Faith and Algorithms: A Catholic Software Engineer on Pope Leo’s Call for an Ethical Use of AI
- Joseph Kneusel
- Jun 12
- 6 min read
Updated: Jul 11
When Pope Leo took center stage for the first time after he was elected pontiff to address the College of Cardinals, those gathered surely anticipated a diverse range of topics for the new pontiff to cover in his inaugural address. Imagine their surprise when the topic of artificial intelligence appeared to top Pope Leo XIV's pyramid of theological, humanitarian and sociopolitical apprehensions.
Like his predecessor, Pope Francis, Pope Leo XIV expressed significant concern about ongoing technological developments and the potential consequences that may result from the unmitigated application of AI. Those concerns stem from potential negative consequences in three key areas: significant harm to the global preservation of human dignity, the pursuit of justice and the ethical treatment of labor.
But what might our impending AI-infused future (the so-called 'artificial age') look like, and how are Pope Leo XIV's concerns uniquely relevant to Catholics?
The essence of these concerns is nothing new for Catholics.
Although conventional media outlets may be rendering the pontiff's unease about AI as something unprecedented within the Catholic conversation, the history of the Catholic Church's sensitivity to dehumanizing advancements in technology is both lengthy and varied.
Pope Leo XIII’s pivotal encyclical, Rerum Novarum, in many ways began the Vatican’s efforts to grow and maintain a culture that prioritizes a human-centered view of dignity in the face of economic and technological changes. With workers worldwide experiencing egregious industrial conditions in the latter years of the 1800s, the pontiff set forth considerations for the ethical treatment of workers, based on concern for the most vulnerable as modeled by Jesus’ own ministry — principles that are all the more applicable today.
More recently, Pope Francis demonstrated a similar concern for the dehumanizing aspects of an AI-centered economy in his message to the G7 Summit on Artificial Intelligence in June 2024. He acknowledged AI's immense potential for positive ends in science and medicine while simultaneously cautioning world leaders of its potential contribution to the contemporary "throwaway culture" and the furthering of the so-called "technocratic paradigm,” in which all things are viewed through the lens of technology.
In the final lines of his address, Pope Francis said:
"We cannot, therefore, conceal the concrete risk, inherent in its fundamental design, that artificial intelligence might limit our worldview to realities expressible in numbers and enclosed in predetermined categories, thereby excluding the contribution of other forms of truth and imposing uniform anthropological, socio-economic and cultural models."
Here, Pope Francis was likely warning us against allowing the stunning power of AI to distract us from important matters, encouraging us to engage in prayerful contemplation rather than turning to a chatbot for spiritual truth.
This concern finds fervent expression in the newly established papacy of Pope Leo XIV — the artificial must always be secondary and subordinate to the dignity of the human person.
Within the context of the United States, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) echoed the words of the first U.S.-born pontiff in a letter sent to Congress this week.
The bishops provide brief but detailed assessments of the application of AI, sorted into two sections: Ethical Principles and Policy Considerations.
In the first section, they highlighted the need for awareness surrounding dignity, care for the poor and respect for the truth, citing the widespread phenomenon of AI-generated misinformation (such as fabricated images and videos) and the enormous potential that AI has for alleviating the plight of the most vulnerable when equitably distributed.
In the second section, the bishops addressed more specific policy concerns, encouraging the members of Congress to define a morally responsible framework for AI development that considers the potential impacts AI development may have in weapon system development, environmental sustainability, healthcare and education.
Are Pope Leo XIV's AI concerns warranted?
Pope Leo’s considerations of AI come amid a greater awareness of the technology’s transformational nature, as society recognizes AI’s potential to radically reshape our approaches to subjects like education, healthcare and socialization.
Ever-greater Generative Artificial Intelligence Models (GenAI) such as ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini continue to grow their footprint. Even governmental institutions, alongside the private sector, plan to implement highly complex and adaptable AI agents online, such as the recently announced Claude Gov by Anthropic, an AI system designed for use in government transmission of classified information.
In October 2024, Forbes published a medley of statistical speculation pulled from different sources, giving voice to the potential changes AI infrastructure will likely begin to enact in the coming years — including the displacement of up to 400 million workers (15% of the global workforce) and the industry’s growth to a net valuation of $1339 billion by 2030.
Although these statistical inferences are fundamentally speculative, it is indisputable that this new “industrial revolution,” to borrow Pope Leo's language, is no longer imminent; it is present.
With these developments in mind, we must recognize that AI may, indeed, pose a significant challenge to theological self-understanding, which seeks to identify human beings as children of God, rather than simply data-point entries in large repositories of AI training data. The new AI revolution poses a serious concern for labor and dignity, particularly from a Christian perspective, which asserts that work is an essential vocation based on the stewardship of God's creation.
Fundamentally, AI is a tool; in the case of text-based models like ChatGPT, the process of outputting unique content works through a series of algorithmic techniques categorized under the umbrella of Natural Language Processing (NLP). This process is a complex mathematical architecture called a transformer at its core. The input and output process uses three steps: the tokenization step (breaking text into smaller units), the embedding step (converting tokens into numerical vectors), and the predictive step (using attention mechanisms to generate the next text token based on context).
The result? An output that seems eerily human enough to haunt the pages of a science-fiction novel.
As Pope Francis cautioned, we must be especially careful to prevent the advent of an age of radical replication in which deception and misinformation are common currencies.
Since AI systems are not equivalent to human people, we must radically rediscover the fundamental, infinite dignity of each human person as a sort of “spiritual antitoxin” for our techno-moderated postmodern culture.
How should a follower of Christ navigate an artificial future?
On his inaugural Sunday on May 11th, Pope Leo spoke out specifically to young people in a manner reminiscent of Pope St. John Paul II, declaring: "Do not be afraid! Accept the invitation of the Church and Christ the Lord!"
We Christians can perhaps find in this sentiment the best approach for dealing with an uncertain future marked by the advent of a new technological paradigm with the potential to be used for great good or great ill.
AI is here to stay, and Christians are uniquely responsible for adapting and expounding Christ's teachings in this new technological revolution. Although there are legitimate concerns over the AI project, there is also massive potential and near-infinite innovation opportunities.
When we construe AI correctly as a tool to increase the quality and effectiveness of human imagination rather than as a substitute for it, the possibilities it exemplifies for a positive impact on the world are limitless. Perhaps we should ask ourselves:
How can this advancement be used to further the healing ministry of Christ?
How can AI be leveraged to fully draw others into what is good, true and beautiful?
As AI’s presence among us continues to grow, we might consider ways to face this new technological dawn not with a spirit of resignation but with a spirit of evangelization. Christian voices and witnesses are needed in the great hubs of industrial innovation worldwide, like Google, Apple, Samsung and Amazon, to help steer the development of the AI revolution in an ethically constructive direction.
In a culture heavily mediated by deeply impersonal technological machinations and often marred by the appalling actions of governmental and corporate institutions, the fire of devotion to the transcendent burns especially bright. Acknowledging one's dignity, which is bestowed not by society but by unity with God, serves as a source of inextinguishable warmth.
