“Progress” is mentioned twenty-two times, “dignity” ninety-eight. This is the first indication that overturns expectations: Magnifica humanitas, Leo XIV’s encyclical released today, carries artificial intelligence in its subtitle yet mentions it only sparingly. The phrase “artificial intelligence” appears 14 times, “algorithm” 17, “technology” 29; overshadowing them all is the language of humanity, which is also the most frequent vocabulary in the entire text: “human” is the most recurring term with 200 occurrences, followed by “person” with 158, and “dignity” with 98. The title itself is already a declaration — humanitas, not technology — and the rest of the document confirms it line by line. It is an encyclical that speaks about AI in order to speak about humanity.
A “res nova” that challenges the person, not technology
The lexical shift reflects a fundamental choice. Leo XIV starts its reflection by recalling the 135th anniversary of Rerum novarum and establishes the parallel that underpins the entire document: if in 1891 Leo XIII spoke of “new things”, today those “new things” bear the face of digitalization and artificial intelligence. AI thus becomes the social question of our time, the direct heir to the question of the workforce. However, according to the Pope, AI should not be considered as “merely yet another theme”, but rather as a “development that challenges the categories of Social Doctrine from within” — the most recurring expression in the text, appearing 53 times. The focus is not as much on the power of the instruments themselves as it is on their effect on the human person. The polemical target has a name — the technocratic paradigm — and a precise threshold: when “efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value”, “human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship”. Hence the shift in perspective that gives meaning to all those occurrences of “dignity”: “humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them”. Our fragility, body and suffering are not defects to be corrected. This is the encyclical’s response to transhumanism, understood as the temptation to translate “the mystery of the person into data and performance”.
Private power, weapons, labor: the stake is always the human person
That AI serves as a means to speak about something deeper is confirmed by the areas into which the text ventures. First of all, power — a word that appears 122 times — whose transformation the Pope observes: “In the past, it was largely up to the State to guide and direct innovation. Today, however, the main drivers of development are private, often transnational, parties that are endowed with resources and the capacity to intervene that surpass those of many Governments”. Thus, it is “even more challenging to discern, govern and direct” such predominantly “private” power toward the “common good”.
Then truth — 64 occurrences against only one of “falsehood” — which is described as a “common good and not the property of those with power or influence” and which is threatened by disinformation that “did not begin with AI”, yet “today it finds a powerful amplifier in AI”. Then war, where automation touches the moral nerve: “when a decision to strike becomes automated or opaque, the risk of abdicating responsibility increases”. And labor, which innovation risks turning into “an accelerator of injustice” if it is not managed proactively. Four different areas, but one single stake. The vocabulary speaks for itself: after “person” and “dignity”, the most frequently used words in the text are “common good”, “responsibility”, “justice” and “labor” – all appearing more than sixty times –, none of which belong to the lexicon of technology. Magnifica humanitas is an encyclical on artificial intelligence constructed entirely with the vocabulary of the human person. Not a text about technology, but against the technical reduction of humanity: the Pope does not fear the machine in itself, but that humanity may “lose its beauty”.
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