knowledge of how AI works. (98) It is important to stress that AI is not intelligence in the way that this word can be applied to human beings - rather, AI systems "merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence". (99)  This strikes me as a particularly important point, because the way that popular AI interfaces work is precisely to mask themselves as human or human-like - that is why you can have 'chat' with ChatGPT. We ought to resist this.  We should also acknowledge that AI tends to concentrate power in the hands of a few, especially as it turns out those who already have power, and this requires action to regulate and direct.

Another key insight of the encyclical relates to limitations.  In a society overcome by the technological paradigm, human limitation is bad and is something to be transcended wherever possible.  (The encyclical links at this point to the transhumanist and posthumanist agendas, which are rightly identified as anti-human - see 115-117).  There is some slightly confused stuff, in my humble opinion, about the relationship between limitation and suffering here - I think based on the lack of a clear distinction between humanity as created, as fallen, and as redeemed - but the basic point that limitation and even suffering open us to relationship with God and other human beings is well made. (122) For the Pope, there is a way to transcend nature, and that way is called grace. (127-128) I personally think this is the wrong way to think about both nature and grace, despite its long pedigree in the church, and I think again that a clear discussion of fallenness would have offered a better way to think about it.  But I take the point that the calling of God's kingdom on our lives is to be more human, not less.

Chapter Four of Magnifica Humanitas sets out to apply this train of thought in particular ways, under the heading of "Safeguarding Humanity".  It touches on the need to combat disinfomation (which "did not begin with AI, yet today it finds a powerful amplifier in AI" - 132), the need to safeguard the value and dignity of work (which is much more than just the problem of jobs lost to AI; it is also about ensuring that work is a human and humanising activity and not just slotting human beings in as part of the machine - 149), and the need to protect freedom when AI and other technologies potentially (and sometimes already actually) lead to greater social control.  "At the root of these problems lies a technocratic and post-human mentality that tends to regard the human person as an object to be manipulated or a resource to be optimized." (172)

Finally, Chapter Five considers conflict, and the danger of human decision making being removed from decisions about conflict - as well as the way in which technology and the technological paradigm encourages conflict.  This is a helpful warning.

All in all, the encyclical is not completely negative about AI or technology, not by a long shot.  I saw one article claim that Magnifica Humanitas made AI 'another Babel'; it doesn't.  Rather, the argument is that human beings are able to build either Babel or Jerusalem, and what we do with AI and other technologies will in part decide which it is that we are working on.  What we have here is a thorough-going work of Christian humanism, and the appeal is simply to ensure that our technology is serving human beings and not vice versa.  It is a pushback against the neo-Darwinian right, with its demands for ever growing efficiency and transcendence of human limits.  In so far as it sounds those warnings, this is a very positive contribution.