On Monday May 15th Pope Leo XIV issued the first encyclical of his pontificate. As expected, it has received wide attention in the Catholic press, but it has also drawn notable praise from non-Catholics, including many of my friends and acquaintances. That response is understandable, since the document addresses an issue of growing importance in today’s world. Its subject matter was not a surprise. When Robert Provost was elected pope, he explained that he chose the name Leo XIV because, just as Leo XIII had responded to the challenges of the Industrial Revolution in 1891, he believed there was a need for our own age to face a technological revolution of similar seriousness, but one advancing at alarming speed. In continuity with Leo XIII’s concerns, Leo XIV has chosen to address the challenge of artificial intelligence. The title of the encyclical is Magnifica Humanitas, with the subtitle, “On the Safeguarding of the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” It’s the first encyclical to be written in English rather than Latin and the Pope departed from tradition by presenting it himself (in English, a Pope speaking English is something to get used to) alongside church leaders, theologians, including two women theologians and the co-founder of the AI company, Anthropic, Christopher Olah who has an interest in developing an ethical framework for how AI handles moral questions. At the presentation the Pope thanked Mr Olah for accepting the invitation to attend the launch and accepted in the name of the Church his invitation for the Church to work with him in considering the issues facing humanity as it copes with AI and its implications for the future. This is significant. What we have is an encyclical calling for reflection and consideration that is not carried out in isolation from the IT world but in dialogue with it.
Like many others I’m cautious about AI and disturbed by talk of transhuman and post human, not so much for myself but for my nieces and nephews and their children. I’m not at ease with AI or understand it and I don’t like it when friends or companions appear more interested in their mobile phones than they do in communicating with me or others. The phone becomes a barrier and much of their interactions and pleasure is taken from the virtual world rather than the real one. That is why I am so delighted at the title of the encyclical “Magnificent or Glorious Humanity”. I think we are not very good at being human and need to give some time and energy into thinking what does it mean to be human and to realise what a wonderful gift it is to be alive in the world today. I have often seen the evolution of the cosmos described in terms of one year and humans only appearing on the scene at three minutes to midnight on the 31st of December. We are very new in this cosmos and haven’t yet learned what it is to be truly human. We are infants who are in danger of destroying ourselves before we have had time to develop.
There are many ways of understanding the human person and religions have their own perspectives on this. I particularly like and have been helped by the Buddhist notion of no-self which seems counterintuitive and the opposite of the Christian idea that each person is uniquely created and loved by God. Tich Nhat Hanh uses the concept of emptiness to describe no-self. He asks the question: empty of what? Nothing is totally empty he would suggest because to say something is empty is to say that it is empty of something. Even an empty cup cannot be empty of nothing, it is in fact not empty of air. So, what are we empty of?. For Thay we are empty of an isolated, discrete, separate self. We are who we are because of the process of evolution. We began the journey of life at the moment when life started, perhaps in the Big Bang if that is the beginning of our cosmos, have journeyed through the lives of our ancestors to be given birth at this moment in history and even then only kept in existence by our connectedness with others and the natural world that provides food and sustenance for our growth and development. We are indeed a unique manifestation of life as are all other sentient beings. We are part of and a continuation of life itself which will continue after our particular manifestation or indeed incarnation dies. Thay illustrates this through the notion of the wave and the water. The wave is a manifestation of the water, but it has no separate existence apart from the water. And if the wave thinks it has, it is existing in ignorance. Similarly, if the water thinks it alone exists it too is existing in ignorance. The wave is water; the water is wave. One has no existence without the other.
For me this notion of no-self is liberating and an insight into what Christianity might mean when it says that each person is created in the image and likeness of God, is a unique part of the human family and called to contribute to the human flourishing of all. It helps me understand what it means to be human as a basis for the Pope’s call to embrace the very essence of our humanity and to build a civilisation of love that will come from small and steadfast acts of fidelity. What a glorious thing it is to be human and what a glorious thing it is to be able to contribute to the future flourishing of our race.
Like many others I’m cautious about AI and disturbed by talk of transhuman and post human, not so much for myself but for my nieces and nephews and their children. I’m not at ease with AI or understand it and I don’t like it when friends or companions appear more interested in their mobile phones than they do in communicating with me or others. The phone becomes a barrier and much of their interactions and pleasure is taken from the virtual world rather than the real one. That is why I am so delighted at the title of the encyclical “Magnificent or Glorious Humanity”. I think we are not very good at being human and need to give some time and energy into thinking what does it mean to be human and to realise what a wonderful gift it is to be alive in the world today. I have often seen the evolution of the cosmos described in terms of one year and humans only appearing on the scene at three minutes to midnight on the 31st of December. We are very new in this cosmos and haven’t yet learned what it is to be truly human. We are infants who are in danger of destroying ourselves before we have had time to develop.
There are many ways of understanding the human person and religions have their own perspectives on this. I particularly like and have been helped by the Buddhist notion of no-self which seems counterintuitive and the opposite of the Christian idea that each person is uniquely created and loved by God. Tich Nhat Hanh uses the concept of emptiness to describe no-self. He asks the question: empty of what? Nothing is totally empty he would suggest because to say something is empty is to say that it is empty of something. Even an empty cup cannot be empty of nothing, it is in fact not empty of air. So, what are we empty of?. For Thay we are empty of an isolated, discrete, separate self. We are who we are because of the process of evolution. We began the journey of life at the moment when life started, perhaps in the Big Bang if that is the beginning of our cosmos, have journeyed through the lives of our ancestors to be given birth at this moment in history and even then only kept in existence by our connectedness with others and the natural world that provides food and sustenance for our growth and development. We are indeed a unique manifestation of life as are all other sentient beings. We are part of and a continuation of life itself which will continue after our particular manifestation or indeed incarnation dies. Thay illustrates this through the notion of the wave and the water. The wave is a manifestation of the water, but it has no separate existence apart from the water. And if the wave thinks it has, it is existing in ignorance. Similarly, if the water thinks it alone exists it too is existing in ignorance. The wave is water; the water is wave. One has no existence without the other.
For me this notion of no-self is liberating and an insight into what Christianity might mean when it says that each person is created in the image and likeness of God, is a unique part of the human family and called to contribute to the human flourishing of all. It helps me understand what it means to be human as a basis for the Pope’s call to embrace the very essence of our humanity and to build a civilisation of love that will come from small and steadfast acts of fidelity. What a glorious thing it is to be human and what a glorious thing it is to be able to contribute to the future flourishing of our race.
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