Pope Leo to address human dignity in the age of AI - NBC News

Pope Leo XIV is set to release a landmark encyclical on 'safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,' joined by leading Catholic figures and Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah. One imagines the working group meetings: 'Your Holiness, the model is currently fine-tuning on the entire corpus of Aquinas.' 'Splendid, but does it respect the sanctity of the human soul?' 'We'll need to check the RLHF reward model.'

The timing is impeccable: just as frontier models are jolting Washington and learning to fly planes, the Church offers a document. The gap between the encyclical's lofty language and the breakneck speed of capability leaps is wide enough to park a Swiss Guard truck in. While the Pope writes about dignity, researchers test whether GPT-5.5 can hack a power grid. But sure, let's 'safeguard the human person' with a press release and a prayer.

Still, credit where due: at least someone is trying to articulate principles. The encyclical will probably be a thoughtful meditation on human uniqueness, machine limitations, and the importance of keeping the human in the loop. Then the loop will be automated, the human fired, and the encyclical will sit beautifully on a Kindle assembled by robots. One can almost hear the collective sigh of relief from Silicon Valley: 'Finally, the moral framework we've been begging for.' The last line, perhaps: 'And lo, let us pray that the alignment is not just of models, but of hearts.' Amen.