What Pope Leo XIV's First Encyclical Says About the Power of AI

AI systems decide what people see, filter what people read, and participate in processes that govern work, information, and collective choices. AI is treated as more than a new technology, functioning as invisible infrastructure in daily life. The issue is placed within Catholic social teaching and connected to Rerum Novarum, which addressed labor during the industrial revolution. Today’s “res novae” are digital platforms, algorithms, data, and automation systems that reshape power, the economy, and social relations. The encyclical frames digital transformation through human dignity and the common good rather than technical innovation. Technology is not evil in itself, but current technologies have unprecedented scale and depth, concentrating power in opaque systems that increasingly determine social life.

"“An algorithm decides what we see, another filters what we read, and still others enter into the processes that govern work, information, and collective choices.”"

"“Technology, the Pope writes, is not evil in itself; on the contrary, it belongs to human history and creativity. But the current situation is different in both scale and depth: ‘Never has humanity had so much power over itself,’ the text observes, describing technologies that now shape decisionmaking processes, the collective imagination, and social life in an increasingly pervasive way.”"

"“Pope Leo XIV places the issue of AI within the tradition of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church and directly invokes-while updating it-the Rerum Novarum of Pope Leo XIII (published on May 15, 1891) in the year of its 135th anniversary.”"

"“If the ‘res novae’ of that time were factories, labor, and industrial capitalism, today the new issues revolve around digital platforms, algorithms, data, and automation systems that are reshaping power, the economy, and social relations.”"

Read at WIRED