AI, Human Dignity, and Nonviolence: Marie Dennis on Pope Leo XIV's First Encyclical

Artificial intelligence is transforming our world, raising profound questions about technology, ethics, and what it means to be human. In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, we’re joined by Marie Dennis—co-director of Pax Christi International's Catholic Institute for Nonviolence and a founder of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative—to explore Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas.

Beginning with the Pope's reflections on artificial intelligence, the conversation expands into a thoughtful exploration of human dignity, Catholic social teaching, the Church's growing embrace of nonviolence, and the challenge of resisting systems of domination in an age of rapidly advancing technology. Marie also reflects on the significance of Pope Leo's call to move beyond just war theory, the work of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, and why cultivating a richer understanding of our shared humanity may be one of the most important tasks of our time.

Transcript

Stephanie Van Hook: Greetings and good morning, everybody. Welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here in the studio with my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler, and we're from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

On today's show, we are going to talk a bit about technology and nonviolence. Artificial intelligence is rapidly becoming one of the defining technologies of our time. It's changing how we work, communicate, learn, even how we understand ourselves. Alongside its remarkable possibilities come some profound questions, such as, what does it mean to be human in an age of intelligent machines? How do we ensure that technology serves human dignity rather than undermining it? And what values should guide us as these tools become more deeply woven into our lives?

To help us think about these questions, we're joined by Marie Dennis, co-director of Pax Christi International's Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, and a founder of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative. We spoke with Marie about Pope Leo's first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, and as we begin our conversation, for listeners who may not be familiar with the term, we ask exactly what is an encyclical, and why is it such an important document in the life of the Catholic Church? Let's turn now to Marie Dennis.

Stephanie: What is an encyclical? I mean, is it basically a position statement that the Pope makes about an issue in society? Can you help me to understand that better? 

Marie Dennis: Sure. An encyclical is literally a letter from the Pope. For many, many years it was a letter from the Pope to the Catholic people, but probably in the last 50 years, an encyclical has more often been a letter from the Pope to the world, to anyone who's interested. And it is not always about social issues, but in recent times, more recent times, like the last 100 years, it has tended to be about social issues. But it is also one of the most authoritative statements that a pope can make. So an encyclical, there's a whole series of statements and declarations that a pope can issue. They vary in authority and in weight, if you will. An encyclical is one of the most important, or the most important. 

Stephanie: And so Magnifica Humanitas: On the Safeguarding of the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, this is Pope Leo's first encyclical. How did this land with Catholics and with others that you've interacted with? 

Marie: Well, it's a very long encyclical and it will probably take quite a long time for the world and for the Catholic community to digest its significance. But I think as a starting place, it's been very well received. It was interesting because Pope Leo issued the encyclical Magnifica humanitas just a few weeks after he had been involved in such a very public, global conversation with the US administration over the war in Iran.

And I think there was generally a very positive response to the way he engaged in that conversation, seriously based on very deep values that he holds and that our tradition holds. And so I think there was kind of an openness to receive a new encyclical from him because he was in favor, in a public sense.

But at the same time, the topic, we knew that an encyclical was going to be issued on artificial intelligence, that was pretty public. We didn't know what would be in it. It was not the first time that the church had spoken on artificial intelligence. There have been a number of conferences and efforts on the part of the Vatican in one way or another to acknowledge the seriousness of the growth and development of artificial intelligence and to ask questions about how to take advantage of artificial intelligence in a way that enhances the dignity of the human person or recognizes the dignity of the human person rather than threatens in some way, life.

I do think that the encyclical has been well received, not all new, but much deeper and more complete than was expected. I think there are also parts of the encyclical that were not expected, and that's been quite interesting.

Stephanie: Well, I'm curious about that. I mean, that's a cliffhanger. What were the parts that weren't expected? 

Marie: Well, I think that from the day Pope Leo was elected, he has been obviously concerned about the state of violence in the world, about war, but also about a very broad description of that sort of violence with which we are now living.

And so, it's not a surprise. It's also not the first time that war and peace would be mentioned in an encyclical. But it was very clearly a statement on his part, that picked up on what Pope Francis had said in Fratelli tutti, that it's time to move the just war tradition toward the back shelf in the Vatican.

And Pope Leo not only said that very clearly, he called the just war theory, he called it a theory out of date. And since the encyclical was issued, he has picked up on that conversation in some pretty interesting ways. But I think that a couple of things were, to me, interesting. That was one, that he so emphasized his concern about violence and war, and reiterated even more strongly the fact that the just war tradition just doesn't work, was out of date. But the other part that was very interesting in the encyclical, early on in the encyclical, was his recap of Catholic social teaching. Catholic social teaching began in, like, 1890, '91, and it's followed history all for the years, since Pope Leo XIII issued an encyclical called Rerum novarum that was very focused on the plight of the worker in the industrializing society of the 19th century.

And Pope Leo picked up on that, which wasn't a surprise. He chose the name Leo. Many believe it was to follow Leo XIII. He's now Leo XIV. But he also went through Catholic social teaching one document, one statement at a time and laid out the values that are at the base, that are essential to Catholic social teaching in a way that was fascinating.

I've had many opportunities over a long time to do workshops and teach classes on Catholic social teaching, and I usually lay out a historical timeline and show how Catholic social teaching each time was speaking to the particular crisis or the particular needs of a given time. One was in 1931, in the middle of the Depression, up and on. It was fascinating to me that he did something very much like that, and he just obviously picked up that tradition as the basis of where he wanted to go in talking about artificial intelligence, which was quite interesting. 

Stephanie: I think it's interesting to have sort of moral leadership trying to speak to AI at this moment. But he also says that the minute that we begin to start to try to define AI, we're already out of date at this point. So AI is really impossible to define. But I think in the zeitgeist we tend to know that this is a question about big tech infiltrating the human image, and then acting in a way that would negate humanity's connection to spirit, humanity's connection to one another, our need for dignity and work. I feel like he starts to then just sort of pull apart, like, what are the impacts of AI. And he did research on it. It's not like it was just a revelation that he's trying to…  So I think especially in terms of the connection to AI as ruled by power instead of being ruled by our imperfect but noble humanity, where does that go?

Marie: It's really interesting. I mean, I think he was quite careful to not throw out the baby with the bath water, if you will. I mean, he did not say there's no role that could be positive for AI. I think he acknowledged that there are some ways that AI can be helpful in different circumstances, in different parts of life. But exactly what you said, Stephanie, he was very concerned, expresses concern that AI will build on what is already a very negative "power over" kind of reality in the world, that AI will exacerbate that structural and systemic violence, and will thereby diminish the quality of life, the respect for people very specifically, and especially those who do not have, are not designing the technology, training the technology, and so on. He recognized, I think, that there is a danger that maybe the same groups or maybe a new group of people will gain power over parts of the human community that are more vulnerable, and that, I think is what he's warning against. That already the training of AI can very easily be building into the technology the kind of biases and prejudice and injustices that are endemic in many of our systems, and I think he's very worried about that. He emphasizes, I think, dignity, solidarity, the common good, participation, transparency; values that I think we would recognize as important, but then, I think, lifts up the danger of AI as creating another opportunity for a kind of idolatry of technology that that allows the technology to be more powerful than most humans. And I think that's the direction that he's really worried about. 

He talks about the direct dangers of AI misused, but he also talks about and most especially where decisions could be relegated to AI-driven machines that should never be out of the hands of human beings. And he was particularly strong in talking about weapons being managed by AI obviously. But he also talked about, for example, the exploitation that's hidden in the supply chain that feeds the whole sort of boom in AI technology. The exploitation of humans, the exploitation of the planet. I mean, we know the story of the extent of mining or of the presence of data centers now all over our country. I think he's worried about that as well, and so keeps trying to on the one hand say, yes, there are uses for AI, but we need to be very careful about how we limit those and keep them within the hands of humans to manage. At least that's my understanding of what he's saying. 

Stephanie: Yeah. I've seen some connections with this journalist, Karen Hao, who has a book that's going the rounds right now called The Empire of AI. Like a look into the world of Sam Altman. And where she's making the case that AI is taking the path by aligning itself with the funding from the Defense Department and so forth, that it's in the work of empire at this point. That you have people in Silicon Valley that are sitting behind desks making a ton of money, while you have people in Kenya who are getting paid cents on the dollar to train AI in the most disgusting ways. That they're dehumanized, making nothing. And she's like, "This is logic of empire. This is what's happening." 

Marie: I think that's exactly what the encyclical is trying to get at. It risks exacerbating in significant ways what is already a challenge, in our world in terms of the imbalance of power, the imbalance of wealth, the imbalance of access to even basic needs, but way beyond that. So yeah I think that's right. I don't think he particularly uses the language of empire, but I would understand that that's what he's talking about. 

Stephanie:I think in the section on slavery, I think that's where we start to see language around imperialism.

Marie: Yeah. Good point. Very true.

Stephanie: But then you also have this co-founder of this AI system called Anthropic, Chris Olah, who was invited to give remarks at this event, and people are finding that somewhat problematic in a way that somehow Anthropic got invited to the table to make themselves look like the moral AI out there, or that they have a moral wing, whereas others don't, and not to trust Anthropic anymore just because they happen to be invited to the table. I really would have hoped that something like the Center for Humane Technology would have been invited, because I think of anybody, they're grappling the most with these questions around peace, technology, and that you can have AI with all the good stuff, and you don't need to have all the bad stuff with it. They've really worked out a plan for that. Whereas Anthropic, it's just PR. 

Marie: Yeah, it was really interesting. I mean, it I think demonstrates the flaws in any process, including at the Vatican. My guess is that, I don't know any inside story about why the Anthropic was at the table. I do know that the Vatican in other circumstances has made an effort to be in dialogue with companies. For example, the Vatican has had several significant conversations with the heads of mining companies, which is tricky. It's very tricky. I think their commitment is to dialogue, to try to engage people in the conversation. But that's challenging to do when the world reads that engagement through a different lens. I don't know anything about why Anthropic was invited. I thought it was a little strange too, but-

Stephanie; It was definitely PR.  And just in terms of the other kinds of the imperfection side for a second, what I did understand about the encyclical is that it's also a dog whistle to culture as well within the church too to sort of see, like, what are the trends? What is the language being used? What's being talked about? So we hear about the just war theory, which you talked about already and then there was a section on the role of the harms that the church has perpetuated and that they can, somehow this idea that the church needs to do reparations and atonement work for harms. That was embedded into this encyclical. I'm like, that's interesting that's there. Because I wasn't quite sure what the relationship to AI was, but it just seemed like almost like a bill trying to, you know, get passed. It's like, let's just put everything in there that we need to put in there. Like how it lands. And then toward the end just talking about marriage between a man and a woman was very clear. Do you maybe have a sense of why are these other things put into the encyclical? Why would he reinforce, marriage is between a man and a woman? Why would he reinforce that the church is involved in historic wrongs and violences and needs to atone for those?

Marie: I have no idea. The Catholic Church is a very big entity. It is very old, and it is very complex. My guess is that in terms of the apologies or the acknowledgement, I think that for the last century, a little bit less, the church leaders, particularly the Pope, have been trying to find a way to adequately apologize for the role of the church in unbelievably destructive and violent ways of being. Was every individual involved guilty of terrible violence? No. But the message of the church was clearly "go around the world and convert everyone," and it was the exception, Bartolomé de las Casas or others, who had to say, "Wait a minute. You know, we've encountered human beings who live in this part of the world." 

So from the Doctrine of Discovery, from the participation in the colonial enterprise, from the awful sex abuse in which the Church has been involved for decades and decades. We don't know for how long. Maybe forever. I think there is a genuine desire to say, "We get it. We really do see that this was wrong. There is no way to make up for it, but every time we get a chance, we will try again to say we're sorry." So that piece I think is just part of that. 

The part about the marriages between a man and a woman; I think Pope Leo has made an effort to some extent to gather some of the debate within the church and appease some strains and move it in some other directions. And my opinion is it's pretty awkward and not very effective. And when at the very same time, the church for the last eight years or so, has been going through this very deep process of synodal conversation where Catholic people who are part of the church all over the world have been invited to bring into the conversation their beliefs, their challenges, how their life is being affected. And so this process, it will continue, but it's in the middle of it. And one of the pieces of that process, there were two big conferences in Rome in 2024 and 2025. And out of those two conferences, and it feels like, is it possible that this could be so small? But for example, in those conferences, of course, out of the angst of people around the world, the question of LGBTQ, et cetera, experiences, the reality of women being excluded from ordained ministry in the Catholic Church, the whole question of violence and nonviolence in comparison to other ways of dealing with life, they were brought into the conversation, and they moved forward, but there were no answers.

So at the end of the second conference, there were nine working groups that were established that included people from all over the world, and each working group was given a serious challenge to think more deeply about a particular topic. So one group was thinking, reflecting on women deacons and women's ordination, and another was on the shape of marriage or whatever.

But there was one working group, working group number nine, that was given controversial issues. That was its assignment. And their response after a year and a half of pretty deep deliberation is, "These are not controversial issues. They're emerging insights." One of them was LGBTQ, including, of course, marriage, and one of them was nonviolence. 

The two phrases about nonviolence that were included in the synodal process, in spite of the fact that we, for example, held, I don't know, 10 virtual consultations in 10 different parts of the world and submitted to the process a monumental document on why nonviolence needs to be at the center of of church teaching. The two questions on nonviolence were how can we address conflict without violence, and what about legitimate defense? How do we think about legitimate defense? are being discussed at a very substantial level in the church even while the Pope is writing in an encyclical marriage between a man and a woman.

What's emerging is a recognition that is not in harmony with the experience of humans around the world, and we're going to need to listen to the experience of people and eventually move in that direction. But sometimes what gets written down in an encyclical is that moment's wisdom on the part of whoever helped the Pope write the encyclical.

But I think that on some of those sort of outlying pieces there's much, much more that will be said in the coming years. 

Stephanie: Thank you for that background. 

Marie: Yeah, the one other thing about an encyclical Catholic social teaching in general is that it evolves. It is not static. And you can see that. So in response to Magnifica humanitas, for example a quite fascinating theologian, Ilia Delio, who is woman Franciscan theologian, her response to the Magnifica humanitas was something like, "yes, you know, this was an effort to respond what is an important reality in our times, a sign of our times." But, Pope Leo in the encyclical has, these are not her words, they're mine, has built a fence around humanity, and missed the point that humanity will continue to evolve and that the technology that we're producing is part of that evolution. It will help us evolve. That we have an impact on our own evolutionary process and that is gift, not threat, in many ways. And so, I think that is a helpful way to even read Magnifica humanitas, because it is a great document. It's very thoughtful. It has many good things to say. It's not the last word on AI or on human evolution.

Stephanie: Well, I do really appreciate his wading into this conversation, and it feels like an essential conversation to have among all sorts of groups from different faiths and different backgrounds and everybody. 

Michael, you've done work on the Third Harmony, which is really about raising the human image, and of course, Magnifica humanitas, like magnificent humanity. So how do you describe the Third Harmony? What is the story of human beings? And then I'd love to hear you respond to that, Marie.

Michael Nagler: I also would love to hear you respond to this, Marie. With some trepidation. There is a Buddhist formulation that there are three sources of disharmony that have to be addressed. There is the disharmony that comes from nature, disharmony that comes from our fellow human beings, and ultimately, the disharmony within us, which although it is "the third" in the list, is actually the first in etiology. It is the disharmony within the human being that is going to impact all these other levels. That's why I was, no exaggeration, thrilled with the term Magnifica humanitas. I think that's exactly what, what we need. I am always reminded that Martin Luther King said we have guided missiles and misguided men. And I, I want, in the midst of all of this, to go back to...Let's go back about 10 years to the appeal to the Catholic Church to recommit to the centrality of gospel nonviolence. A wonderful statement, and I want to ask you, Marie, where things stand with that appeal in particular, and with the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative Movement, shall we say, in general?

Marie: Well, that's a wonderful question, Michael, because I think it is also a question that is very relevant to Magnifica humanitas, and yes to the whole document, but particularly to the fifth chapter, I think it's the fifth chapter where the whole question of the just war tradition and so on is included.

And there's an emphasis on sort of the culture of power, how we have developed a culture of power and how to move toward a civilization of love. So in that whole chapter, that's the emphasis of it, and in the middle of it, he talks about the just war tradition as an example of how we have come to center our ability to think about growing conflict. We have a tendency to think, "well, we have a right to protect ourselves or protect our loved ones, and the only answer to that is weapons." When Pope Francis said something similar, he said it, and it sat in Fratelli tutti, and we picked it up, but not too many people did. 

Since Pope Leo said the just war tradition is, the just war theory, he called it, is out of date, as you probably know, he called all of the cardinals in the world to a meeting, a consistory in Rome two weeks ago with the intention of reflecting on this document, and in particular on what does it mean to move the just war theory off the table. What would that look like? And how do we then think about legitimate defense? How do we think about our obligation to protect those loved ones or anyone else who's threatened? That he did that, that he brought to Rome, I think there were 175 cardinals who came to Rome for two days, and that's what they talked about, "so what do we do without the just war tradition?" I don't think that subject has ever come up before. I don't think anybody, I certainly know not most of the cardinals, have never said, "what does it mean to move beyond the just war tradition?" There was always a snap back to, "well, really what the just war theory always meant was that war should be very rare, that it had to meet all of these criteria, that there were some occasions."

And I think what Pope Leo is saying is, this practice, this civilization of domination that we've developed is a paradigm from which we need to move. And we need to move to a different way of being in relationship with each other. And remarkably, he seems to be describing that new paradigm in the language of nonviolence. He talks about a civilization of love. He talks about, some of his quotes from around Easter time when he was in that kerfuffle with the US administration, and he said several things that were quoting scripture, or not, or whatever. But the last thing he said on Easter, I have been thinking about since then, and he said it again in his closing remarks at the end of this consistory last week, and it was "the power with which Jesus rose from the dead was a nonviolent power." It followed what he said in the World Day of Peace message, which paraphrased, he said, "Jesus' friends, including Peter kept saying, 'You don't really mean nonviolence, do you? You don't really, really mean nonviolence.'" And, you know, before Jesus was arrested, and Peter pulled out a sword and attacked the soldier, and Jesus said, "No, no, I really mean it," and went to the cross.

So for Christians, that act of moving to, moving through that process to the cross was profoundly nonviolent action in the face of terrible violence. That Pope Leo names it that way, thinks about it that way, and then talks about the power of the resurrection as nonviolent is really interesting, and it's especially interesting, so before the consistory, we sent to all of the cardinals that we know, just a couple of pages on, how we might answer this question about what happens if the just war tradition is no longer functional. And, we know that meant some, maybe many, of the cardinals present raised a deeper understanding of the potential of nonviolent action as an answer to the question of, "well, how do we protect people?" And I mean, what we were saying is there are a lot of ways, and we need to learn them. We need to invest in them. We need to practice them. So there's a paragraph in his final statement to the consistory that essentially says, "I am so grateful to those of you who brought into the conversation a recognition of the many tools of effective nonviolent action that can be used to protect those who need protection." And he connected that in this little paragraph to the power of the resurrection being nonviolent. What we think he's doing, and I think it's pretty evident, it's evident in the encyclical, it's even more evident in the last three weeks since the encyclical was issued, that he's talking about a new paradigm. Moving from a paradigm where violence is assumed to be the only way, the only kind of defense, the only way forward, to a paradigm where that's just not true, where nonviolence is really the shape. 

So, The Catholic Nonviolence Initiative 10 years ago issued an appeal to the church, as you said, Michael. We had no idea if that would ever be possible. The reaction that we got almost immediately to asking the church to not teach the just war tradition because it was just opening a door to the assumption that a just war was possible. Right after we issued that appeal, we got a lot of pushback from moral theologians all over the world who said, "That's bizarre. You can't do away with the just war tradition, with the theory." And so that was not where we focused our work in the last 10 years. What we focused on was trying to generate a real conversation about, "well, what do we mean by nonviolence? What is nonviolence? What does it mean as a spirituality, as a way of life, as a way of relating to each other, as a better set of tools that we can learn to use better, maybe as a global ethic. And we really can see in these 10 years a significant shift in the conversation in the Catholic Church about nonviolence. Is it because of the appeal? No, probably not. It's probably because of a lot of things. But it's been really heartening, and it has also made... As you may know, the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative continues doing just what we've been doing, trying to keep this conversation alive. A year and a half ago, almost two years ago, we founded the Catholic Institute for Nonviolence to more intentionally bring into the conversation in Rome, but also in the official church around the world, a deeper understanding of what nonviolence is and also of the social science research that has grown tremendously in the last 15 years, of the examples on the ground in different contexts of how nonviolence is working, of what kind of a role can the Catholic Church play in moving forward developing this paradigm.

And we feel like right now we are at a threshold of a much deeper conversation in the church. In many ways, the church is behind the world. I think that conversation is happening elsewhere. But the church is a slow-moving institution, but I think it's getting there. And I think the leadership of Pope Leo, while imperfect, which is certainly true, like anybody's leadership, is trying to move us in that direction toward nonviolence really literally away from allowing the just war framework to continue to be used as a crutch in justifying why we need to go to that war or this war. 

And, the whole rationale behind moving the just war theory off center stage is also very clear. It's not rocket science. It's, how do you distinguish between civilians and military? I mean, it's a challenge that international law is facing as well, that the standards of what international humanitarian law are challenged by the technology that we have. I think that got this conversation started, but I think it's now moving to a place where it's much deeper. And the willingness to explore, what is a spirituality of nonviolence? What does it teach us?  As you talk about the disharmony starting from within us, how do we address that? How do we learn new ways? The same with relationships. That we know a lot about how we can communicate with each other without deepening the violence or perpetuating violence. What if we learned that? And on and on, so. Yeah, we think that this is very important moment, and I'm hopeful, in some important ways. 

Stephanie: Well, with all that you're saying as well, again, coming back to magnificent humanity, we cannot go beyond just war with a low image of the human being. Right? So it seems like this is actually a step in that direction too, to reaffirm, protect, understand what makes us really human.

Marie: Exactly.

Stephanie: Where then what's revealed is that it's our nonviolence. 

Marie: And I think that what is a very fundamental belief in the many traditions, it is in the Catholic tradition, is that each human being, absolutely every human being has innate dignity. Not because of what they've accomplished or how much they have or what they've done, or even the harm that they've done doesn't detract from it, but that every person is beloved of God. And that, of course, is at the foundation of love your enemy. And figure out how do we relate to each other, and I think that is essentially what this Magnifica humanitas is trying to say, is each of us has that absolutely innate dignity. 

Stephanie: And AI is not human. So to remember that.

Marie: Absolutely. And I think it does push back against a sort of onslaught for, many, many decades of sort of what are the idols that we now sit before. And I think what he's saying is the human being, the gift, the expression of love and dignity. I do think that it is also... and he does bring this in, but he is building on what Pope Francis did in the encyclical Laudato si'. So he's assuming that reflection on how humans are relating to the rest of creation, all that is, is also very important. He doesn't emphasize that as much. He mentions it, it's definitely in that encyclical. So it's not only human-centered. It's not only kind of completely devoid of a recognition of other relationships. But I think that some would say, could be a little bit more, you know, is he recognizing that our relationships need to be carefully tended beyond our human relationships. And I think even, I think what Ilia Delio would say is that the human capacity to develop AI, to sort of imagine and build and make it work is part of an evolutionary process. And I think what he's saying is, yes, how do we make sure that that enhances wellbeing and nurtures life, doesn't destroy it. And I think that it's a challenging question at this point in history, I think. 

Stephanie: Well, thank you so much for your time. I don't want to cut Michael off here. He has another question for you. 

Michael: Marie, I really have a lot of questions, but, we'll have to get back with one another. But here is just the odd thought that occurs to me. In 1931, Gandhi visited the Vatican, and he was not well-received. What do you think would happen if he tried that today?

Marie: I think he would be very well-received. I really do.They say that Pope Leo, he was in Peru during some of the worst years of Sendero Luminoso's violence. And they say that in those years he was reading Gandhi. And his understanding of nonviolence, of Gandhi, of another paradigm is pretty interesting. So my guess is that Gandhi would be welcomed with open arms. 

Michael:That is very good to hear. 

Marie: Yeah.

Stephanie: You're here at Nonviolence Radio. That was Marie Dennis, co-director of Pax Christi International's Catholic Institute for Nonviolence, a founder of the Catholic Nonviolence Initiative, and the author, co-author, or editor of nine books, including Choosing Peace and Advancing Nonviolence in the Church and the World. Our deep thanks to Marie for joining us today on Nonviolence Radio. 

Well, let's turn now to some news with our Nonviolence Report from Michael Nagler. Michael, I believe you're going to start with some commentary on Marie's interview. 

Michael: I certainly could do that. It was a wonderful, astute, and penetrating analysis, and I do think that her optimism is justified, that this is at least an opening toward a new era if humanity has the courage to walk through it. 

And I wanted to just share one little line from Pope Leo's encyclical. It just summed it up for me. He said, "In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. We must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ." And of course, I would add, in Buddha and Gandhi. And, let's throw on the remark of Henry David Thoreau about technology, saying that "our inventions are but improved means to an unimproved end."

Stephanie: You know, that's really beautiful. Thank you, Michael. And I wanted to add as well that as a kind of a bridge from the encyclical conversation into the news, there's this woman, Erin Maus, and she's a 34-year-old software engineer from North Carolina, and she secured a religious accommodation to opt out of using all AI tools at her tech entertainment job because of the Civil Rights Act that this goes against her religious beliefs. She's a Unitarian, but having Pope Leo's encyclical on AI helped her make her case even more. And, she was also able to show that she could perform her code writing job as fast as somebody who was using the AI technology, but it was all done by her. So it's also interesting that this document has this kind of political implication that people then can draw upon it to opt out of using AI in their work.

Michael: Yeah. It's the John Henry phenomenon that people show that they can do their jobs better than the machines that were invented with the excuse of supporting them, but the actual purpose of replacing them.

Gosh, there's some interesting news I want to share, and then a quote. My news comes from Hawaii. The state of Hawaii has passed a law that finally, at last, my editorial comment, poses a direct challenge to the infamous Citizens United Supreme Court ruling of 2010, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in US elections. And there's a Democratic Hawaii State Senator Jarrett Keohokalole, a supporter of this law, who said that he was proud that Hawaii has become "the first state in the nation to take direct action challenging Citizens United." And he said, "As elected leaders, we do not serve artificial entities, we serve the people." It's a beautiful example of the reassertion of what Pope Leo called our the grandeur of humanity.

Now, to share a little science with you, and this is where my quote comes in, an Australian sociologist has been looking into a critical period in evolution 42,000 years ago, when environmental conditions were such that the three or four human species, there were actually more, but three main branches, Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, were all walking around, and in some cases, interbreeding. They all ran into this extreme, and only we survived. So there are a number of questions that scientists have been raising about what enabled us to survive this when our remote ancestors, or cousins rather, perished. And the scientific consensus that Hugh Mackay in Australia has emphasized, and I'm going to quote from him, was that "what enabled us to survive is our sociability." That we traded ideas, in some cases DNA, and we have to assume language, and even rudimentary institutions literally across the belt of the planet that we inhabited at that point. I mean, you can find an innovation that may have happened in a Neanderthal setting in what is now Siberia, and what's invented in Siberia stays in Siberia. But with Homo sapiens, you find something cropping up, you know, a new way to flake obsidian and make a spear point or something. And in a course of time, I don't know exactly how much time, by golly, you find that in a cave in Altamira or Lascaux in Western Europe. So it was this sociability, and Hugh Mackay talks about the erosion of sociability by social media and our culture in general, and he said, "What we need to do is to reintroduce the method that saved our species." And of course, we are doing this on the level of technology, but we are not doing it on the level of humanity, and that's why this vote in Hawaii is so important.

And I want to talk about a couple of resources. Our friend and one of the premier nonviolence scholars, certainly in the political science world and probably in the world at large, is Erica Chenoweth. She gave a brilliant overview of the uses and abuses of technology, including artificial intelligence. Here's a negative one. I'm quoting from someone else at the moment. "The use of social media in conjunction with" what he calls, "hooliganism is not necessarily new, but this is the first time in states and in cities local authorities have ever seen social media being used to this extent to facilitate" what he calls youth hooliganism. "This is a fairly recent and increasing problem," he says. So this youth hooliganism itself is kind of, oh, what shall I say? It's arresting for someone who is aware of a phenomenon that was named in the 1930s, interestingly enough, by German and Japanese scholars, and we call it by the German word Männerbund. That is when a, let's say, a gang, a sodality, a group of males kind of dissociates themselves from the family context and, you know, ranging around looking for whom they might devour. The word berserk in English, for example, literally means, I mean, the etymology of it is bear shirt. And these people used to dehumanize themselves, put on animal skins, and create acts of extreme violence. Now, the youth in the inner cities are not putting on bear skins, but it is the same psychology that can get a group of people together to do terrible violence.

Now let's look at the other extreme. There is a phenomenon that has recently been named, called sociocracy, which is a new form of government And I'm going to quote you now from a website called Sociocracy For All. And they say this is "weaving global governance from below." They talk about neighborocracy and children's parliaments in India. There's a case study by Eric Tolson, and it's a wonderful website to look at. They have photographs and a lot of quotes. And this is reminiscent for me of Gandhi's concept of the oceanic circle, that the alternative to top-down bureaucratic authoritarian control, which can, as we know, lend itself to terrible forms of abuse. An alternative is to build up human capacity and decision-making from below. And this is actually being tried in a school which I think is in Ahmedabad in India, I'm not sure. But they have children parliaments, children ministers, and the beautiful photographs of children within children, you know, circles of children, kind of looking like the Olympic logo. And they have really accomplished a great deal and made very much more intelligent decisions than you would have given them credit for. Well, on that very happy note, I like to leave you for now and look forward to more nonviolence and more nonviolence news in a couple of weeks. 

Stephanie: Thank you so much, Michael, for that Nonviolence Report, we really appreciate it.

We want to thank our guest today, Marie Dennis, and her commentary on the Pope's new encyclical. We want to thank our mother station, KWMR. To Elizabeth High, who helps transcribe the show, thank you so much. Our friends at Waging Nonviolence for syndicating, Pacifica Network, thank you so much, too.

And to you, all of our listeners, if you want to  learn more, visit us at mettacenter.org , nonviolenceradio.org. And until the next time, please take care of one another. We'll be back in two weeks.