Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit based.
And as AI and robotics remove the need for human labor, I hope that someone like the pope can convince people that we should value human beings inherently and more fairly. Inexpensive labor and intelligence should make this feasible.
I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" because I think that's really premature and pretty obvious that AIs are not people at this point.
The really convincing and somewhat deeper simulations of humans are probably only a few years down the line though.
Which comes back to the Rovelli dualism article that was on the front page before. I think we should not be in a hurry to try to duplicate humans in depth (such as imitating emotions, pain, stream of consciousness, self-preservation, etc). It's just completely unnecessary to go that far to get useful AI, and obviously unethical to subject a real human emulation to slavery.
Paraphrasing and old soviet joke -- and I also saw the human whose condition it improves
It's more than a matter of losing sight. This is endemic to liberal hyperindividualism which places the individual and "consumer utility" at the center of economic activity. This ideological presupposition actively works against human flourishing - and even the viability of an economy at all - as a precondition for successful economies is so-called "normal social reproduction". Our consumerist economic order is actively hostile to stable family formation and fecundity (as evidenced by precipitous demographic decline) and thus to the health of society in general.
The economy is indeed supposed to be in the service of human flourishing. Modern economics instead optimizes for "utility maximization".
Why? And what does “progressing” mean, exactly? I’m not trying to be combative or flippant, I’m genuinely asking because the rest of your comment is a great argument for the opposite view.
I’d argue humanity will “progress” when we collectively learn to treat each other and our environment with respect and care. When we have a sense of community with our fellow people instead of placing undue value on individuals and personal gain.
Technological advance could be a boon for humanity if those were our shared values, but as it stands it seems pretty obvious that what it does instead is consolidate power in the hands of those who should never have it.
We already have the technology and resources to improve the lives of everyone, they’re just not fairly distributed.
Indeed. This is characteristic of a reflexive and unthinking Progressivism that presumes the reality of some kind of nebulous, arbitrary, and ill-defined "progress", but very often denies the very basis that makes progress of any kind possible, which is teleology. In other words, Progressivism is one of the modernist idols in Nietzsche. The modern haughtily throws off the "old metaphysics" and the "old religion", but fails to notice how it has sawed off the branch it is sitting on. Its peculiar form of worship, its peculiar focus, is hollow because it has been gutted of the concepts that it draws a residual parasitic strength from. Hence, the twilight of the idols...
Postmodernism is to a large degree a reaction to the emptiness of modernism. Postmodernism is also self-refuting, but to its credit, it does respond to something very true about modernism. We are witnessing postmodernism bury the last vestiges of modernism along with itself. It is an ideological kamikaze.
> Technological advance could be a boon for humanity if those were our shared values, but as it stands it seems pretty obvious that what it does instead is consolidate power in the hands of those who should never have it.
Why can’t it be both? I’m optimistic that AI and robotics will produce innovations that will benefit all of humanity, even if the financial gains are concentrated among the few.
Whether that implies anything about subjective experience... I think that question is unknowable by definition. Either substrate matters (in which case things have to be made of carbon for some reason?), or it doesn't (in which case... God only knows what that implies. Windows XP might have subjective experience).
It really is en vogue to have this attitude that everyone in church is stupid for believing but it's a huge disservice to yourself to not understand the Vatican is full of the equivalent of the best PhDs sourced from all over the world centered around their specific topic of interest, theology.
Also for the time being you can see that the Vatican understands AI much better than you already, just have a read here: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu... [0]
> ANTIQUA ET NOVA > Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence
I’m sure there are Harry Potter and Lord Of The Rings superfans who have put in a PhD level of time and research into their favorite “topic of interest” as well.
> ANTIQUA ET NOVA
> Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence
> https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html
Let's see how the direction evolves with the new Pope and 1.5 years later.
It doesn’t take a high academia credential to develop a critical mindset about established institutions, and quite the opposite seems more likely.
This is the position of the Catholic Church, so don't expect anything different.
My hope is that, within those boundaries, he may find something interesting and meaningful to say.
What I can find is only Aquinas that all living things have souls (anima). Humans have rational human souls. Animals have animal souls...
Descartes believed that only humans have souls. But that definitely represents a clear alternative to traditional Catholic beliefs. Many modern philosophers might argue that only humans have "consciousness" in a way that implies animals do not have souls.
IIUC, he claims that the concept of "soul" is something that the wasn't really present in the Jewish worldview of Jesus' time. Rather, it's something that later theologians (Aquinas?) picked up from Greek philosophy (Platonism?).
I wonder if that means Wright would have a different take on the whole "only humans have souls" idea. (Beyond just differing on the choice of terminology, I mean.)
* https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/aliens-and-...
I'm not sure there's a 'definitive' statement as of yet as to AI, but things tend to be leaning towards needing to be biological:
* https://www.catholic.com/audio/caf/can-artificial-intelligen...
* https://www.ncregister.com/interview/the-mind-and-the-machin...
Not sure if this means carbon-based or not:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypothetical_types_of_biochemi...
Some thoughts from a philosophy professor (who is Catholic):
> 2. “But neurons do what logic gates do. So we know that computers can be intelligent, because they are essentially doing what our brains are doing.”
> No, they aren’t. True, there are causal relations between neurons that are vaguely analogous to the causal relations holding between logic gates and other elements of an electronic computer. But that is where the similarity ends, and it is a similarity that is far less significant than the differences between the cases. Logic gates are designed by electrical engineers in a way that will make them suitable for interpretation as implementing logical functions. No one is doing anything like that with neurons. In particular, no one is assigning an interpretation as implementing a logical function, or any other interpretation for that matter, to neurons. (The point is simple and obvious, but commonly overlooked precisely because it is so obvious, like the tip of your nose that you never notice precisely because it is right in front of you.)
> That brings us to a second difference […]
* https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2019/03/artificial-intellig...
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Feser
He has a few books, including one entitled Philosophy of Mind (A Beginner's Guide), so has thought about this.
Factories were supposed to deliver us from work, automation was supposed to deliver us from work, computers were supposed to deliver us from work, now it's """AI""", tomorrow it'll be "quantum computers", the next time it'll be "cold fusion". It does not work and will never work, because it's not a bug in the system, it is the system
I hope it is, because we already have the likes of Dawkins spilling opinions like “machines are conscious”.
So here we have a figure of authority saying humans are soulless but machines are conscious, furthering the argument that it’s okay to exploit humans, there’s nothing special about them if we can replace them with a machine.
https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-o...
The last 100+ years have also been atypical. Two world wars which disrupted economies in ways that lead to redistribution, huge changes from the end of European empires, the fall of the Soviet Union and communism, and technological advances that automated work but created may new jobs.
I would be very reluctant to assume a continuing trend from that.
That catholic church has a long and sordid history of protecting its own.
Post-industrial world needed human capital. Hence, the need for human value. If you notice most of this "need" has arisen out of then need for industrial expansion.
Post-AI will be interesting. Will we go back to pre-industrial or get something better.
Most of us humans inherently value each other. There are exceptions, and small communities can get nasty. But for the most part, small human communities tend to be supportive and valuing each other.
This really only stops being the case when you get large-scale societies that allow humans to view others through an overly abstract lens. Combine that with an unchecked accumulation of power, and you have the potential for those in power to view the rest as without value.
They're not talking about the economic value of humans or even the psychological value of humans as subjects with experiences and a right to liberty or care or something. The idea they're trying to recall and reinvigorate is a sense of human value that transcends that temporal, material noise altogether and that is truly universal. It's the human value that welcomed slaves, prostitutes, wretches, merchants and kings as peers in something grander than economy or state or lineage or tribe or creed.
Now, you can make a well-developed case that that's hogwash and that the human value that matters is the one that alleviates suffering or grants liberty or even the one that grants material reward for some virtue or bloodline or whatever, but that's not what these guys are talking about. They mean a human nature that is always there and always worthy, just as much when it's experiencing temporal poverty/suffering/abuse as when it's basking in temporal wealth/success/freedom.
The idea is that Christian or not, Catholic or not, it does good for everyone to think of human value that way and the critique -- for a long time now -- is that for all the flash and glimmer of technology and its material benefits, it sometimes makes it very very easy to forget.
Not true. Serfs had rights that varied a lot between societies and over time. Religions mostly teach a value of human life, and Christianity teaches equal value: "when Adam devlved and Eve span who was then the gentleman", or "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" or "it is easier for a rich map to pass through the eye of the needle".
There were all sorts of people in between. Free people who were not serfs. Skilled people who were members of guilds.
And varrying degrees apply to post-industrial too - your human value did not meant much in very much industrial third reich fans hands.
Conflating the two is why some people have trouble understanding why religions like Buddhism and Christianity seemed to tolerate so much inequality and violence; or more generally just assumed people writ large were historically more callous and uncaring than today.
Arguably one of the downsides, though, to a focus on rights vs intrinsic value is that rights are typically couched in materialist terms. Most of the time that's probably for the better, but sometimes maybe not.
Normally when I see these sorts of things it’s obvious what it is for and why, but this one confuses me.
If you've read any Vatican publications, the theme is being the authority on the ontology of reality.
EDIT: A decree for bioethics https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu... I'd expect a similar deal for AI.
The Pope has already spoken quite a bit about ai, and exhorted priests to keep ai out of their homilies, which should be a sacred fruit of prayer and study.
Just from what I have seen he said and my Catholic Theological background, I would say he will definitely be talking about at least a couple things: 1) the relationship between ai and our intellectual labor, and how to use it fruitfully to grow without losing ourselves in it (a very similar concern to many on hn as far as I understand); and more importantly for him and again for many 2) how to use ai in society in a way that everybody can enjoy the fruits of it, instead of just the elite few (similar to the priority of Rerum novarum). This Pope chose his name because of this theme, and has consistently demonstrated that social justice is amongst his highest priority concerns - to the point that he has asked the Church to stop focusing so heavily on sexual ethics because there are such weighty injustices in the world that require our focused effort and attention.
For the shrinking Catholic church it's trying to regain relevance. For Anthropic it's PR.
- Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum; current Pope Leo XIV chose his name as an explicit gesture to his nominative predecessor
- This encyclical is a return to the earlier tradition of latin names (Magnifica Humanitas) for encyclicals, as opposed to many of Pope Francis' which used Italian (Laudato si')
- The official date it was signed was 135 years to the day since Rerum Novarum
- The Pope is personally appearing and speaking at the presentation; usually these encyclicals are just released at a small press conference without the Pope himself being there
Rerum Novarum intentionally tracked a third path, rejecting both socialism and laissez faire capitalism at the end of the 19th century. Gesturing so overtly towards it suggests that this new encyclical will also try to establish a "third way," grounded (as the title suggests) in human dignity.
Leo XIV has not published any encyclicals yet; this will be his first, and an extremely ambitious one at that. I also am very eager to read it.
Presidents have their favorite past counterparts, so did emperors, and clearly the Pope does as well.
Does this kind of imitation prevent truly creative action taking? Did Akhenaten have someone in mind when he declared his own religion?
At least they didn't pick Dario lest he burst in flames
Regardless of content, it seems an extra step in solidifying where power lies.
When the question asked is roughly of “can an AI ever be considered a human soul?”, there isn’t a philosopher alive whose individual opinion would be considered more meaningful than Pope Leo’s.
It’s unlikely that the church’s opinion would influence the future business choices of Anthropic. I think it still remains a positive business move to publicly engage with the church.
Saving distances, it's like Glock engaging with spiritual leaders to figure out when it's ethical to kill. This should not be their area of decision, and if it starts being so there is clearly a giant gap for the entities that should be leading this instead.
If what you say is right, I would challenge that by still insisting the corporations can only do what governments let them. You might say they run governments behind the scenes, to which I would say, who let them? They keep influencing elections? Then elections don't seem to be working, that's the root cause perhaps? In all the major political issues, that's the trend I'm seeing, democracy failing, but then I'll challenge myself and ask why is it failing?
The old sentiment of "if it can't be fixed, it isn't a problem" seems rampant. Modern democracy itself is a fix for some other sets of problems. In the US at least, it is in theory designed to be mended and fixed. Perhaps the real cause is lack of political will power by everyone pursuing politics, to even talk about changing the way the government is architectured, altering constitutions, talking about parting ways with land and population (secession), or incorporation of some. Perhaps the population just isn't that interested in educating themselves on matters of civics, therefore how democracy works needs a rewrite at its core?
Either way, I rambled on, i know, but it's with a point i hope is obvious: the common political sentiment around billionaires, corporations, oligarchs (or similar "woke" or "DEI" dogwhistles on the right) simply don't address root causes. They're reductive by design, not accident.
If private entities have as much power as the sum of common citizens to influence public opinion, policy, or the action of elected officials, then they overtake the system, whatever it is, however it's been designed.
An upper bound on individual power is then the only thing that maintains the system working.
I tend to agree -- Even if I'm not sure what that quite looks like, and even if I'm not sure if that's better than what we already have.
Some beliefs of Catholic faith are agreeable to American "conservatives" - "homosexuality bad, no abortion, no euthanasia". Others are music to the ears of American "liberals" - "help the poor and downtrodden, love the foreigner and everyone else, no capital punishment". But the church is the church. I don't see it as liberal or conservative. I suspect if you asked the pope, or cardinals or bishops, most would say the church is beyond such secular concerns and labels.
It has been around for far longer than any political movement or country. And I'd bet good money that it outlasts all of them.
> pushing views
A religious leader espousing religious views? Shocker.
> strongly opposed to Catholicism
Literally wrong. Only the Pope can tell you what Catholicism is. You can take it or leave it but that's how it is.
Ergo, some like St. Robert Bellarmine have argued for example if a pope were to teach heresy, he would immediately cease to be a pope; others have argued it impossible for a pope to ever teach heresy at all as this was something they believed God wouldn't allow.
So, if you were to see someone claiming to be pope and teaching error on infallible issues of faith and morals, you'd have to conclude logically they could not be a Catholic pope, from a Catholic standpoint.
The Catholic Church also does not teach that there cannot be restrictions on immigration, it simply says that we should treat people with dignity while enforcing such restrictions.
> Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, will be released on May 25. A presentation event with the Pope and various speakers is scheduled for the same day at the Vatican.
Among the "various speakers" is Christopher Olah. But hard to express under 80 characters I bet.
Actually I may try that as a prompt. Last week I was having git commit messages all be in iambic tetrameter to see if anyone noticed but it annoyed me to death after the first two.
Now to look up “load-bearing” in Latin, just in case.
Papal Encyclicals[0] are solely authored by the Pope, even if there has been secular scholarship involved in the writing. It is never "presented" by anyone else, and to frame it as presented primarily by Christopher Olah "alongside" the pope is to betray an ignorance of what's officially going on.
Not sure how we arrived at the present title, "Anthropic co-founder to present AI encyclical alongside Pope Leo XIV", but it makes as much sense as "Iceberg nearly completes mainden voyage across Atlantic, with famous ship as passenger."
It was me. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that Chris Olah co-authored the encyclical with the Pope. I just found it noteworthy that there was someone from the “industry” at the encyclical presentation on May 25, which I think is a first. Usually, they are all clergy or academics.
There's a reason why not a single country turning authoritarian in the last 50 years has been a representative parliamentary democracy. The last one has been Sri Lanka in the 70s. Not a single one since then.
Electing single individuals to power instead of parties and coalitions is a terrible idea.
They are all, and I want to emphasize all, presidential or semi presidential. From Belarus to the Philippines, from Russia to Nicaragua, from Turkey to Tunisia the list is entirely composed by presidential or semi presidential republics.
There are several reasons why this happens, and why it tends to kill pluralism and proper democracy with winner-takes-all mechanics (which also tends to aggregate people across very few/two parties).
Sri Lanka did not become authoritarian in the 70s. It did adopt a presidential system.
What we do need is a lot more ordinary people to do something about it.
[1] https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...
Chris Olah, one of Anthropic’s co-founders, got in touch. What followed was, by McGuire’s own description, mind-blowing. “They basically were asking for direct help from the Vatican to convene and help the industry, because the industry was going so fast down this road,” he recalled.
I hope it's some sort of covert invitation to convert/repent. The doors are always open for those who want to cross it :).
https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu...
Someone on HN wondered if that text could be the Magna Charta for the AI age.
> Magnifica humanitas will be presented on the day of its release at 11:30 a.m. at the Vatican’s Synod Hall.
> [...]
> The Pope will be present, along with several speakers:
> [...]
> Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic (USA) and head of research on the interpretability of artificial intelligence [...]https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Techisturningincreasinglytore...
Why are the AI companies meeting with them at all? Just seems uncomfortable and suspicious.