As the world continues to watch, sift, and analyze every utterance of Pope Leo XIV, I would like to highlight his early attention to Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is a technology that is already pervasive in our society, in ways that are often hard to recognize (whether in car commercials or as online (so-called) “therapists”), which makes it all the more important that we pay particular attention!
I expect a good deal more from Pope Leo XIV on this topic, here’s what he’s said so far, harkening back Leo XIII important teaching on Catholic Social Teaching in Rerum novarum:
“In our own day, the church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor,” he said.
We also have a well-considered and helpful Note entitled Antiqua et nova from the Dicastery for Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education. This Note addresses “the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence. “
AI, as with all advances in human technology, provides both potential benefits and very real potential harms. The more I think about this topic the more I think that one over-arching goal should be to make sure that applications of AI always “point back” to the real world of real humans. To the extent that AI can help us more effectively reach out to our brothers and sisters and facilitate real human relationships in the real world, the more likely we are to reap AI’s benefits and avoid harms.
Finally, for this post anyway, is a word on language. We live in an age of language like none before it in that it is so pervasive, especially the written word. Along with this pervasiveness of the written word is the power of those words to shape our very understanding of reality.
As such, names have become ever-more essential, particularly using the correct names for concepts. In this context, the more I think about it, the less I like the term “Artificial Intelligence.” To me, this evokes a concept of Human Intelligence, that has been created by Artificial means. This is untrue. AI is not anything like Human Intelligence, it something else entirely. John McCarthy defined Artificial Intelligence (referenced in Antiqua et nova, endnote #5) as: “…making a machine behave in ways that would be called intelligent if a human were so behaving.”
This is a careful and, I think, reasonable definition. As such, rather than “Artificial” Intelligence, I think a better term would be “Simulated” Intelligence. The difference may be subtle, and, I think it help us keep in mind that AI is (only!) simulating what humans do in the sense that it produces an output we think is human-like relative to a given input. This gets to the very heart of what it means to be human, namely our rational soul and its operations. My hope is that others more qualified than me will take up this thread and use the case of AI as yet another means to explicate the Catholic Teaching on Human Anthropology.
-Tom Carrollc
Addendum (5/22/2025): Here are two excellent talks on AI from The Thomistic Institute Podcast
- Ought I Use AI Assisted Writing? Fr. Ambrose Little, OP
- What Can We Learn From Aquinas About AI? Prof. Gyula Kilma
