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Leo XIV warned that AI can never be truly moral, as it lacks any spiritual capacity.
Yet as Anthropic works to build powerful AI models, they assert that Claude can and must be a moral agent. Indeed, Anthropic predicts that Claude's moral reasoning will surpass Anthropic's own.
As AI promises the end of labor, scarcity, and even death, Leo XIV counsels us that AI cannot rival the infinite worth of the human soul. Can his vision of divine grace amidst human finitude win over tech's Promethean aspirations?
Link to article here: https://www.palladiummag.com/2026/06/06/the-rival-theologies-of-artificial-intelligence/
As AI development continues to accelerate, the gap between the Promethean promises of Artificial Intelligence and the spiritual humility of Christian life will become ever more apparent.
Read the full article by Duncan Umphrey here: https://www.palladiummag.com/2026/06/06/the-rival-theologies-of-artificial-intelligence/
This is not an ordinary encyclical letter: for the first time in the modern era, the Pope presented it in person, instead of delegating the task to a cardinal. Almost as shockingly, Leo XIV brought Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah to Rome to speak alongside him.
To Leo XIV, the rise of Artificial Intelligence is the defining issue of our era, on par with the tumult of the Industrial Revolution overseen by his namesake Leo XIII. Leo XIV follows in the path of Catholic Social Doctrine laid out by Leo XIII's encyclical Rerum Novarum.
The backbone of the Vatican position is the doctrine of Personalism: that the essence of the human person is our capacity for direct contact with God.
Thus, the fact that mere intelligence or creativity can be imitated by AI does not threaten man's inherent spiritual supremacy.
Amodei's aspiration — laid out in his essay "Machines of Loving Grace" — is to recapture the Garden of Eden, before mankind fell into our condition of labor, suffering, and death.
Is his AI program the answer to our deepest desires or a blasphemous idolization of technics?
Because our worth is a spiritual matter, even the negative aspects of human life, like labor, suffering, and death, are invaluable as a path towards divine grace. Leo XIV asserts that human finitude is a gift, not a deficiency to be solved by technological means.
Anthropic and Silicon Valley, although they agree that AI should support human flourishing, do not accept the Vatican’s praise of human finitude or even man’s inherent supremacy over AI.
As their models improve at a staggering rate, AI promises to remake the human condition.
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