Pope Leo XIV announces collaboration with Anthropic on AI ethics

Pope Leo XIV has released its encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on Monday, May 25, delving deep into the growing threat of artificial intelligence on humanity's future.

Pope’s first theological document primarily focuses on how AI is tearing apart the fabric of society by exacerbating economic inequalities, social injustice and violence in the world.

According to Pontiff, in the modern world AI is being framed as “Tower of Babel”, a project which reflects humans’ avarice and absolute power instead of shared benefits.

Unfortunately, the growing role of AI in modern warfare is changing the moral landscape and giving rise to a different kind of slavery marked by digital colonialism and use of employees for data labelling.

Given the worsening crisis of AI due to concentration of decision-making power in few hands, Pope Leo XIV has announced a partnership with Anthropic to work on AI ethics and the shared future of humanity.

Speaking at the presentation, Pope thanked Anthropic co-founder for accepting the invitation of the Church.

“Alternatively, in the name of the Church I accept your invitation to work together, to listen or to speak together to find the way for humanity, in this time of artificial intelligence,” he said.

The Pope called this collaboration a “great sign of hope”, though we can discern the difficult questions of our time.

Even in his first encyclical, he called for active involvement of communities and intermediary organisations in the tech-related decision-making, discernment and oversight.