By KIM BELLARD
Until a couple of days ago I had never heard of the phrase “meat computer.” Apparently this has been around for some time and, as Lora Kelley discuss in The New York Timesit is increasingly used by tech elites, either as a way to humanize AI or as a way to belittle what humans can do in relation to AI (e.g. Elon Musk aware last summer, “We are all dumb computers compared to digital superintelligence”).
Raphaël Millière, an associate professor at the University of Oxford, told Kelley that the metaphor aims to “change public perception about how humane and intelligent frontier models are.”
Well, Pope Leo doesn’t believe it.
On Monday he published his first encyclical: “Magnifica humanitas: on the safeguarding of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence.It is about 200 pages long, so forgive me if I have to rely on summaries, but it raises issues that I hope our politicians and business leaders will pay due attention to.
Encyclicals are apparently one of the highest forms of teaching a Pope can give, and it is rare for a Pope to deliver one himself, so this is something he takes very seriously. As it should.
AI, he says, is the new industrial revolution, and he asks us to “disarm” it: “Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition, which today is not simply limited to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. Disarming does not mean giving up the technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity.”
“It is necessary to disarm artificial intelligence, free it from the logic that turned it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death,” he stated. “It must be at the service of everyone and the common good.”
The Pope makes it clear that he is not against technology per se – “technology should not be considered, in itself, a force antagonistic to humanity” – but the question is how it is used and what the impact will be on people. “That is why it is not enough to regulate it, it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible,” he said.
He is especially concerned that control over AI and the wealth that comes from it should not be concentrated among a few elites:
AI tends to amplify the power of those who already have financial resources, expertise and access to data. Small but very influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and direct economic dynamics for their own benefit, undermining social justice and solidarity between peoples.
And he points out: “A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, runs the risk of exposing many to forced inactivity. This creates a paradox of material progress and anthropological regression that undermines the foundations of a just and stable social peace.”
Marx and Engels would recognize this, although perhaps not the “meat computer” metaphor.
The Pope indirectly but firmly rejects the metaphor of the computer of the flesh:
Building for the common good means accepting the limits and weaknesses of humanity without considering them an error that must be corrected… We must avoid the error of equating this type of ‘intelligence’ with that of the human being. These systems simply imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits in many fields. However, this power remains entirely linked to data processing.
The Pope frames our choice with a biblical reference to Babel or Jerusalem: “The main choice is not between a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’ to technology, but between building Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem; between a power that seeks to dominate the heavens and a people that works together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence.”
Your choice is clear:
We must, then, avoid the “Babel syndrome”, that is, the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences and the pretense that a single language – even a digital one – can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.
The Pope was joined in the presentation by Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic. Olah said: “Today is just the beginning, the beginning of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we, from the inside, cannot see.” He added: “We need informed critics to tell laboratories when we are failing. We need moral voices that incentives cannot subdue.”
“Leo sees the challenge of AI as a choice about its design and who can make those decisions,” said Vincent Miller, a theology professor at the University of Dayton, Ohio. said The Wall Street Journal.
It is no surprise that the Pope directly addresses the use of AI in warfare. “Moral judgment cannot be reduced to calculation, since it implies conscience, personal responsibility and the recognition of the other as a person,” he writes. “Therefore, it is not permitted to entrust lethal or irreversible decisions to artificial systems.”
She is also concerned about its use in politics and its possible impacts on children. And he calls our data “the new rare earths of power,” warning:
Herein lies one of the most urgent moral challenges of our time: ensuring that shared knowledge becomes a true common good and not an instrument of domination. This requires returning to individuals not only the data that describes them, but also the ability to decide how it is used, by whom, and for whose benefit.
The Pope warns: “Solid legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.” We are going to need more than “hopes and prayers” to make that happen.
In light of the recent verbal exchanges, I can’t wait to see how President Trump responds. In fact, Anna Rowlands, a British theologian who was among the presenters of the encyclical, saying: “I think the danger for the American audience is to channel everything solely into some kind of drama between Trump and Leo.” However, he added: “There would certainly be questions that could be asked of the United States when reading that section on power, but there are also questions for other world leaders, and also for the tech industry itself.”
It’s bigger than Trump, bigger than America, bigger than technology.
The Pope does not have all the answers and probably does not even ask all the right questions. But he’s thrown down the gauntlet with some very specific concerns, and it’s up to all of us meat computers to pick up on it and take action.
Kim is a former e-marketing executive at a major Blues scheme, publisher of the late and lamented Tincture.ioand now a regular contributor to THCB
