Margherita Stancati and Sam Schechner, The Wall Street Journal; Pope Leo Compares AI Threat to Biblical ‘Tower of Babel’
"Pope Leo XIV warned that artificial intelligence “threatens to normalize an anti-human vision” and said that the concentration of immense digital power in the hands of a few private actors must be countered.
The pontiff’s encyclical letter—a text that is poised to define Leo’s papacy—reads like a sharp warning to Silicon Valley executives and humanity more broadly about the future of civilization as new technologies rapidly advance.
The risk, he said, is that humans will be reduced “to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency.”
Leo used two biblical images to describe the choice humanity faces.
“The primary choice is not between a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem,” he wrote.
In the Bible, the Tower of Babel symbolizes a top-down, grandiose project where decisions are driven by pride, profit and a push for homogenization, the pope suggested in his text. In the rebuilding of Jerusalem, diverse people worked together to rebuild the ruined walls and established a fraternal coexistence within them, he added.
Leo’s encyclical has been long-awaited by policymakers, business leaders and different faith groups who see the Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination, as a source of ethical guidance on tech policy."
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