The same week Sam Altman”s OpenAI was reportedly preparing for its IPO at a valuation around the $1 trillion mark, the Vatican issued a social encyclical with an eye on what artificial intelligence (AI) could mean for the future of humanity.
Magnifica Humanitas is careful to state that human dignity does not have a price tag. The document has created ripples through social media, news outlets, and across Christianity as a global churchwide response to the rise of artificial intelligence and its implications for humanity is emerging.
Leading up to the publication of this document and now in the weeks following, it is clear that there is no turning back as AI is set to become a part of daily life for those within the Church and around the world whether individuals choose to use such technology or not. From the dignity of personhood to economic prospects and notably environmental impact, the increasing reliance on this technology that has the power to dazzle and discourage independent human thought seems an unstoppable force.
In comparing AI to the Tower of Babel detailed in Genesis, Pope Leo XIV wrote of human arrogance and used the famous illustration of our propensity to fall in love with our own handiwork as an example of what happens when we build without any reference to God. (One may remember that the Tower of Babel collapsed.)
“We must, then, avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’ namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance,” wrote the Pontiff in the introduction to the encyclical. He is encouraging all to work together in placing God at the forefront of our actions and the human person at the center of our choices.
Detangling the complicated choices we are facing has been happening across denominations and in fact will be explored at the 2027 Lutheran Ethicists Gathering. An ad hoc consulting group for the ELCA is currently in dialogue about AI’s impact on both the church and society. The topic was also recently explored by the Journal of Lutheran Ethics.
In addition, a corporate social responsibility (CSR) paper, Artificial Intelligence: Issue Paper, was approved by the ELCA Church Council last October. The document, while not holding the same weight as a social teaching, is used to guide ELCA investment decisions and shareholder advocacy. Another paper currently being drafted by the Theological Ethics team is expected to be issued soon and will take a closer look at how current ELCA social teaching applies to the use of AI.
In referring to past social teaching, the paper pointed to the ELCA social statement Genetics, Faith and Responsibility (2011) that set out some parameters as to how to assess scientific breakthroughs from a theological perspective. The statement notes, “Knowledge and technology have never developed in a social vacuum, and genetic research and technology and their delivery are not socially neutral.” The authors noted, “When it comes to AI, that same social teaching calls us to careful moral scrutiny of technological developments.” (Artificial Intelligence: Issue Paper, page 5).
Of applications and implications
The ELCA last autumn in the CSR paper pointed out many areas for further study in relation to daily life and AI’s applications.
For example, the paper’s author suggests that more information be sought out on public health-related costs and macroeconomic risks created by practices that limit or delay access to healthcare, particularly with regard to the use of AI. In other instances, data privacy is a growing concern as well as algorithms used by advertisers and healthcare providers that rely on data sets that may include personal details about our lives that we didn’t know were widely available.
In reality, the suggestions made in the CSR report may be the tip of the iceberg, as the saying goes, as the pace at which AI is being applied to corporate, educational and personal use is quickening. For instance, most schools now use AI tools to spot plagiarism in scholarly papers. But even then, the determination of whether a text or image is AI-generated is often in the eye of the beholder despite many news organizations and other media outlets advocating for disclosure of the use of AI imagery or text.
Other research is also ongoing, such as a review of AI technology’s impact on moral virtues and human flourishing. One such project, at the University of California at Irvine, is funded by the John Templeton Foundation. Led by Anna Leshinskaya, who joined UC Irvine in 2024 as a cognitive sciences assistant professor, the project is focused on the intersection between neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
The grant is set to run through November 2027 with a focus on developing models to advance the scientific understanding of human moral cognition in ways that could steer “the moral compass of black-box AI” and large language models (LLMs).
Humanness re-examined
Human dignity was a large focus in Pope Leo XIV’s writings. He wrote of a human dignity that “is not obscured by the pressure of new ideologies or very powerful interests in today’s world.” (Magnifica Humanitas, page 13)
One of these harmful ideologies, he said, is that every person must earn or justify their own worth and those who are more efficient are of great value.
Human rights are a key area of concern for ethicists and church leaders. Part of the drafted CSR paper for the ELCA was support for “human rights impact assessments examining the actual and potential human rights impacts” (Artificial Intelligence: Issue Paper, page 5) of a company’s AI-driven targeted advertising policies and practices. The potential loss of equitable access to healthcare due to AI, for example, should be considered, authors noted.
Social justice concerns of course abound according to both Magnifica Humanitas and the ELCA’s work on AI’s impacts.
Pope Leo XIV wrote, “Justice demands that we prevent the emergence of new forms of exclusion and deprivation of freedoms: individuals and peoples hindered or denied access to basic technologies, communities exposed to invasive surveillance and social groups penalized by opaque algorithms that perpetuate prejudice and discrimination.” (Magnifica Humanitas, pages 17-18)
This reality includes equitable access to opportunities and combating hate and misinformation, he added. The guiding principle is not profit but the dignity of every person as well as the common good of all people.
Both Pope Leo’s most recent document and the ELCA’s CSR paper lift up concerns over the environment and the potential harm data centers and the need for more computing power pose. Both documents take into consideration the human person as an individual and the planet as a whole. The writings provide a checklist for those considering their own personal use of AI and how it is used in daily work and its potential future applications that may not yet be foreseen.
The conversations seem to be ongoing publicly and within meetings between AI practitioners as well as church leaders.
The hope seems to be in navigating a future that is about human flourishing not only for global technologists, business leaders, and institutions, but equally for all humankind. The road map, it would seem, is just being drafted in earnest right now.
Susan Barreto
Susan is an author with a long-time interest in religion and science. She currently edits Covalence, the Lutheran Alliance for Faith, Science and Technology’s online magazine. She has written articles in The Lutheran and the Zygon Center for Religion and Science newsletter. Susan is a board member for the Center for Advanced Study of Religion and Science, the supporting organization for the Zygon Center and the Zygon Journal. She also co-wrote Our Bodies Are Selves with Dr. Philip Hefner and Dr. Ann Pederson.
