The strong and clear challenge posed by Pope Leo XIV in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), is the declaration of the sacred value of every human life. It is a strong statement of moral value that asserts the dignity and rights of every person. It comes at a time when people, especially women and children, are being deprived of their humanity and treated as objects to be exploited and abused, their rights eroded or denied. Human lives are being damaged almost beyond repair by a new kind of tyrant. Not the human one that maims and kills, but a powerful electronic force that has begun invading mobile phones and, by extension, the hearts and minds of thousands of children and other vulnerable people. It is called artificial intelligence (AI).
AI can be a great tool for education, research, and programming machines and computers, but it is also a dangerous technology that can be used to harm, exploit, and oppress people. In the hands of unscrupulous tycoons and pedophiles, it can be abused for mass digital manipulation and exploitation and for creating child abuse materials. It can also be used to program drones and other aircraft, as well as lethal weapons in autonomous warfare. Pope Leo makes clear the dangers inherent in the misuse of AI.
Government agencies around the world use AI algorithms to discriminate against some people. These algorithms can be designed to identify and systematically eliminate or block certain individuals from gaining access to education, employment, loans, and health care. AI programs can discriminate based on a person’s color, race, social status, or educational and ethnic background. This is what is behind the social justice crisis that Pope Leo discusses in his encyclical. It places people, their dignity, and their rights before digital power and challenges the tycoons who use AI without control or constraint to earn billions of dollars. The AI-based decisions made using data collected from people are “tainted by prejudice and injustice,” the pope says.
What Pope Leo is saying is that tech tycoons hold a monopoly over powerful technological systems, and billions of people are now dependent on them. These tycoons are in control of much of the content that people read, listen to, and experience. Many have been manipulated and exploited by these AI programs. This is what Pope Leo is denouncing. The AI-driven algorithms used by these companies gather personal data and function like secret law enforcers, treating people’s private lives as raw material to be exploited, owned, and monetized without their participation or consent. Pope Leo considers this massive collection of personal information a digital form of imperialism, calling it “digital neocolonialism.”
Using the AI capabilities of their search engines, these technology companies acquire, through their platforms, the personal health records, genetic data, and demographic information of millions of people, especially in politically weaker or developing nations such as the Philippines, where users are often unaware that they are being digitally exploited every time they open their computers or mobile phones. Their data is used to train predictive AI models that expand this exploitation and generate profits for corporations through advertising and even political manipulation intended to influence elections. Connectivity through social media platforms may be helpful, but these platforms do not, in general, serve humanity.
‘Mere cogs in a system’
Some corporations use AI to gather personal information from millions of people and sell it to corporations and government agencies for surveillance purposes. Other bad actors can also use that information to harass, threaten, blackmail, or extract money or sexual favors from others, especially children. It can be said that personal privacy is almost nonexistent for millions of people using AI-driven tools. This is what Pope Leo is challenging in Magnifica Humanitas. He clearly denounces a business mindset that reduces people to commodities, in which every human choice is dictated exclusively by measurements of efficiency and profit. Pope Leo warns that this reduces human beings to “mere cogs in a system” and risks making society view vulnerable lives, such as those of the sick, the elderly, or the impoverished, as less useful and even disposable.
Among those leading the AI industry and promoting the technology’s benefits for humanity is Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, the company that developed an AI tool called Claude. It is an AI assistant capable of advanced reasoning, document analysis, and mathematics. Olah joined Pope Leo in the Vatican Synod Hall, where he said AI companies must follow an ethical code of conduct and that AI developers must be held accountable.
“We need informed critics who will tell the labs when we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend,” Olah said, speaking for AI developers with a moral conscience who seek to live by a code of ethics. Olah acknowledged that computer scientists alone cannot determine ethical boundaries. He said the driving forces behind many developers are not spiritual or ethical in nature but are continuously influenced by “incentives,” such as ambition, competition, and financial pressure. He also said companies like his need structured moral guidance to guard against “incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing.”
Doing the “right thing” means developing AI software that serves humanity and protects both children and adults by detecting, blocking, and removing harmful child abuse images. The work of the Preda Foundation includes helping young victims of sexual abuse, including cases in which 12- and 13-year-old boys have raped 6-year-old girls. The abusers have been influenced by easily accessible sexual abuse images viewed on their phones. Pope Leo, in Magnifica Humanitas, explicitly warned that providing personal mobile devices to children at too early an age without supervision “exacerbates their vulnerability to online exploitation, grooming, and extortion.”
We can add to that the moral corruption of young people through AI-driven digital platforms that cannot distinguish right from wrong and that can expose users to AI-generated content that encourages the sexual abuse of children. Pope Leo said modern corporate AI algorithms are designed to propagate and display images that attract viewers, especially young people, and keep them engaged online. This, he said, is designed to maximize profits.
The addiction of children and adults to social media platforms and illegal content is a corrupting influence that must be stopped. Some countries, such as Australia and Indonesia, have passed legislation restricting minors’ access to social media platforms, and more nations are planning similar measures. The Philippines should do likewise to protect its children and uphold national dignity.
Note: Any original information, stories, or news articles posted on this site that are authored by the Preda Foundation and Father Shay Cullen may be shared, copied, or reproduced without further permission, in support of truth, freedom of expression, and the public’s right to know.
LiCAS News was granted permission to republish and adapt this article by Father Shay Cullen in the spirit of truth-telling and the pursuit of justice.
Irish missionary Father Shay Cullen, SSC, founded the Preda Foundation in Olongapo City in 1974 to promote human rights and the rights of children, especially victims of sexual abuse.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of LiCAS News.
