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The ThinkND Podcast
Fireside ND, Part 13: Magnifica Humanitas: Human Dignity in the Age of AI
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Episode Topic: Magnifica Humanitas: Human Dignity in the Age of AI
Join the de Nicola Center for a conversation with University of Notre Dame experts on the import of Pope Leo XIV’s highly anticipated first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas: On the Protection of Human Dignity in the Age of Artificial Intelligence.”
Featured Speakers:
- Margaret McManaway, senior associate director, de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
- Paolo Carozza, Notre Dame Law School
- Paul Scherz ’10 Ph.D, ’14 Ph.D., Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology, the ND–IBM Tech Ethics Lab Program Chair
- Rev. John Paul Kimes, Notre Dame Law School & Raymond of Peñafort Fellow in Canon Law at the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
Read this episode's recap over on the University of Notre Dame's open online learning community platform, ThinkND: https://go.nd.edu/037150.
This podcast is a part of the ThinkND Series titled Fireside ND.
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Good afternoon and welcome. I'm Margaret McManaway, the senior associate director of the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. And on behalf of our director, Jennifer Newsome Martin, it is my pleasure to welcome you to this afternoon's flash panel on Magnifica Humanitas: Human Dignity in the Age of AI. Now entering its twenty-seventh year, the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame is dedicated to sharing the richness of the Catholic moral, intellectual, and aesthetic tradition at the highest level and across a range of disciplines. As a traditions-based
Welcome
Speaker 10center committed to our Catholic heritage, we welcome engagement and dialogue with all moral traditions as we grapple with the most pressing and complex questions of ethics, culture, and public policy today. That work has brought us together today for what I'm sure is going to be an insightful conversation around Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV's highly anticipated first encyclical, where the encounter between the Catholic tradition and the vexed question of artificial intelligence is particularly urgent. We're so grateful to all of our panelists for taking the time to share their expertise and insights with us today. Now it's my great privilege to introduce today's panelists, faculty friends, and longtime collaborators of the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. Paulo Carazza is professor of law at Notre Dame Law School and concurrent professor of political science at the University of Notre Dame, where his expertise is in the areas of international human rights and comparative constitutional law. From two thousand and twelve to two thousand and twenty-two, he served as the director of Notre Dame's Kellogg Institute for International Studies, an interdisciplinary university-wide institute focusing primarily on the themes of democracy and human development. He has served as a member of the European Commission for Democracy through Law, the US State Department's Commission on Unalienable Rights, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Carazza currently serves as co-chair of the Oversight Board, an independent expert body created by Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, to render binding decisions and policy recommendations regarding difficult content moderation questions on Meta's platforms. Paul Schierz is Notre Dame's Our Lady of Guadalupe Professor of Theology, the ND-IBM Tech Ethics Lab program chair, and a mission faculty fellow of the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. His work examines the intersection of theology, science, medicine, and technology, engaging topics in bioethics such as human enhancement, genetic technology, and end-of-life ethics. He is a member of the AI research group for the Center for Digital Culture of the Dicastery for Culture and Education of the Holy See, and co-editor of that body's three-volume series of theological investigations into AI, including Encountering Artificial Intelligence: Ethical and Anthropological Explorations and Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. Monsignor John Paul Kimes is Professor of the Practice at Notre Dame Law School and the Raymond de Penafort Fellow in Canon Law at the De Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. Prior to joining the Notre Dame Law School faculty, he served for 11 years as a canon lawyer at the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. He was ordained in 2000 as a priest of the Maronite Catholic Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon of Los Angeles after having completed his first course of studies at the Pontifical Gregorian University. To give our panelists ample room for discussion, I will pass the reins for today's conversation over to Monsignor Kimes, who, before we dive into the text itself, can help us situate this encyclical in its historical context. Monsignor?
Speaker 2Margaret, thank you so much, and thanks to Professor Martin for hosting this, uh, flash panel
Catholic Social Doctrine Context
Speaker 2to all of the great work that the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture does. I know the three of us are honored to take a first stab at Magnifica Humanitas. Uh, and to do so, I think it's important to consider, uh, the way that the encyclical itself situates it in-- situates itself in the Catholic social tradition. Um, you know, w-we used to refer to as Catholic social teaching, now more fully referred to as Catholic social doctrine, is the expression used in the encyclical, which refers back, uh, again, beginning at-- with Rerum Novarum and Pope Leo XIII, and then tracing steps as to how that, how that doctrine has developed, uh, both, uh, centered on the dignity of the human person, but the dignity of the human person first in work in, uh, Rerum Novarum, and then in political situations, particularly with totalitarian political situations in, uh, the, uh-- at the beginning of, uh, the Second World War, and then later on in questions of global peace, uh, questions of disarmament, uh, the-- and the larger question of human rights. And I think, uh, Pope Leo XIV very clearly sees Magnifica Humanitas in this line of Catholic social doctrine and presents it to us as such. Um, one of the first things I'd like to do, uh, once now that we understand sort of the, the document's place in the history of the Catholic social doctrine is, uh, before we dive into the text itself, I f- I have found personally, um, curious, uh, the wide variety of headlines that we've seen in reaction to the document. So Professor Sert, uh, uh, Scherz and, and Carozza, I wonder if you could, uh, help our, our, our followers along with some of those headlines and, and your reactions to them and maybe how you perceive the perception of the document before we deal with its content.
Speaker 3Sure, sure. I'd be happy to jump in, uh, Father Kimes, uh, w-with your permission, Paul. Um, it, it has been striking to me as well that the document's, uh, been reported as, on the one hand, being a fear-mongering document that, uh, it, you know, says we're about to end the world and AI is going to be the, the destruction of humanity. Um, and on the other hand, that, uh, the Vatican is cozying up to anthropic and becoming a shill for the technology companies in the world. Um, and to some extent, that-- those contrasts reveal implicitly to me what is, in fact, the right headline, which is that the Pope draws a very, a, a, a narrow pathway through the extremes, and that that is exactly what is necessary in order to understand the drama of the moral moment that we're in historically Exactly because it's not inevitable that we're doomed by AI, exactly because it's not simply a Pollyanna-ish naivete that AI is going to make everything better, is why we live in a moment that he's trying to draw out as being so momentous for our future, where the drama of having to make collective and personal moral choices is before us.
Speaker 4I, I completely agree. I mean, this is something you've seen throughout Catholic social teaching, and really it marks it in continuity with all the documents that went before, right? So with Rerum Novarum and the following documents, you saw Catholic social teaching hitting a, a medium between like the extremes of laissez-faire capitalism and socialism, right? And so here again, we have something where a document hitting the extremes between kind of total rejection of technology or total embrace of techno-utopianism. We have a, just as in previous documents, a kind of grounding of all ideas in the idea of protecting human dignity, and a recognition that something like technology can be incredibly powerful and can serve the common good, but only if it's designed and used and developed with the proper vision of the human person. And that is the concern that, that, uh, Publio lays out so clearly in this document
Speaker 2And I, I think one of the aspects, too, that's been intriguing to me is if we look back just to the year twenty twenty with the Rome, uh, with the Rome call for ethics and, and AI and now how naive, uh, that call can appear because it, it shows specific applications of the technology. So the-- there's irony to me in people, uh, criticizing this document for a certain naiveté when I actually think that it, it represents, as, as both of you have said, a very clear vision of what is important and what must be protected without getting into the details of one technology over another or one application or another. So I think the-- at least that criticism of naiveté that we've seen in some of the headlines, I think is, uh, is, is misplaced. Um, so, uh, the document begins, uh, with what I found to be, uh, both beautiful and stunning, uh, biblical reflection on these two images of the Tower of Babel and, uh, King Nehemiah, uh, working together with, uh, the people of Israel to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. I wonder if you might both, uh, speak on these, the use of the biblical imagery of Babel and the walls of Jerusalem as a theme throughout the document. Paul, if you'd like to begin.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 4Yeah, I was also struck by those choices. I mean, Tower of Babel was not as kind of surprising, uh, that, that many people talk about technologies in, in these kinds of terms. But Nehemiah, it was, it was surprising. I had to look back and see, um, uh, kind of, you know, okay, let me dive into this story again because it's not something that has come up very much in, uh, you know, magisterial documents. But I think what we're seeing here and what he highlights is this contrast between we have to judge technologies both on the intentions by which they're developed, but also the mode by which they're developed. So in the Tower of Babel, you have this one king who is bringing people together, and t-- they were forming this tower to the heavens in a challenge to God as a way of pride to make a name for themselves, right? So it's grounded in pride and, and, uh, kind of humans without God, right? And it's also built in a way in which you have this one king who is commanding everything and con-- the, the uniformity that, that in, in how it's being done. Whereas Nehemiah, it strikes where Nehemiah is coming back to the destroyed Jerusalem, and he's building the wall to serve the people, to, to serve the temple, and to serve God's name, right? It's a serve, uh, using technology in our efforts in service. But also you have, which I think we'll probably get into later on, this focus on subsidiarity, that each family and each kind of head of household took a section of the wall and decided how to build it themselves. So it was this communal project, and one which protected the poor, because if we look at it, Nehemiah had to step in and, um, uh, eliminate, uh, excessive usury and interest rates that the wealthier were charging the working people. So he, he gives a vision of how do we develop technology in a way that is collaborative and takes the poor in service. It's cer-- done in service to the poor and also is done in service to God.
Speaker 3I, I would only add a, a couple small, um, additions to that reflection. One is independently of the, the particular stories that are chosen, it seems important to me that we have metaphors and stories in which to, with which to understand our times Um, and, uh, in a, in a, in a time when we seem to be dominated by confusion, not knowing where we've come from or where we're going in this, to have a story that helps to set a certain pathway is itself significant. And the second thing I'd observe, which builds on Paul's observations as well, is that the, the document as a whole, the encyclical as a whole, is remarkably about unity and cooperation from start to finish. And so by choosing the metaphor of, of Nehemiah as the dominant narrative to in-- key to interpret where we are, it's calling for unity and cooperation in addressing this problem. And that is entirely consistent with sort of the theme of this papacy more generally, uh, even to the point that at one point in the-- later in the text, he incorporates his own papal motto, which points to unity and cooperation, uh, in the text itself.
Speaker 2And, and I think, too, um, uh, what I found striking about the metaphor as, uh, Paul, as you mentioned, you used the term technology, but obviously in the scriptures, we see stones used in both. That it's the same matter, it's the same material. So it's not only the style in which the leader brings the people together, and not only the direction with which he, which, which he orients them, but also the material itself. So that I think at the very beginning, it, it, it sets out a clear, uh, again, in, in biblical terms, for those who have ears to hear, it sets out a clear image that we are not condemning technology, that technology here is not the enemy. It is the use and the orientation of technology that can become detrimental, which then obviously focuses us on the question, detrimental to what? And the common theme there, of course, is the, is the dignity of the human person. Um, so I, I think that a-again, uh, another striking image i-as we, as we begin to delve into this notion of,
Disarmament and Power Culture
Speaker 2of human dignity, is the way that the, the Holy Father has presented, uh, AI or technology in general, uh, as, as being a, a weapon, that it has been weaponized. And he repeatedly calls for its disarmament, that we have to disarm the technology. And I wonder if you would speak to that, um, again, in, in also in the vein of the notion of, of peace that has been so central to the pontificate and how he sees AI or how he presents AI in that vein in this document.
Speaker 3I would, uh, introduce as well another contrast that he draws later in the document in order to understand the language of disarmament, and that is the culture of power. Um, it's a dominant theme, especially as the document goes on, that is rooted in the observation that if we, if we fail to orient our work towards the dignity of the human person, then what the alternative is, is that our activities become dominated by power, by the dynamics of power, and this becomes a culture of power. And I think it's-- that, that's helpful to understand why he calls for a disarming of, of not just the technology itself, but of our entire way of engaging the technology and of our relations to one another, uh, in, in connection with this technology. It is in order to defuse the culture of power and the dynamics of power, because if that is the case, then necessarily dominance becomes the, the, the criterion rather than an orientation towards the common good, towards constructing together. It all becomes a question of subordination. And if our overall goal in all of this, uh, entire arena is to avoid the subordination of the human person to technology and instead maintain the service of technology to human dignity and to the common good, then we, we have to be able to defuse this culture of power. And I think that's what the, the call for disarmament is aiming at.
Speaker 4Uh, and I'd just add to that, that, um, one of the things I found so helpful is so much of the discourse around AI development is in terms of a race, of a competition. We have the race between the US and China. There's the race between the different, uh, large tech companies, the frontier AI labs, right? And so there's so much conversation about how we can't slow down, how we can't set up appropriate guardrails because the-- we'll lose a race. And so bringing it out of that competitive metaphor in order to think more broadly about, okay, so how is this actually serving the human good? Where is this waste being-- this race being wasteful and destructive, and where is it ac-- wh-- how do we reframe our engagement with AI in a more constructive manner?
Speaker 2And, and I think both of you have, have rightly mentioned, uh, multiple times the phrase the common good. I think one of the most fascinating pieces of, of the encyclical to me is almost a rediscovery of the language of the res publica, of, of the common things, of, of this, this re-
Common Good and Human Development
Speaker 2uh, rediscovery or representation to a broader audience of this notion of the common good and how to, uh, define the common good in a conflictual era, era, in an era of, of political, um, uh, disagreement and sort of culture, you know, all of these, uh, strands that pull us apart together. I think the Holy Father is, you know, places, uh, our focus on the need to rebuild the image of the common good. I wonder if you could-- if, uh, both of you could address the, the image of the common good and the mechanisms that are indicated in the encyclical as some ways to, uh, reconstruct that common good.
Speaker 4And so the common good is kind of fundamental to Catholic anthropology. And right so this is, uh, the vision of the human person, he says, the proper vision must lie behind any technology that we desi-design. One of the problems that is rising around AI is that we don't have the proper vision behind it. And that vision is that we're social animals, right? So the idea of the common good goes back before the Christian tradition to the Aristotelian, the Stoic, the classical tradition, that we're made for community. And the Christianity raises that, and Judaism through the idea of the image of God, where we're made for relationship, not just with one another, but with God. Um, so this, um, so the common good points out the fact that we are so often w-we-- when we succeed, it's not just on our own, that one of our f- our flourishing comes through joint activity. So activity on teams, in universities, in business, where people are working together, and you can't reduce that to zero sums, right? We have to sacrifice for a team or sometimes for the church, right? So we, we, we achieve our good by the good of these collective actions, um, and these collective entities. And so the, the Catholic vision is really talking about broader society as having that common good that can only be achieved and onl- we can only realize our flourishing if we are all working together and that we-- everyone has what they're need, they need, including the most vulnerable among us, who are most likely to be left out in this idea of a culture of power, right? Where it's just everyone for themselves, so
Speaker 3Yeah, I, I, I didn't do a count, but I would suspect that if I did, uh, that the phrase common good appears in this document probably more than any other word or combination of words, except maybe dignity itself. Um, and, and that's, uh, and that's an important note that both of those are so common. Uh, two of the, the ways in which the common good is fleshed out in the document that really struck me and intrigued me and, and, um, shows how integrated the whole vision of Catholic social doctrine is here is that, first of all, he defines, uh, the common good as the social dimension of dignity. Um, so very clearly, you know, uh, illustrating what Paul was saying about this sort of unity of the human person with the community in Catholic social thought. The, the common good is that it's not setting aside the dignity of the human person, not contrary to it. It is simply the social dimension of the dignity that every individual person has, uh, within it. And then at the back end, he connects the common good to a-another idea within, um, uh, Catholic social doctrine that emerged principally from, uh, St. Pope Paul VI, which is integral human development, so defined as the, the, the good, the entire good of every person and, a- the-- of the whole person and of every person A- and in the context of AI, that strikes me as immensely important because exactly the challenge that we're talking about in artificial intelligence is one that simultaneously affects the human person at an individual level. What does it mean to be free, to be reasonable, to be loving, to have cognitive integrity? There's so many other aspects of it that affect the individual human person, and yet at the same time is the, uh, social and collective at, at the broadest level. So the fact that the, the idea of the common good being advanced here unites intimately the dignity of every human person and the collectivity and its needs of the whole is, uh, what really allows the document to be as comprehensive as it is in, in addressing, uh, all of the, the, the, the, the horizon of what is at stake before us in this moment.
Speaker 2And, uh, Paolo, you'll be happy to know I've been informed that the phrase "a common good" e- exists at least seventy-nine times in the document. So one of our, one of our astute listeners was, was, was kind to chime in, uh, and give us- Thank you a precise count. Um, uh, so I think one of the things that is interesting is part of the con- part of the concept of the common good, uh, and perhaps for Americans, one of the more controversial parts of, of the, uh, Catholic notion of the common good is u- again, this language of the universal destination of goods
Universal Destination of Data
Speaker 2that's repeated in the document. And I don't mean to, to pull a pin out of a hand grenade and walk out of the room, but I would love for, uh, either of you to reflect on that and specifically how the Holy Father has situated data within this traditional category of universal goods that are destined, that are destined for the whole of humanity.
Speaker 3I, I, I can begin with that one, although I'm sure Paul has, uh, much more to say tha- than I do. But I'll just start by saying that i- in some senses, it's not anything new, of course. It's, uh, it's entirely consistent with the way that the church has, uh, throughout its history, talked about the importance of private property. Uh, private property and the right to private property, uh, social organization that values private property is, in fact, an important aspect of, uh, of a, a well-ordered society that the church has, has emphasized, but has always done so conditionally. Uh, it i- is the, the, the, the value of private property and the right to private property is for the good of the community as a whole that we have those rules. So it serves a larger purpose, and therefore, it is always subject to certain kinds of moral limits and conditions. It is destined for the good of the whole, not just for my own private and personal use. Um, so that, that's the first point that I think is, is important to remember in doing that, that it isn't quite as radical in that context as it might seem. But what does seem more innovative to me is talking about, um, the way that personal data fits into this, and, um, because there What we, what we have, which is quite unique in this technology, is the massive harvesting of very intimate personal information that is then used sometimes for the good of the community and many times for the very narrow self-interest of the actors who are harvesting it or their economic interests and so forth. And that it can be done in ways that can do a great deal of harm to the very dynamics of human freedom. Um, and, and so that's exactly an instance in where the, the property at issue is itself innovative data, but has to be used in ways that are directed towards the common good and not towards private, just private gain or profit.
Speaker 4Right. Yeah, as Paolo said, this is a very old concept. You can see it in patristic writings. You can see it even like inklings of it in Cicero and others, where the world was created for us all, right? And the-- it's entrusted to each of us to use our responsibility to kind of use it for others. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think this idea of immaterial goods that he says, that the immaterial goods are also part of that is, is, is quite new. We saw some inklings of that earlier with things like patents, right, for HIV medications. You saw that back or in the midst of the HIV epidemic and some of the conversations around COVID vaccine technologies and the need to open these things up to, uh, the broad, you know, to, um, countries that didn't have access to them. Um, so, so you s-see some of these things earlier on. But yeah, I mean, data, again, is something that this is a new application that we're seeing because of this new technological development. Uh, my sense is that this is just the beginning of figuring out how do we think of data as a public good, because sometimes it talks about public ownership of data. Sometimes there's-- But there's other places where it talks about privacy and how do you- Mm-hmm balance like, well, yes, we don't want all the companies to suck up that, that information without con-concern for personal control, but we also want this to be used for public goods. Um, in some of the conversations I've been having with Catholic healthcare, similarly, they're having kind of questions about how to use patient data, right, to improve patient care, but also while protecting patient privacy. So that balance between public use and kind of privacy, I think is something that we're, we're going to need to work out in the coming years. And, and I think
Speaker 3too- Once a year, if I- Oh, please. I'm sorry. No, I just gotta add- Please, yeah one, one other, uh, very brief reflection on the question of the universal destination of goods, which I think is necessary in order to appreciate a lot of the document, is, is how much the question of universality here is implicitly pointing to the vast disparities of power and wealth on a global scale and how important that is to our assessment of how to realize the common good here. The, the monopolization of data and the harvesting and control of data is overwhelmingly in very, very few hands, uh, geographically and even personally. Uh, and, and, and much of that is coming and being mined from poorer parts of the world that now are not benefiting from the very property intangibly that they are contributing to this vast new enterprise of artificial intelligence.
Speaker 2And, and I, I think too, it's interesting, uh, again, you know, as Paul, as you mentioned, how we begin to, uh, understand the public use of data versus the co- the concept of privacy that has so dominated, uh, the twentieth and twenty-first century, at least in, in, in the legal field for sure, and now certainly in medicine. Uh, I, I think that, uh, the fascinating connection that the Holy Father makes is that it's directly at this point where we see the greatest harm being done to human dignity in that individuals are being seen and used as nothing other than sources of information. I wonder if you could connect data and privacy and dignity as those, uh, themes are worked together in the document.
Speaker 4Yeah. So, um, right, yeah. So there-- this is the vision that he's concerned about, that we are just being seen as kind of... You know, this is comes back to the technocratic paradigm that, uh, s- uh, Pope Francis put, uh, first proclaimed in Laudato Si, that one of the problems is our way of seeing others as merely material to be used, right? And so these large tech companies are seeing us as these bits of data that they can assemble profiles and use those profiles to manipulate us. And this is, you know, this Shoshana Zuboff has called this so, uh, surveillance capitalism, um, and it is one of the major concerns of about how this is being used to turn us into consumers, to manipulate purchases, manipulate voting behavior, even to cause addiction. Um, so right. So while these tools, I mean, this data can be of tremendous use in things like public health, it also is a tool of seeing others as just, you know, kind of behavioristic kind of, uh, people who are only made up of numbers to be manipulated.
Speaker 3It is exactly that, a, a reduction of humanity, and which is why it goes to the core of this call for, well, Magnifica Humanitas, for to understand the magnificence and sublimity of what we have, uh, been given in our embodied humanity, uh, by our Creator. And, uh, so every way in which the human person is reduced to an instrumentality of the machine, if you will, or any of, of economic interests and interests of power, uh, is, uh, a diminishment and a degradation of, of that for humanity of being an end and never just an instrument of means to someone else's benefit and profit and, um, and how, how essential that is here. Um, and artificial intelligence, uh, and al- algorithmic technologies in general, I, I think Who is a challenge to that in a distinctive way, a new way that other kinds of tools in the past, even in the Industrial Revolution, to which this dic-- uh, instrument and, and Leo's name harkens back, didn't do it, uh, because the, the human person is integrated into the technology in a way that, um, that reduces the, the capacity to separate personhood and tool, and therefore it becomes much more of a danger that the person becomes a sub- subjected to the tool rather than the agent that is using the tool in order to ad-advance and meet human needs and human ends.
Speaker 2And I think this is so important for, again, for not only for our listeners, but for all of us as we continue to dive into the document, to focus on the reality that Rerum Novarum was concerned primarily about, uh, poli-- essentially political situations and primarily situations of exploitation in the workforce. The harm to the human person was obvious. It was tangible. The harm that is being done to the dignity of the human person, not only through the collection of data, but then through the manipulation of that person by the collection of their own data, is something that is not as obvious. And to frame it within the, this, this tradition of Catholic social doctrine and to frame it as a concern for the dignity of the human person, I think is a, a, a beautiful insight and one that is gonna take years for us to continue to explain to people just those mechanisms that, uh, Paul, I know, um, so many, uh, scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists have done work on addiction and the microdosing of, of, of sort of these dopamine hits that come through, uh, that come through the use of social media in particular. I wonder if you could speak to that image that Paolo has raised or that, that idea that Paolo has raised. Again, the, the use of the data, again, as a tool of manipulation. Uh, so how that functions, uh, scientifically, if you, if you feel comfortable speaking about that a little bit, and then, uh, particularly then relating that back to the dignity of the human person so intrinsic to Catholic social doctrine.
Speaker 4Yeah. So the way that it works is that we are all-- we have biases, right? So we have-- the, the behavioral economists have sh- figured out these ways that we're more likely to act and choose something if we've seen it before, so an availability bias. We're more likely to do something if we see a friend doing it, a ba- a bandwagon kind of effect. We're more likely to just leave things the same or pr- to rather than to take a risk for more gain, so, or change things, so a status quo bias You can really figure out, uh, if you shape how people make choices and you figure out a lot of information about them, who their friends are, what they really like, what their status quo is right now, you can target ads to them or target, uh, stimuli to them, um, in a way that makes it much more likely to do what you want them to do. And generally, this has been used with advertisements, but again, people have done, uh, manipulations where they change, you know, kind of moods as well by changing f-feeds of information that you get. Uh, it made you people more-- certain people more likely to vote, right? And this is being used a lot for kind of manipulating the electorate, selling things, these kinds of things. Um, the problem is that this doesn't actually treat us as people who can make independent free choices. It doesn't treat us as people with dignity who are made in the image of God with a will, with, with reason to, to kind of choose our own way of flourishing. Um, it treats us more as if we are just machines, that they can give us a stimuli and then we'll respond in a certain way. And so this is the kind of scientific research that they're using to design these things. And very clearly and, uh, explicitly, we've seen in some of the documents that they're, they're doing these things. So and it's especially problematic es-- uh, with the young, right? But, but throughout society, this, this is a, this is a major problem.
Speaker 3Yeah, I, I, um, uh, if I could use that as a jumping off point, perhaps, uh, if Fa-Father Comes talk a little bit more broadly about some of the other dimensions of dignity in, in this document. I think that's really important. I, um, I mean, as you know, I've been giving lectures for the last probably three years now, uh, advocating forcefully, as forcefully as I'm able, that to, for us to, to broaden our understanding of what dignity requires in terms of the treatment and understanding and honoring of the human person beyond what has now in much, so much sort of contemporary public discourse been reduced simply to a question of decisional autonomy. And there's no question that decisional autonomy is compromised here by this technology, and the Pope does point that out, and that is important. I don't mean to diminish that. But there are many other dimensions of dignity here that are, that are highlighted that are also compromised potentially by the technology, and it really beautifully lays out some of these other dimensions. This, the fact that we are embodied, the fact that, uh, we, we live and realize our dignity in love and in relationship. The relational dimensions of dignity are crucial here. And perhaps the one that I find most moving and most powerful in this, and most central to what, uh, a, a critical judgment of the technology, um, requires, is his emphasis on how human dignity is linked to our limitations and to our vulnerabilities. Uh, it is so essential and so beautiful and so vital to affirm in the face of a technological paradigm that is being advanced that reduces our vulnerabilities only to things that must be overcome by the technology And that every weakness of the human person is something that technology can fix or can eliminate, uh, you know, perhaps ideally even all the way up to death itself. And the Pope, right from the start in his first discussion of how we must approach this problem, begins to emphasize that we have to embrace our limitations. We have to recognize and acknowledge not simply that they're not to be overcome, but they are in fact part of what makes us dignified because they lead us more beautifully into dependence on one another and dependence on God, and therefore the truth of our destiny and our relationship. And so that dimension of dignity is extremely countercultural. It's radically in opposition with the dominant ideology of techno-utopianism and of Silicon Valley, and it's something that we really, I think, must underscore and, and scream from the rooftops as loudly as we can, uh, after this document, uh, um, is-- now that this document has been released.
Speaker 2Yeah. And I, I think, uh, I'm, I'm sorry, Paul, just to, just to I don't mean to play a, a, uh, to step on, on your toes, I'm sorry. But I, I think, you know, Paolo, what you said, it, it, it's clear from the very beginning of the document, vulnerability is the identity of the human person and therefore the source of his or, of our dignity. It comes from not only being created in the image and likeness of God, but being created in that image that is inherently relational, and that our version of it is also inherently and necessarily imperfect. And because of our imperfections, that we are reliant on one another, not only as children, but through, throughout our lives, and it's ex-- precisely because of that vulnerability, that's where we find our identity as human beings. And this is the message that Silicon Valley would have us, you know, th-that I think people are criticizing as naive. You know, the, the Pope immediately takes on, you know, transhumanism and all of these sort of movements, uh, that are so popular in, in this technocratic culture of, again, we see a problem, we can tinker with it, we'll find a solution, and then we can move beyond it, and that's one less imperfection that stands in our way from the goal of perfecting ourselves. When as Christians, we know that that is not only an impossible goal, it's a fool's goal. Because perfection only comes through the grace and love of God, and we experience that here and now, uh, in, in our lives, in the sacraments, in our relationships with each other, in that love, that culture of love that is the opposite of the culture of power that the document speaks about. Um, and that that's what, that's what our call is to build that culture of love by recognizing in each other our vulnerabilities and our inherent dependence, uh, on community, on family, on one another, uh, uh, uh, a-again as being the very source of our, of our human dignity. I'm sorry, Paul, I stepped on your toes.
Speaker 4Oh yeah, no, no problem. Um, yeah, no, I, I, I just wanted to say that I also, one of the things, I agree with everything everyone said, but, uh, one of the things that I love about this focus on weakness and vulnerability is it also shows the Christocentric nature of this document. Christ comes up again and again, and here is where it's like essential, right? So this is the dignity of the human that God, you know, the second person of the Trinity, you know, put, emptied Himself to take on the form of the human, the form of the slave, and took on those weakness and vulnerability even point, to the point of death on a cross, right? So lifting up these vulnerability as, and weaknesses and limits as not something that is, uh, something that should be gotten rid of, but something that has been ennobled. It was already ennobled, but ennobled by Christ taking them on. Uh, the other side of this thing, uh, uh, this is that, um, uh, Paulo, you said very rightly that this form of datafication is very different from the kind of previous forms of work because it strikes so close intimately to us. The other form of technology we've seen that with is bioethics and biological te- biotechnologies, right? And, and so I think bringing transhumanism here is very important because it connects all of these kinds of conversations around AI ultimately also to the problems we're seeing in biotechnology with transhumanism, like entering into that domain.
Speaker 3Yeah. If I can add another word about transhumanism, exactly building on, on what each of you just said, um, which I, I think is, um, beautiful in the document, is the way that Leo, um, even while critiquing and rejecting quite severely the, the transhumanism, uh, that is being sort of inculcated on us by certain sectors. At the same time, at a deeper human level, embraces a different kind of transhumanism, if you will. The Christian transhumanism that exactly is rooted in the Christocentrism that Paul, um, uh, was talking about, and here, you know, he draws on, uh, a, a document that was only, o- only preceded this document by a few months, uh, by the International Theological Commission, Quo Vadis Humanitas, um, which points out that the, the desire, the, the h- the natural human impetus is necessarily to transcend our own humanity, to overcome it, to fr-- 'cause we're made for something more. We're made for eternity, and we're made to be infinite. Uh, but the key difference that Leo is pointing out here is that the secular or technocratic transhumanist impulse is one that says we can overcome that by ourselves, and as opposed to the Christian transhumanism in a very different sense, which is we will be brought to transcend our humanity by the saving grace of Christ and by the work of God who brings us into divinity with Him, and that makes all the difference. That's the difference between a Pelagian approach, essentially, and a truly Christian one.
Speaker 2And, and again, we couldn't help but notice, uh, a- a- and it was the irresistible quotation from St. Augustine that our hearts know no rest until they rest in God. Again, this notion that the, the, the transhumanism that Christians are called to is a life filled with grace, which is a participation in the life of the Trinity itself, and that if we are going to become something not only other than what we are, but who we are truly, who we truly are, it can only be found in that life of grace that comes to us, you know, that flows through the cross and resurrection of Christ into the world. Um, you know, it's, again, it's, it's a beautiful Christocentric, um, understanding of the human person and again, uh, the, the exaltation of vulnerability as a distinctive factor of our humanity, which is something to be not only cherished, but something to be protected, not to be overcome in any sort of transhumanist way. And, uh, since we're speaking about vulnerability, and I, I wanna be mindful of the time, and I know there's so much in the document that both of you w- want to talk about, so I want to just quickly move to the, the topic of children, in that the document dedicates specific time to the protection of children. And I'd like e- each of you to sort of, uh, pull out, uh, something from the document regarding the protection of children and perhaps education as well.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Protecting Children and Education
Speaker 4So, uh, I thought this was one of the kind of most forceful direct recommendations that we get in this document. So a lot of people have said, "Well, you know, this is, uh... the document doesn't make too many specific policy, uh, kind of recommendations." But he says from the beginning that that's not the goal of Catholic social teaching. It's to give these principles for discernment. Here, though, in regard to children, he draws on the kind of lot of the literature we've been seeing, how social media, how AI companions can have really problematic effects on children. So body image of young women, it can cause lack of sleep, he describes. It can cause, uh, isolation from others, and we've even seen these tragic cases like Sewell Seltzer and Adam Raine of teens who have been engaging with AI chatbots that have been led to suicides. Um, and so this has led to-- I mean, so here he recommends and kind of embraces some of the proposals that are, uh, out there of age verification, age limits, uh, these kinds of public policy tools to protect children in ways that parents on their own have a very difficult time doing. And it's a moment where society has to help parents in raising children well with these new technologies out there.
Speaker 3And in that context, there's this very strong emphasis on schools as institutions and educational institutions at every level, um, partnering with parents and with others. Uh, this is a perfect example of what Paul was referring to earlier in our conversation about the way that subsidiarity infuses the, the document's proposals here. There is such a strong emphasis on every at-- every, every part of society, every subsidiary community within the overall, uh, whole of the body of the human family needs to be, you know, taking up and building a section of the wall of our city, and the schools have an essential role to play here. But, uh, it's important to, to, I think, see how much he emphasizes that, um, the role the schools are playing is not merely an instructional one, right? It's not merely sort of getting-- fine-tuning the right uses or non-uses of technology in the classroom as much as that might be a piece of the puzzle. But rather has a much bigger understanding of what education is as a formation of human persons capable of relating to the tools that we have in our hands in a proper way, in a way that preserves our own humanity. And so he emphasizes not just the policy, uh, um, items that, that Paul was referring to, um, but the, the social-political dimensions of education, the pedagogical ones, um, and most of all, I think the, the intellectual and, uh, and cultural concerns relating to knowledge. A lot of this document is emphasizing that the technology that we have in our hands is, at least in the moment, visibly disorienting our relationship to truth and our capacity to understand what is true and to adhere to what is true And that's where A, schools matter at every level, and where children are especially vulnerable. They have to be formed in such a way as to be able to relate to reality in truth and not be distorted in that. And so that's the, that's the vulnerability that he's talking about in children, and that is the responsibility that he's talking about for schools and educational systems.
Speaker 2I wonder if we could circle back just briefly again to the language of the culture of power, um, specifically the notion that we've, we've hinted, we've, we've hinted at and we've, we've hit on slightly, but the notion of non-state actors and the complexity of creating, uh, uh, political dynamics in which non-state actors or transnational state actors can be held to some responsibility. I think the, the Pope said it beautifully. He's like,
Nonstate Power and Accountability
Speaker 2"This is not merely a question of regulation." Right. Regulation is insufficient. So how do we begin to address those concerns when we have a very small number of very powerful people, but who are not state actors, which I believe presents us a situation that, uh, we've not encountered before, or at least not in a very long time in human history. So I wonder if the two of you could speak to the n- the notion of the culture of power, the consolidation of that power in non-state actors, and how we can begin to, uh, engage them more effectively.
Speaker 3Well, I, I, I can't help but jump in first here, Paul. I'm sorry, but, uh, because, um, it, the-- this is what I'm just trying to dedicate w-pretty much all of my time to all of the time in, uh, the work that I do at the Meta Oversight Board, right? Uh, it is trying to devise new creative kinds of institutions and processes that can help to bring responsibility and accountability into this sphere precisely because as essential as public power and authority and law is, and I don't in any way mean to diminish that, I, I wouldn't be dedicating my life to forming future lawyers if I, if I didn't value that. And yet, um, and yet we have to recognize that that is not adequate to the environment that we're in, where power is so concentrated in, uh, private parties. I mean, just, just in the area of speech regulation, which is the one that I'm most directly involved in, I mean, without any doubt in the world, Meta is the most powerful regulator of human speech ever in human history, and it's not even close Um, far more than any state has ever been, uh, or, or will be. And so it is imperative, and he calls, uh, calls this out, that we, A, devise forms of cooperation and partnership that go into the technological sphere itself and the industrial sphere that engage these. And so, you know, I, I realize it was a risk. I realize people were, uh, sort of some people were critical or nervous about it, but I think that explains why Chris Ola was on the stage with the Pope yesterday. Uh, that, that dialogue has to happen, as difficult as it is, as risky as it is. And new institutions and processes need to happen, need to be-- need to emerge to fill this space, which is, uh, new and at the moment largely empty.
Speaker 4Yeah, I mean, it is a striking p-p-part of this document is this recognition where the principle of subsidiarity was before always in relationship, or in general it's been described in relationship to state institutions and the rest of society, um, and this kind of concern between state-individual binary. But what we do now that we have these transnational corporations is, is very unclear, which is I think is why he's gesturing at new forms of kind of civil organization. I think what you're-- the work you're doing, Paolo, is, is, is really important here with new kinds of, of, of, uh, regulating these, these kinds of institutions is very important. But I think also we can look to different trade organizations have started trying to develop their own frameworks for how to implement AI, and so like hospital systems and the healthcare sector have tried to d-just develop frameworks where at least they can say, "Well, we're all going to try to follow the same way." And I think that's kind of where we look to to, you know, get a sense of how do we do this in this, um, uh, subsidiary manner. The question is how do we do this? And I think what Pope Leo raises very importantly is how do we bring the vulnerable into those conversations, right? How is it not just other less powerful but still powerful actors who can respond, but how do we v-- uh, you bring the voiceless or those who do not have stages into these kinds of conversation about how AI gets deployed in their community.
Speaker 2A-and I think too not only deployed, but the, the, the whole question of development. Starting the conversation to building the architecture with the vulner-with the vulnerable in mind and seeing them and their dignity and again, not viewing us all as, you know, potential sources of data to then, you know, be used back against us to manipulate it. So I th- I, again, I think these, um- Some of the criticism perhaps that the, that not only Chris Holo's, uh, uh, presence was yesterday, but I, but I thought to, to his credit that i- when he spoke yesterday, I thought what he said was at least in part, um, you know, w- was very good in the sense of saying, "Help us. We, we, we need a dialogue partner." So that again, there's this, there's this notion again in the document of truth and accountability and the role of people speaking truth to those, especially now these sort of, uh, oligarchic power centers, uh, uh, uh, in this new world that the church and other organizations will have a responsibility and necessity to speak on behalf of the vulnerable. Now, how then do we begin to incorporate those into the architecture of these systems is a, a, a much larger question. And just as, as we, as we come to the close, and, and I, I'm, I'm sorry that, that, uh, that we're-- the conversation is drawing to an end, but it's, it's been so rich. Um, you know, the document i- isn't heavy on prescriptive remedies, and it's not its intention. Again, this, this is not the purpose of Catholic social doctrine, which is again, to, to name first principles and, and the application thereof. But I think the document has in, in sections Two different kinds of, of remedies that it proposes, some to the Catholic readers-
Speaker 4Mm
Speaker 2and some specifically to the larger audience. And I wonder if the two of you
Remedies for All Audiences
Speaker 2could engage or sort of draw out some of those themes, uh, that Pope Leo has, has included, uh, again, f- for us as Catholics and for the non-Catholic readership as well.
Speaker 4So I think for the Catholics, I mean, I think he does a very strong focus on the Eucharist, right? As the sign of unity, right? And, and kind of not f- fragmentation. And so the continuing growth in the Church of this focus on Eucharistic piety and the way that helps us envision ourselves as the body of Christ. Uh, the other element that I, I, I, you know, saw in there was education and the role of the Catholic schools as institution in accompanying children and how to deal, uh, with these new technologies and to learn how to deal with these new technologies. And I think this is something, uh, a major task for Catholic high schools, Catholic colleges, Catholic grade schools, to figure out how do we help those entrusted to our care really be prepared to in a-- at a moral level, but also at an intellectual level, to, to face the challenges that they're going to face.
Speaker 3Yeah. I, I, I guess I would say there's sort of one could, um, speak about not two, but three levels of, of audiences, uh, in this, in this document. I mean, many more, but, but for, for the purposes of the comments I wanna make, uh, there, there are three. There's, there's the secular, non-religious or, you know, universal in a sense, uh, uh, um, for which he's appealing to essentially an, um, what I think is an existentially universal understanding of what it means to be human. Um, encouraging a certain kind of critical self-reflection on myself as, as an, an, an acting, thinking, loving person in relationship to others as part of a community. It's something that's accessible to all of us, and that without which none of us can reach an adequate judgment about the, the, the risks and the effects of this technology and what to do with it. So the first level of personal responsibility that he's calling for is simply to, for each of us to say, "What is my relationship with this technology that I have in my hand or that I have in front of me?" The second level is to people of religious belief. There are various ways in which, not in a specifically Catholic way, he does emphasize that the common good must be constructed on a relationship with God. And the, the fundamental contrast between the success of Nehemiah's building project and the Tower of Babel is that the Tower of Babel was explicitly designed to replace God with our own work, with our own hubris. Um, and, and that is something that appeals to religious believers of every faith in many ways. But then, as you say, there is in, in the ways that Paul pointed out, uh, this, this very Christocentric, um, uh, thing that, you know, uh, y-you, uh, John Paul referred to the stones with which the, the wall is built. Well, right in the first line of the second paragraph, the Pope makes clear that the living stone is Jesus Christ. That's the first stone. That's the stone on which everything else is built for those of us who are Christians. And, um, and so he starts with that, and then he ends with this, I, I think, really moving appeal to Mary and the Magnificat. Uh, you know, paralleling the magnificence of humanity with the magnification, the Magnificat of Our Lady, who is magnified precisely by having been given a vocation. And so I don't-- even though he doesn't speak of, of vocation and vocational terms very explicitly in this document, in many ways, I think that is an underlying subtext in it, is the Christian vocation that we have in the, in the literal sense, vocare, being called by to a larger life in-- with one another, with the entire community, and in eternal life with God.
Speaker 2Gentlemen, I can't, I can't think of a better way to close our conversation than on this reflection, again, of our shared humanity, our-- the need to protect the vulnerable, the need to focus on the dignity of the human person and the development and in the use of, of AI and all of the challenges that Pop Leo has identified for us, and as well, the prescriptive remedies, which of course, uh, are always based in Christ. So, um, Margaret, if you wanna close out for us. Thank you both very much for your time, for your conversation today.
Speaker 10Yes, let me just add my thanks too to Paolo, Paul, and Monsignor John Paul for moderating this conversation today. I'm sure much more will be said about the encyclical in the weeks and months ahead, and we are so grateful for your expert guidance as we begin thinking through these critical questions. For more information about the De Nicola Center and to sign up to receive notifications about future events like this one, please visit our website ethicscenter.nd.edu. Thank you so much again for joining us, and have a good evening