The algorithm decides what we see, others filter what we read, and still others enter into the processes governing work, information and collective choices. In the encyclical Great Humanity. first signed by Pope Leo XIV and published on May 25, artificial intelligence is not seen as another technology; it is part of the unseen infrastructure of our current everyday lives.
However, this text is not intended as a purely technological reflection. Pope Leo XIV places the issue of artificial intelligence in the tradition of the social teaching of the Catholic Church and directly when updating it refers to Novel things Pope Leo XIII (published on May 15, 1891) in the year of the 135th anniversary. This encyclical addressed the issue of work at the height of the Industrial Revolution in the tardy 19th century.
If the “res novae” of that time were factories, work and industrial capitalism, today the up-to-date issues revolve around digital platforms, algorithms, data and automation systems that are reshaping power, the economy and social relations. For this reason, the encyclical does not appear as a technical text on innovation, but rather as an attempt to interpret the digital transformation in the delicate of human dignity and the common good. Technology, the Pope writes, is not bad in itself; on the contrary, it belongs to human history and creativity. However, the current situation is different in both scale and depth: “Never has humanity had so much power over itself,” the text notes, describing the technologies that are now increasingly pervasive in shaping decision-making, collective imagination, and social life.
This is where Robert Francis Prevost chose to begin: with the growing concentration of power exercised through systems that are increasingly cloudy but increasingly decisive, and with the question that runs throughout the encyclical: What remains of human dignity, the protection of truth, work, social justice and peace, when decisions are transferred to algorithmic logic?
Disarming technology
The encyclical contains a phrase that becomes the key to interpreting the entire scenario: “disarmament technology.” The significance is far from any attempt to leisurely down the development of artificial intelligence or completely deny its potentially transformative impact. For Robert Francis Prevost, disarming artificial intelligence means preventing it from becoming a form of power capable of dominating human existence.
For Leo XIV, it is not about the technology itself, but about its organization and application. Artificial intelligence, writes the Pope, is today participating in a global race for the “most effective algorithm” and the “largest data center”, in which competitive advantage also takes on a geopolitical nature. In this context, several players concentrate digital infrastructure, data and computing power, which affects information, the economy and even democracy.
Disarmament means breaking the equation between technical power and the right to rule. “As is the case with any major technological turning point, artificial intelligence aims primarily to increase the power of those who already have economic resources and access to data,” the pope explains.
The encyclical states clearly that it is not enough to simply regulate technology: it must be taken away from monopolies, made crystal clear and open to challenge, that is, made “inhabitable” by a plurality of actors. Above all, artificial intelligence must be prevented from becoming a tool of economic, political or military domination by a few. This is not a moral metaphor: it is a call to prevent the logic of competition from turning a shared infrastructure into a system of control.
Truth in systems that choose reality
If technology concentrates power, one of the first concrete effects concerns the way collective truth is shaped. The encyclical addresses the problem of disinformation, but in a much deeper way, as perceived reality, or rather experience, is increasingly filtered by systems that decide what to show and what to hide.
It’s not just about bogus news or false content in various forms. The problem is that platforms and algorithms select information based on criteria to maximize attention and engagement. In other words, what becomes evident is not necessarily what is most true, but what best evokes responses. In this way, truth does not disappear but becomes dependent on cloudy systems that influence opinions, perceptions and collective choices, although it is not always clear how.