In one of his first speeches after being elected, Pope Leo XIV told cardinals he had chosen the name Leo because he felt the Catholic Church needed to update its social teaching in the age of artificial intelligence, in the same way that Pope Leo XIII wrote about the role of labour in the factory age of industrial capitalism - 135 years ago, called Rerum Novarum.
On Monday, in an unprecedented move, Leo will personally launch Magnifica Humanitas, the product of more than 10 years of Vatican study of AI ethics, the impact on climate, its effect on humans at work and at war, and now the issue that will define the first American pope’s time in office.
Professor Federica Genovese of Oxford, Professor Lorenzo Crippa of Strathclyde, and veteran journalist Dave Vetter joined Richard Delevan to discuss Magnifica Humanitas. Genovese and Crippa discuss their research paper, Papal Dividends, which looked at past encyclicals including Laudato Si: Care for our Common Home released by Pope Francis in 2015 and how they affected the market value of companies in sectors mentioned by the encyclical. The Vatican has worked on AI ethics issues for years, but this will be a defining moment of Leo's year-old papacy, tying in concerns about the place of humans in the economy and society, the climate impacts of data centres, the use of AI in warfare including current conflicts in Ukraine, Russia, Lebanon, Gaza, and Iran.
At a time when the backlash against AI is building, Eric Schmidt and others booed at commencement addresses when mentioning AI, and Peter Thiel going to Rome to accuse anyone trying to slow AI down as 'the antichrist', how will Magnifica Humanitas be received?
00:00 AI as Defining Issue
00:38 Pope Leo’s AI Encyclical
02:21 Can Encyclicals Move Markets
06:04 Media Backlash and Polarization
11:06 Measuring the Market Impact
13:46 AI Bubble and Investor Stakes
16:11 How Leo XIV Might Land
20:28 Legitimacy and Public Trust
28:00 Thiel Rome and AI Warfare
34:12 What to Watch Next Week
Read Genovese and Crippa's research, Papal Dividends: https://lorenzo-crippa.github.io/files/papal_dividends.pdf
