Magnifica Humanitas with Brad Littlejohn

Last month Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas, which addresses generative AI and the challenges it raises for human dignity, education, just war, good work, and much more. On this episode guest Brad Littlejohn joins regular co-hosts Derek Rishmawy and Brad East to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of the encyclical as well as a host of other related questions.

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Transcript

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Derek Rishmawy 1:28

Our June book of the month is The Pursuit of Character, Recovering the Virtues by Matthew Arbo. You can receive a 30% discount on this title and all previous books of the month by visiting BakerBookhouse.com backslash pages backslash mere fidelity. You can find that link in our show notes to get 30% off of our book of the month from Lexum Press. Hello and welcome to another episode of Mere Fidelity, a podcast by Mere Orthodoxy, where we think about the Word of God and the world we live in. My name is Derek Krishmalie and I'll be your host for today. I'm joined by regular cast and crew member Brad East. Glad to be back. It's been a minute. It has been a minute. It has been a minute. A peaceful minute, no. But we're also joined not only by Brad East, I'm I'm actually surrounded by Brads. We're joined by Brad Littlejohn today, uh, who is you said director of program director and policy advisor at American Compass. American Compass, who is currently doing uh kind of policy work in DC around AI. And uh you've been a friend of the show, longtime friend, uh important work in ethics. And so what we thought we'd have you on to discuss today is the Pope's AI encyclical. I know this is maybe three weeks late, which is ages, ages when it comes to multiple model releases, multiple model releases as well as takes. The the amount of takes that have come out since then, um, we're we're just so slow on the game here. But we want to talk about the the Pope's encyclical on AI, uh Magnifica Humanitas, right? Uh if I I'm sure I said the Latin uh wrong, but it this is this is kind of you know, this is the first, this is the first uh encyclical

Why A Papal AI Encyclical Now

Derek Rishmawy 3:10

from this Pope. It is the first encyclical on uh on AI ever, uh to my knowledge. And it's just a a significant cultural event where across the world people are reading uh a theological text engaging with the advent of this new technology, if we can even use that word for it. And so what we wanted to do was engage it, uh reflect on it, have you on to think about it a little bit. And obviously, uh East, you have been uh you've been thinking about AI for a while now. And so we'll hope this conversation will be illuminating. We're we're barely gonna scratch the surface, but but for right now, what I wanted to ask was, Dr. Little John, uh situate it for us. Um, what is what is the Pope trying to do in this encyclical? And then we'll talk about how successful it is.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Well, he's trying to do a lot. There's no question about that. And I mean, I think um, you know, if if I had a critique, it might be that it's it's it's trying to do two, too many things at once. Um but I I think it I mean he sees himself as opening a conversation, setting the stage, um sort of laying out the groundwork for Catholic moral philosophers and and and pastors to to really build in a a hundred different directions. Uh but of course, you know, it's I think many people on the you know listeners may may be aware of this, but just you know, if if you're not, uh, you know, this is very much within this tradition of it's not just within the tradition of Catholic social teaching. It is very self-consciously uh referencing the the beginning of Catholic social teaching. Leo the thirteenth's encyclical Reum Novarum from 1891. This Pope Leo XIV explicitly said he took that name, you know, he's the he's the first Leo since Leo XIII, uh, and he sees himself as trying to follow in his footsteps in a certain way uh because he sees the scale of the challenges that AI is unleashing as um, at the very least, comparable to the scale of the challenges of industrial capitalism that were unfolding in the in the 19th century. And so, you know, what Leo XIII was seeking to do was um, you know, to sort of get the the church up to speed to s in in grappling with the just tremendous changes that had were being unleashed in the world by new technologies and and the political implications of those technologies, and saying there that this is in fact a conversation that Christians have to grapple with theologically and be willing to bring to bear the timeless truths of the faith on on the newest things. And so this encycloped is trying to do something similar, but I think uh we can go beyond that and say, like Rerum Novarum, um it's it doesn't take a position sort of for or against the new things. Um and this is in fact, you know, this was a key thing about Leo XIII, I think, uh or later in his pontificate, is that the papacy until the later 19th century really had always kind of taken a stance against new things, right? I mean, it was very aggressively conservative and reactionary. Uh and in that encyclical, you know, importantly, the Pope is saying, no, we need to respond to these new things, we need to make sense of them, we need to make sure that we are bringing to bear Christian moral reflection, but we are embracing might be too strong a word, but certainly accepting and and and taking agency over these new things, right? And I think this encyclical is trying to do something similar, right? It's not really for or against AI. It's raising the question, as Ray R Navaram was uh it's not just a question of do we have these technologies, but who who has them, who who actually controls them, right? Is power concentrated in a small handful of individuals, you know, so that um the technology just becomes an instrument of consolidated power, or can we use political institutions to uh ensure that the control of the technology is is widely dispersed, that that individuals have genuine agency over how it's applied in their lives. So that's I think the big question that this encyclical is raising. The title is always very important, right? And in this case, it's being billed as an encyclical about AI, and yet um it really is a encyclical about humanity, first and foremost. I mean, a lot of people are like it doesn't actually say enough about people complain, it didn't say enough about AI. But the point is AI is pressing upon us the question of what is humanity actually, what is distinctive about humanity, what is the magnificence of humanity that has to be safeguarded. And so the question is much less one of what do we do with AI than what is AI doing to us, and what how do we need to make sure that we protect our humanity in the face of it?

Derek Rishmawy 7:59

Yeah. East, love to hear you talk about the attempt as well. I have my own thoughts, but yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:06

Um I'm I'm the one on the pod who's going to say that I am grateful for the tradition of papal encyclicals. Um and maybe Little John can join me, so it's two against one. But I think throughout the conversation, I'm sure we're all going to share some uh recommendations of further reading. You know, Matthew Walter in the New York Times, who's a who's a traditional Catholic and wonderful writer, was very disappointed by it. And one of the th one of the things he said almost as a almost as a side note was nobody's gonna care. Like no, like this is not going to move the needle. And I have been impressed by how not true that's been. I don't mean that Silicon Valley is gonna change what it does because of the encyclical, but I actually think setting setting aside Derek's concerns that Leo may be the Antichrist.

What The Document Gets Right

SPEAKER_05 9:02

Uh I I I I just find myself extraordinarily moved in moments like this when the ostensible head of the church, a church, a stream of the church presents to the world explicitly biblical, theological, and traditional teaching on the nature of creation, the nature of the human person and contemporary ethical and social challenges. And everybody listens. Like every major news outlet and opinion venue in many languages on every continent says, like, let's talk about it. Like finally, at least some someone is not even standing up for humanity, but saying these things matter, and two billion plus souls on earth belong to this community, a lot more than that claim faith in the God of Abraham, even more than that claim to believe in one God. Hey, the questions of AI, uh, the questions raised by AI concern both God and human beings. And so I find myself moved in a way by how many people reached out to me who do not read theological texts who said, wow, like I'm learning about encyclicals, or like the, you know, the political to like the I had a very Protestant friend say, I'm deeply moved by the political vision, like the the vision of the church's political office or role outlined in this text, whatever the prescriptions or prohibitions. And so for me, it's kind of a meta moment prior to substantive analysis analysis or evaluation to say that like this is a model not just for future popes or for bishops in the Catholic Church or priests, but for all Christians, teachers, leaders, pastors of every kind. It's a model to speak into the issues of the day with boldness and confidence rooted in the gospel and scripture. And that that's like that's like my primary takeaway, even before we get to the nitty-gritty of AI.

Derek Rishmawy 11:11

It's just nice that he tried, right? Um just to be deflationary. No, I I hear that. That that's all real. Um I mean, just the fact that the chatter every everywhere within a few hours, everybody had been reading it. I I doubt, although how quickly some people read it made me think that some people had actually just were dealing with an AI summary at that point. Um uh but but you know, it it is it is heartening in many ways. Um I will say I was surprised by it in several senses. One, I thought so much of the chatter was weirdly off in its evaluation and understanding of it, um you know, open to interpretation here. Uh, but it was actually a far more positive encyclical than I imagined it was going to be. And the other people you know posting memes about the the Pope starting an AI, you know, but learn jihad were just bizarrely, bizarrely off point to me. This is a this is an extraordinarily positive. I it's not it's not super, it's not AI pilled, but but it this was nowhere near the Butlerian jihad that people were hoping for in terms of its negative evaluation. It was also for me surprisingly um less theological than I anticipated it being. You know, the the first section was it was a helpful primer for people who are uh unfamiliar with the um the the um social teaching of the Catholic Church, that tradition, it was kind of like, hey, here's here's here's your big long summary on that. We're gonna get you catch up to speed. And in some ways it's a model of of kind of putting the kick cookies on the bottom shelf for people who are unfamiliar with basic Catholic teaching. So it's like a model for X uh for catechesis. Um uh and so that I thought was a strong point, um, as well as realizing I think just the fact that the Pope is putting out an encyclical on AI, um the I think they knew it was gonna catch attention in a different way, you know, in a way that, you know, mm Pope Benedict's uh first encyclical on, I think it was Hope. Um you know, he had so I I the the positive, the meta moment was the Pope taking serious his capacity to be an evangelist of a sort, w however light you think the gospel might have been presented, in terms of the ability to to teach socially, uh catch people up to speed, give people some basic instruction, Catholic social teaching, that was positive. I will just say I was I was actually fairly underwhelmed when it came to the theological content, the amount of it and the depth of it. Uh, you know, I saw some of the subtitles, one of like, you know, the incarnate word. I'm like, oh good, we're gonna we're gonna get some real christological reflection on the anthropology, all these sorts of things. And that was really thin. Um it was just it was it was theologically thin, and maybe, maybe it's because the last encyclicals I read were Benedict's and we were dealing with, you know. Ratzinger was just, he was a theologian in his own right before he did before he was poping, before he poped. Um so that that was just my initial just read of it was, hey, it's got some it's it's doing some real work uh cata catechetically, but it was actually thinner than I had hoped

Where It Feels Too Thin

Derek Rishmawy 14:30

and way less negative than I thought it was going to be, and in ways that I had hoped it was going to be. I I I will say that my the the the critique that I appreciated was uh you've all live in's over at uh New Atlantis. I we we can get to that in a minute. But um I I think that there were some places where he really just missed um the opportunities uh either to be really positive or negative. It was it was kind of actually just too moderate. I wanted it to blow hotter and colder at the same time. Um and so that's I don't think that's just me being Protestant, but um concerns about you know antichrist aside. Uh yeah. So Brad uh or little John, I'd love to hear um Wh where I mean where do where do you think it actually where do you think it actually leveled a significant um made a significant contribution to theological reflection on the phenomena of AI or or was it really more just the question of the the social impact of AI?

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Yeah, yeah. No, I think you're entirely right in terms of being theologically thin. In fact, I mean just just everything thin in a sense that it's it's too much, too little butter scraped over too much bread would be my critique. And that there like most how many paragraphs are in it? I don't know, like 200 or something, or two no two about 250. You know, and it's and it's probably it's like 120 different topics covered in, you know, like like two paragraphs each. Yeah. Uh and and and a lot of them are like really good. I I mean like, oh, I I I I I love where I think you're going there. I want to hear more. But it's like, oh, all right, on to the next thing, you know, and then and uh and I I mean I obviously that was that was an intentional choice to say AI raises a zillion different questions, and we think it's important to go ahead and like touch on almost all of them briefly. Yeah. Um and and then I think and you know, and the moderation is yeah, I mean, maybe as a cat as a as a Protestant we should actually appreciate this, right? It's this is this is actually the the Pope using his teaching office in a very um, you know, uh non-popish way. Uh he he's so he is he is leaving it to he he's taking it sort of these are initial stabs, little c initial conversation openers on a lot of different fronts, and then inviting the rest of the church to fill in all the gaps going forward, right? As opposed to just like, you know, pontificating, right? That's a positive spin. Unintended, right? Um But that that said, that said, I I think you're absolutely right. Now, this is where I agree. I think you've all I haven't read that many takes. Actually, I think I only read two takes, and they were both New Atlantis, Yuve Olivins and Claire Coffees, and I think they were both kind of spotted in the right place.

Derek Rishmawy 17:09

It's never a bad place to start and end.

SPEAKER_02 17:12

And his complaint and your complaint, you know, is that like I I would have rather it did less and did it deeper and really, you know, brought to bear some more distinctively theological reflection. Um and that would have been, you know, on the theme of idolatry. That's what that's what Yuvol says. Yeah. That's what that's what this is crying out for. And the word is barely mentioned. And like the one time it is mentioned, it's just sort of like the idolatry of profit, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yeah, yeah. You know, and it's like, yeah, okay, we've had the idolatry of profit, you know, for a long time. Yes, like I'm I'm totally fine with the church calling that out. Um, I'm not gonna, you know, be all pearl-clutching capitalist here. But there's a lot more to say about AI than the idolatry of profit. And I think in fact, this is where it's it's it's too easy. It's too easy to be like, oh, this is just another another, you know, bunch of tech billionaires trying to make a few billion more, you know, and they think that, you know, and so the the critique of AI is this is just a play for wealth. And um it's something much much deeper and much more religious than that. And I think the Babel metaphor was a great opportunity to sort of think about the kind of the macro level of idolatry, um, how a kind of AI represents this sort of civilizational project of trying to transcend our humanity and create and create god, you know, create God in our own image, um, and the the way in which that can become a just an absolutely transfixing ideal for so many powerful people. But also, I think it needed that, but it also needed, and this is where I think Claire Coffey's piece kind of um maybe contributes as well, is a focus on kind of the micro-idolatry, uh, the micro side of the idolatry, the the household gods. Actually, one of the best things I've read on AI was actually drawing attention to the ancient Near Eastern phenomenon of the household gods, which sort of crop up occasionally in the Old Testament, right? These just little things you carried around with you wherever you went, you know, and you know, burnt a little incense to them and and a and and pray and you know, asked them for blessing and hope that you you know, hope that you didn't make them angry. And we're all you know, to some extent, our the smartphone is already that. But the the the AI-enabled smartphone is definitely our our household God that we are praying to instead of praying to the Almighty God.

Derek Rishmawy 19:34

Aaron Ross Powell Whispering, seeking guidance. Um yeah, no, that that that little point is significant. The attempt to remake and reshape the fundamental structure of of how the human is and breathes and lives and thinks um just needs needs a few pages at least um of of I don't know, phenomenological reflection, uh not not to mention theological reflection that is crystallogical, uh reflection on the soul. Um I think the idolatry point was very, very significant. But I I'm curious, Brad, about you, uh East, sorry. Um I mean, for me, one thing I the other component I thought was missing was reflection in relation to the doctrine of vocation and creation, like Genesis one to three and the kind of the ramifications of there. Uh but but um East, you've had you've actually had a lot of reflections on on vocation. I I'd be curious where where you'd like to go with that or what you would have seen, or if

AI As Idolatry Big And Small

Derek Rishmawy 20:40

you think we're just being mean.

SPEAKER_05 20:41

Yeah, no, I'm unfortunate. Unfortunately, the spice will be lacking in this pod because I completely agree with y'all. I I wanna I wanna tug on a couple positive, a couple threads that I was encouraged by. But basically, basically, like y'all, I was underwhelmed. And I completely agree, Derek, that all of the all I know it's me, I'm not even on social media, and and I got the sense that there were people who were like, you know, this is a guy who read Dune in the 60s. And it was like, uh it's not clear to me at all. I'm sure he's a good one. Yeah, he he needs to keep going. Um so yeah, it was it it honestly feels like a nothing burger uh in its in its in its substance. Um not not even because I felt like he needed to be stronger in his denunciations. I think a posture uh, you know, so Yuvalavin says in in The New Atlantis that uh Leo the Thirteenth had the benefit of writing um at the end of the nineteenth century, looking back at a at a century or more of industrial capitalism, whereas Leo XIV is looking forward to the next century of the quote unquote age of AI. That's a really astute point, and you can feel it. You can feel him not even really knowing what we're talking about yet. And and even myself, like I'm as I'm as anti-AI as anybody can be in practice and in theory, but we just use those two little letters to describe everything now. So we have to know what we're talking about. Do we mean do we mean every instance of or use of a large language model? Do we mean um someone using it like a super Google to ask for a good local restaurant when they're traveling? Like do we I just, you know, I I don't have it on my phone. I don't use it on my laptop. I of course would never use it in my writing. Um but we're just we're at the forefront of an explosion of a thousand use cases and a thousand different forms of the technology we place under this one umbrella. And what what would have been helpful, I wouldn't have minded him not really coming down hard on anything.

SPEAKER_03 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:01

Uh or at least most things, but at least being clear what we're talking about. And then what I appreciated, this was a positive thing, where he he said from the pulpit, so to speak, if not from the chair, that uh it is not a human being, it is not the same as a human person. It does not have moral conscience. It never will. He he laid out some basics there that are useful for Catholic catechesis and maybe Christian conversation as a baseline. He w was weirdly noncommittal on sort of like having conversations with a chatbot that maybe they can be useful but also they're bad. That that was I think the low point for me. I think what he could have said was whatever the technology is and will become the church can be clear in its proscription of the following and we will continue to exercise judgment about this other about some of this stuff. And the following would have been things like forming friendship, forming romantic relationship, all the idolatry stuff, right? There could have been some clarity without, as you said Brad, about two paragraphs on education, two paragraphs on vocation, two paragraphs on unemployment, two par you know and and it's just skimming the surface on everything and not going deep enough on anything.

SPEAKER_02 24:31

I want to just push back or just you know you sort of said we're in agreement, you know, we are all underwhelmed I I want to characterize my response a little differently, which is be nice are you going to be nice Brad?

Derek Rishmawy 24:41

Are you going to be the nice I thought I thought East was going to be the nice Brad today.

SPEAKER_02 24:44

Aaron Ross Powell I was um I would have per wished for a different document, but that doesn't mean that the document should have been written to my wishes, right? I think it there was an intention I think we I think we can there's some things we can say here and I have said like following you Bolivin like some clear missed opportunities for things that my mind clearly should have been in there. But in general my my my verdict is they clearly made a decision to go wide like fairly wide and shallow le you know opening up a bunch of lines of conversation for the church to then carry forward and fill out rather than going deep and narrow. And that's that was a a decision that you know there's pros and cons and I you know I I think for what it you know there's always a danger of criticizing a book an author for not writing the book that you would have written. Right. And it's like did the author write the book that they intended to write and was that a worthwhile thing to do. And in this case I think yes, it was for the most part. And I think there are places where you know it doesn't it there's a even in fairly brief treatments some pretty significant things are said. I mean they and maybe to us maybe part of the difference might be to you they're like just sort of like well duh you know that's why you can say nothing burger. In my world they're not duh you know um the I mean the like the the paragraph the key paragraph saying you know AI is not not conscious, not capable of moral agency, blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Derek Rishmawy 26:06

That triggered so many people that triggered people right that people were so mad. Is that true my God Matt Iglesias lost his mind just that the Pope sounded like souls were immortal and couldn't be couldn't be could just it sounded well you know too duelist or whatever.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

The Pope in here apologizes for the Catholic Church's previous treatment of slavery, you know he may you know find himself apologizing in the future for you know dehumanizing AI dehumanizing yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah people lost their minds. The section on autonomous weapons um where he just said very categorically this I mean again this is a big deal in my circles. He just said categorically like no, you can't have I like the there's you're no moral way to have fully autonomous weapons. Which is going to be a I mean I'll just say it's going to be a major flashpoint, right? Because this is one of these areas in which I'm you know I'm sorry but like if if if the other guy in the battlefield has an autonomous weapon and you and you don't I actually had that thought.

Derek Rishmawy 27:10

I mean what is the Doth Doth that had uh who was it on the podcast the other day it was not the Palantir Andoril uh that conversation with the IF but the real Dominic look like have you ever noticed that no no and not that you've got you've got to look it's it's uncanny. I'm curious well I will say one one other section I did flag stay there stay there Derek stay there in the war because isn't it well because this is this is one thing that I I I'm curious if this is going to be an interesting split on I don't know that I don't know that Protestants should or would have substantive disagreements here. But if Leo putting his foot on the pedal in one direction and Protestants maybe having the freedom to you know put the brake there or or or push a different gas pedal, that might be just an interesting split in terms of the way the moral philosophy, moral theology of war develops here and because I

Chatbots Relationships And Vocation

Derek Rishmawy 28:10

I it is hard it is hard when you have some of those principles in play and thinking about the protection of human life, protection of boundaries and nations and just the ability to defend defend yourself if you you say ahead of the time, no, like I will only ever use a sword. I will never I will never ever use a gun or I will never use an automatic I I will never use an automatic weapon. I will only use a normal gun. I if you say that and and just you know the other and you know the other side's gonna get the automatic and they're or they're gonna get the get the and you just tell them ahead of time yeah if you get that you're gonna be able to kill me I the the some of those other principles I I don't like it. I don't like the idea of of autonomous you know so there has to be something like you know some sort of human override on that but um I I have questions although I'm saying I'm not an ethicist yeah and I might sound like a like like a like a you know immoral person here but brad's pushback on me here I will say as a side note I did like the little section on transhumanism and posthumanism.

SPEAKER_04 29:18

Yeah yeah two two good paragraphs there.

Derek Rishmawy 29:21

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SPEAKER_02 30:19

So if you're interested you can apply and learn more information at BCndivinity.com well on the war thing I mean I think I think the the truth of the matter is the only way you solve the the game theory dynamics is with is with an international treaty, right? I mean this is what um I mean this is how we ended up handling like chemical and biological weapons and then and and nuclear weapons and we and we haven't like fully solved we haven't put Pandora back in its box fully. And you know you still have terrorists you got to worry about. But for the most part, you know, all the major nations have said, okay, yeah we don't all right we're not you we won't use it if you won't use it. Okay, all right we've all agreed we're not gonna use it, right? So I think you do need something similar for you know autonomous weapons. And and and of course the issue of international institutions comes up a lot misencyclical and that triggered a lot of people and you know sort of MAGA MAGA world.

Derek Rishmawy 31:18

You still end up with Cold War dynamics of of of when you're dealing with somebody who like a you know a a regime that lies consistently oh we will we'll never develop those weapons and like except the weapons are the kinds of things that you don't even have to develop in you don't even have to develop these things in large massive missile silos. It's just a certain kind of program that is when you're when you're looking at it from a satellite is utterly indistinguishable and you could just be developing this program to integrate within your firing systems secretly and then oh we we haven't been doing it. We haven't been doing it. Okay, actually we did it and now you're all dead. Like that's that's that's kind of the hard thing I am not pro these systems. I am slightly skeptical of saying obviously no to these systems. That is all I will commit to at this point. But one one Brad is smiling one Brad is is wasn't smiling. I'm officially but do you hear what I'm saying East? Go go go for it.

SPEAKER_05 32:19

Yeah well I just want to say I'm officially back on Team Leo and Little Little John has persuaded me that that actually all of these things needed to be said and they're antiseptic to me but they're revolutionary in DC and Silicon Valley. This goes back to um so I wrote I wrote a piece for CT in in April about just war theory and uh conversations I've had in recent months, really in the last in in recent years with friends and and especially certainly pundits pundits who respond to all the ways that just war theory constrains limits and slows down the prosecution of war, either going to it or carrying it out, executing it, with well that makes it harder so so much the worse for just war theory. To which my response is like that's the point. Like it's mi like minus just war theory, it's unrestrained. And the and the theory because it's meant to make it ethical or at least morally justified is going to have that it's going to have that effect inevitably because our fallen fleshly selves aren't restrained except by God's good command. And and so in this case, you know to Derek, I understand what you're saying at a human level, but it it doesn't it doesn't move the needle one millimeter for me because I want to know whether it's just not whether it's going to prevent the other guy from winning because you can do all kinds of unjust things to prevent the other guy from winning.

Derek Rishmawy 33:53

Now we may have principles winning though is killing you and your family and everything you hold dear.

SPEAKER_05 34:00

Just gonna put that in the parentheses Eric you and I are Christians who know that that is not the greatest evil. That is not the greatest evil. Yes? Yeah yeah no obviously I I but I'm just saying there is no Christian consequentialism that gets us out of the need to justify these decisions.

Derek Rishmawy 34:19

No no but just war theory has always it's it's it's it's it's not a consequentialist doctrine and yet it has certain subcategories where calculation and recognition of of you know reasonable measures of success. It's there the there is a there is a realm

Autonomous Weapons And Just War

Derek Rishmawy 34:40

where calculation is involved even if it's not consequentialist in in in in in its foundational principle.

SPEAKER_05 34:52

What I appreciated and then I want to I want to kick this a little John but what I appreciated to again say something positive was it it may be the most serious part of the document where he says we need to understand the chains of decision making that go from a human being to a human being losing his life. And if we can't if there are breaks in that chain and it's an opaque machine that has calculated that that I that an immortal soul will die today, then we then that's a problem. And I think that is a wonderful way to frame it for the world.

Derek Rishmawy 35:33

That's a significant point. I I yeah I'm just saying I need more paragraphs.

SPEAKER_02 35:37

Yeah yeah uh little John Well we could we could we could spend all our time talking about that that we let me pivot to something that I I think the part that I most appreciated because I was on another um a webinar about it last week and they said like read you know read one passage that uh stuck out at you. So I'll just do the same thing here. I'll read I'll read it here. And then uh it it it's a theme um in several places, but particularly in paragraph 51 uh it says it is important to ensure that this growth and appreciation of human dignity is not obscured by the pressure of new ideologies or very powerful interests in today's world. Among these ideologies I consider particularly insidious the one that suggests that every person must earn or justify his or her own worth to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient or effective. From this perspective persons end up being reduced to a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited and are no longer recognized as a proper end in themselves and should never be instrumentalized. The value of persons does not depend on what they achieve or produce. So why is this important? Well because um I mean I've been thinking about so the the the the document is trying to guard against uh sort of danger in in in two directions, right? So on the one hand, and see there's all this conversation right now about how is AI going to impact jobs, right? And um people say that there's this sort of one view in Silicon Valley that it's going to be you know it's gonna be awesome because no one's gonna have to work anymore. Um to which there's this sort of theological response that says uh well no no no actually work is a very important part of what it means to be human. We gain meaning and dignity through work and so on. But then there's this that can easily and the and the encyclical talks about that. Like work is important. It is an important part of human dignity. But it's also clear that in that there's a there's an idolatry of work in the modern world, an idolatry of being as productive as possible. Byeung Chul Han, who's one of my favorite contemporary philosophers, talks a lot about the phenomenon of of auto exploitation, self-exploitation and basically how the the the nature of the the digital economy is it has persuaded all of us to we don't need a sort of Marxist exploitation of the, you know, the the factory owner like trying to squeeze every bit of work out of us. We squeeze it out of ourselves because the pressure to perform for an audience in the in the in the digital world. And the and I think there's a there's a a very imaginable well not just a future a present that is happening right now in terms of AI's primary impact on jobs so far, and we'll have to you know nobody can nobody can agree on what it will be two years from now, five years from now, whatever, but so far AI's primary impact on jobs is making people work much harder because now they have this tool that can help them be super productive. And so then the pressure to use the tool as much as possible, to be as productive as possible increases. And there's a real danger that we're headed for a world in which you have some people who aren't working at all and they're just you know watching AI slop feeds all day long. And then other people that are you know just in the a rat race of accelerating auto exploitation trying to use AI to justify their ex the you know how the we are insecure about the value of our humanity because AI seems to be smarter than us. How can I justify my humanity? Well I guess I had better produce results right um and I I mean I experienced that that temptation in myself every single day. And so that that paragraph and other paragraphs like it in the encyclical really resonated. And and the Pope responds of course he has other paragraphs where he really talks about the importance of weakness right or you know and this is the Christological you know this is where the theology does really come in right that um Christ teaches us that our humanity is found in weakness and suffering, not in maximal production.

SPEAKER_05 39:48

There's a there's an there's a really lovely way in which the grandeur of humanity that you find in and throughout the document is the grandeur of of finitude. It's it's not the grandeur of immortal um you know being being uploaded into the cloud uh and and digitally existing eternally um and there's a there's a lovely I think way in which the Catholic Church's witness on abortion is is now mirror and and I didn't do a word search but I I didn't in my read of it see unborn or abortion as words although I may have missed those. But there's a way in which the Catholic Church's longstanding witness on the unborn is reflected in a document that says well now maybe we're all in the position of the unborn relative to a culture that says unless you can demonstrate your worth, unless you're one of the 1%, unless you're a billionaire trillionaire in this particular space, we don't see why we should keep you around. Maybe we'll tolerate you or maybe we'll just set you to the side.

Derek Rishmawy 41:00

And I think in one sense 2000 years, but especially 150 years and especially maybe 70 years worth of witness on one of those sides and of course euthanasia on the other and now like you know there there are people in in Silicon Valley who who who just like in the children of men wouldn't mind the quietest where they just take us to sea and dump us overboard when if we can't really produce Paragraph 55 he actually, this is the one this is the one reference I found um among these rights, the first is right to life from conception to its natural end, without which it is impossible to exercise any other right. When this fundamental right is denied as in the cases of induced abortion,

Work Without Worthless Metrics

Derek Rishmawy 41:40

killing of the innocent and euthanasia, we are faced with choice of the church considers gravely wrong, et cetera so it's there and I'm glad that he threw in the euthanasia because the transhumanism push, the uh the posthumanism push, the technological the functionality reducing so much of human dignity and and actually Matt Anderson had a little reflection on the flexibility and and kind of fuzzy fuzziness of dignity as a term but but um the reduction of dignity to utility uh is just endemic elsewhere. And I I see it with my with some of my college kids, my college students is is is the the justifying your existence by getting a job where you can grind and produce and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_05 42:26

That I think is a really important pushback uh especially uh in the when you're looking at the at the at yeah the the culture the culture of Silicon Valley and the kinds of conversations that you see some of these folks have about how interchangeable computational power is for thinking and being and all that that right there the the the reduction of dignity to utility is actually one of the key one of the key ideological um I think pillars for rendering that rendering the the human superfluous um so that's a really important point yeah you guys brought up Derek and I'll I'll add I think I I think I at the end uh after 40 minutes I am formally recanting and rescinding my my nothing burger comment I I apologize to Pope Leo the 14th I hope he forgives me once again Leo Pill. I'm now I'm back baby but the reason is the reason is uh you're welcome Brad you're welcome the three guys on this call and the kind of folks that we interact with we read theology for breakfast and uh when we when I when I come to this document just like you said Derek Benedict is an outlier most of the time these documents can feel a little antiseptic they can feel like a committee document they can feel wide, not deep. They can feel like they're skimming along the surface. And maybe that's actually precisely what they are meant to do. And that doesn't that doesn't make them immune from critique, but what it says is don't, as you said, little John, don't criticize it for being what it never meant to, was never meant to be and never and could not have been, because it's addressed to the world. It's not addressed to PhDs or theologians. And as as we kind of walk back through some of these things, while like y'all, I would have loved a little bit more biblical exegesis, a little bit more Genesis 1 through 4, or maybe 1 through 11. Uh I liked the bits on the incarnation. I loved ending with the Magnificat. There, there were real virtues there, but I would have liked more I'm realizing that Leo really is introducing not just not just defense industry execs or Silicon Valley bros, but he's introducing everyone to a whole way of viewing the world and a way of viewing humanity that is not native to most people. And that's a that's a really good thing.

Derek Rishmawy 45:06

That's an achievement in itself well there you okay I see that I I do think I I I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna I'm gonna retain my desire I I just wish it was a little bit more aggressive in either direction in in positive and negative. Like I I just think put it I like turning the treble up and the base up at the same time. And that's what I that's a little bit more on what I what I want. It's fine maybe maybe you still cover but but I think the punches need to be harder and the affirmations need to be harder simultaneously as a whole.

SPEAKER_05 45:46

You know Derek one way to put that one way to put that is the frame the biblical frame is Babel versus Jerusalem versus rebuilding the walls and that's an either or that's an Augustinian two cities approach. But then in the entire middle he's constantly doing a both sides like you know like there's there's there's it's neither intrinsically good nor intrinsically evil. He he and and so that's an odd dance because the Augustinian frame suggests that we're gonna get some hard no's and yes we do get some no's but I think maybe a little bit of the of the the feel of disjunction is that we're we're set up for a no to Babel and a yes to rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem.

Derek Rishmawy 46:29

And at times there's a there's a little bit of both sides, there are good points, uh yeah yes yes to each but in moderation and and that that was when I was dissatisfied that's why I was dissatisfied weirdly I I don't know if this is the right way to put it but um creation and new creation we had a lot of like you have you have you have Babel and and and Jerusalem but there's also you know kind of garden and and and and future New Jerusalem as things that we're falling away from and things that we are maybe we need to be wary of trying to rush towards and I guess I guess trying to rush towards New Jerusalem with illicit means is the temptation of battle uh I suppose so that's that's that's fine.

SPEAKER_02 47:19

Little John Yeah I mean I was gonna say this is taking us in a slightly different direction. But I think part of the frustrating you know but what do you call both sides or whatever is the um the ambiguity on its its use of the tool metaphor, right? And so this is of course the, you know, the the oldest cliche in the book when it comes to discussions of technology, you know, well technology is just a tool and what matters is not intrinsically good or bad. What matters is how you use it, blah, blah, blah. And um and the document has some of those statements. It also has some interesting statements where it it challenges the it it highlights the limits of the tool metaphor. And one I had just marked, I think there's some others, but um paragraph 92, this makes it clear that technology is not simply a tool. When it becomes the standard by which everything is judged, it begins to dictate what matters and what can be discarded, reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings demire cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency. And so I I made a note there like a ruler not tool or or you know a ruler is a kind of tool. But a tool, a tool of measurement is I mean on the one hand it's it's neutral. It's it can measure anything it's just telling you a quantity it's not, you know, but it's not neutral because it is applying a standard of measurement uh that then becomes a that then sets a standard of value toward which things try and conform, right? And um you know it teachers know this, right? That when you have a a standardized test, that is that becomes the standard of measurement that then can shape the whole curriculum or you're teaching toward to the test. And what we have found is that and of course money is a technology in some sense it's a social technology it's a tool but because it's a standard of value we reorder our whole lives in obedience to the values that it sets right and so I think um that's an important insight in this paragraph right why why it's not just a tool right um I think I would have also liked to see a distinction between tool and machine. This comes from Hannah Arendt um you know that basically you know a tool remains uh you know in a

Tool Metaphor And Tech Formation

SPEAKER_02 49:50

in in a in a paradigmatically in a tool the human being remains active the tool is an instrument in their hands that is dependent upon their physical strength right um the the hammer swing if I'm stronger the hammer swings faster now yes me swinging a hammer can do a lot more damage than me you know just punching something but uh my actual native strength determines what the hammer does not so a machine which has its its ability to operate totally outside of the effort that I bring to it such that I then start to conform my own bodily movements. So she's talking about physical tools and physical machines, but I think similarly with intellectual tools and intellectual machines, something that's able to operate entirely outside of my activity means that I then become conformed to it rather than it being conformed to me. Yeah so these are these are ways in which I think this is where I think there was a kind of a missing you know a missing phenomenological core in what technology what like actually is in this document.

Derek Rishmawy 50:57

Yeah that that that I think really puts its finger on something significant that I was I was hoping for and missing and I think would be I think which I think can be to your point um East it can be done in a way that is accessible to your average um kind of like outside outside the theological discipline reader that is very illuminating and helpful helping people see themselves and hear themselves and and recognize the way that they're engaging with these things in new ways that they they just can't even understand. I saw the most I saw the most disheartening um post. And I don't know how how real these are there it's like you know fake you know Reddit Reddit posts where somebody posts something and then they'll post it on Twitter or whatever, just crosspost it. But some kid talking about how like hey yeah my phone wasn't charging and um I realized I can actually I can actually imitate chat GPT in my mind. I so I I'll like ask a question and anticipate what I what what I think it would say. And it was like this kid just just re-engineered you know inner monologue an inner monologue and in the process of thinking um you know and but but but that kind of element of like the kid thinking himself like wow I actually guys I don't know if anybody else has a superpower I have an internal chat GPT and um it sounds too fake. It's like somebody somebody made this to troll. I know somebody made this to troll me.

SPEAKER_05 52:24

And nevertheless nevertheless I can iterate alone.

Derek Rishmawy 52:29

I can iterate alone I I I have I have had you and you're you're having conversations even very smart students about the way that they interact interact with this stuff and the and the and the the formative element that's where I'm I'm saying that the deeper, the deeper He was doing foundational stuff about human dignity, all that sort of stuff, but the deeper kind of anthropological the stuff that I think a Catholic theologian could do pretty well the the the the the the the the inner work of the soul um and and the mind, that is what I would love to see more of. So that that's that's that um last last little subsection before we land the plane here East, did you have a a question you wanted to ask our other Bradford I have a I just have a I have bet I started meta and I'm going to end meta and I'll and I'll hand on and then I'll I'll hand it off little John which is just this.

SPEAKER_05 53:23

This is kind of putting some of the pieces of this conversation together for even just for me since I've kind of had my own mind changed. This is interesting. It's like I'm talking to two chat bots at the same time is this something that is this something that people do I I actually you know what? I'm gonna go ahead I'm gonna go ahead and give this anecdote because I I was defending what they call a multi-agent indirect there we go. I was I was defending the non-usage of chat GPT to an actual pastor who was who was saying how but it would like he was saying that it was nice to have someone to bounce ideas off of for like sermons and lessons. And it was like you know that we've been doing that for a long time with something called friends. You know I mean and it that that that might betray a kind of relational or ministerial poverty that needs to be addressed on its own. But it was one of those moments where you you re you did realize that the technology had already replaced a paradigm in his mind of just grabbing coffee with a friend before you worked on a sermon or a passage. But what I want to say at the meta level is on one hand I this is my impression I'm not in DC I'm not in Silicon Valley. This is my impression from afar is that there are genuinely sincerely non-faking non-propaganda AI pilled people who really believe that this stuff is legit, that it's online that it's conscious that it has surpassed us or or will soon and that we have already been made obsolete and there's a subset of them who don't even mind there's an there's even a weird kind of desire um like they're like like they're dying to see us replaced. We are suboptimal performers and they and they want to see it. And then in the rest of the world um among normies Christian or otherwise there is this latent nagging sense that that's wrong but it's really difficult to articulate why it's really difficult if you've been trained by a framework that does give value by performance or output or utility. It's difficult to articulate the value of a child or a human being with Down syndrome or of a 95 year old with dementia or maybe just a stay-at-home mom or a dad who doesn't work in the tech sector and he doesn't have an impressive job you you write things about, right? Whatever it is, people have this sense that no, there's something wrong with that minority who wants to replace us. And but I'm not a philosopher, I'm not a theologian. I just have these instincts and I'm the one obsolete so maybe I'm just the dummy who has to catch up so I'm not left behind. And a document like this is the beginning is a gift in the sense that it's the beginning of a grammar and a framework that says no your instincts are right. They're God given the grandeur of humanity is not found where they say it's found in all of your smallness and in all of your limits and in the limits of those you love your neighbors your friends your family that's and and this is where this is where the Pope got it right. That's what God became in the incarnation. Like he took on our flesh not just the not just not some other creature like a dolphin or angel he didn't become a machine or an AI either and our nature has been has been elevated and blessed beyond measure by the gift of God assuming human nature to itself and with that as a foundation all of us Christian and otherwise can have a conversation a share based on that shared principle in response to these challenges. And I think that's I think that's wonderful.

Derek Rishmawy 57:15

Beautiful Brad Brad I I appreciate that aspect of the document and that is as a use really helpful um as just a a launching off point I do hope that this does provoke the kind of reflection we saw elsewhere kind of in response more kind of deepening this. I think it needs it. I think that's a it's a beginning it's it's certainly not an end for me. It can't be an end. Obviously the phenomenon is just going to keep growing and developing and so you you could never whatever we say whatever we record right now is going to be you know obsolete in you know two months, two weeks, two days.

SPEAKER_02 57:53

So uh Brett I will say something yeah I mean that on a to end on a a really positive note, I think, is that you know my sense is that um even I mean among the the tech bros in in many cases, I mean there there

Hopeful Closing And Next Steps

SPEAKER_02 58:10

are the ones that just sort of so you had two categories, right? The sort of, you know, the the tech bros that are sort of excited about um creating something greater than them. And then kind of all the ordinary people that are just sort of have a nagging sense that something's wrong here but can't articulate it. But I think there's um there's a third group which is the the elite tech bros that have a nagging nagging sense that something is wrong. And that they that they themselves have had a worldview that does they're suddenly staring down the kind of reductio ad absurdum of their own worldview. Yeah. I mean they you they've defined themselves by their you know their super performance and now they've realized there's something more super performant than they are and so they're like is this all that humanity actually is and so I I've been I mean there is a um there's a real um you know moment for the gospel here in what I've just seen tremendous openness to theology tremendous o interest in these kinds of questions among you know sectors of people who would have been just seemed to be as far away from God as you could be five years ago. And I think you see that in the fact that I mean the the very close interaction between the anthropic people and the Vatican which is you know a little creepy and you know I mean I have mixed feelings about it but um most of the anthropic people are you know enlightenment secular humanists but who are nonetheless like we really need to talk to some of these theologian people because they understand something that we don't. And so I think you know there's an exciting opening there.

Derek Rishmawy 59:48

So that's and I think that's a that's a good note to end on is is really realizing that there are always openings for the gospel. And even on even on the other side of AI, that's not going to change, right? This is and this is some point I want to make elsewhere is when it comes to generational discussions, uh people always have this fundamental people often have this fundamental mistake of like, well this new generation is this weird new generation that is fun that is uniquely among all generations, fundamentally impervious to the work of the Holy Spirit or something like that. And uh and and there's something similar I think can happen when it comes to kind of new technological epochs and eras is are this going to be the ones uniquely devoid of of of the agency of the spirit to bring forward the church into the new no no right uh the spirit is a spirit tech is tech and and God is God. And that that was that those things are not going to change uh no matter how many new things come on the horizon. With that in mind um Brad Littlejohn thank you so much for joining us this is a great discussion hope to have you on again uh if you have listened thus far thank you for listening uh feel free to rate and review us on iTunes or Spotify or whatever you listen uh but for now this has been your fidelity