AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
There's been growing angst over the rise of artificial intelligence lately. Even as more people report using the technology, many also worry about its impact on jobs, relationships, politics and more. A Quinnipiac poll earlier this year showed 80% of Americans are concerned about AI. More than half think it will do more harm than good. Tomorrow, Pope Leo will address that concern in his first encyclical, a major teaching addressed to the world's 1.4 billion Catholics. Joining us now is Meghan Sullivan. She's an ethics professor at the University of Notre Dame. Thank you for being here.
MEGHAN SULLIVAN: It's so great to be with you.
RASCOE: The encyclical is called magnifica humanitas, or magnificent humanity in Latin. According to the Vatican, it will be focused on, quote, "safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." What is Pope Leo expected to say about AI?
SULLIVAN: I think we can expect a few things from Pope Leo. It's always dangerous to get ahead of the supreme pontiff, but there are some issues that have been already constant in his leadership. I think we are going to see him really urging us to take a global perspective on all of the people who are affected by artificial intelligence. Right now so much of the debate is focused on the U.S. and China and focused on the big tech companies and which of them is going to win out in the end. He's the leader of a global religion, a religion whose adherents are growing in the Global South in Africa and South America. And I think we're going to see him really speaking up for those communities.
RASCOE: Is there anything else that you think he may touch on?
SULLIVAN: I think Pope Leo XIV, like many of us, is concerned that artificial intelligence is going to cause a lot of people to lose access to meaningful work. And for many other people, it's going to change their working conditions in ways that require them to behave a whole lot more like machines and a whole lot less like human beings. And I think the Pope is going to weigh in and argue that, no matter what the short-term economic profit revenue benefits are from this AI boom that we're currently in, we have to stay focused on building an economy that creates humane working conditions for all of us.
RASCOE: This is a 2,000-year-old institution - right? - the Catholic Church, and they're getting into this conversation about cutting-edge technology. Is the church relevant here?
SULLIVAN: Oh, I think the church is absolutely relevant. These big tech companies like Anthropic and Google, Microsoft - they are in the race of their lives to develop a product and bring it to a global market. And these companies will only succeed if, at the end of the day, a large majority of us are willing to trust these artificial intelligence products to enter our day-to-day life, to be part of our kids' schools, to be part of our workplaces. So it is extremely important right now that these companies, which are developing these products, are getting really fluent in how those potential customers think and reason about what their most fundamental values are.
RASCOE: Pope Leo is not the only world leader weighing in on AI. President Trump was planning to sign an executive order last week before deciding not to, and the administration has been at odds with Anthropic over its AI in the military. In that way, the pope is stepping into a maybe politically volatile issue, right?
SULLIVAN: I think that President Trump and pretty much every world leader right now is realizing how challenging this question of how to regulate AI is. So I think we shouldn't be surprised, actually, if in the next year or two, we just see a lot of bouncing around and difficulties trying to lock in on a good policy.
I think the biggest difference we will see between Pope Leo's approach as a world leader on AI policy and President Trump or Xi Jinping's approach as a world leader on AI policy is that Xi Jinping, President Trump are very focused on national interests. The Pope does not take that perspective. He really is going to be a spokesperson for the global human community. And I think one of the biggest differences that we'll see in his discussions with major world leaders is he's going to be the guy out in front that's really encouraging a global approach to this issue in a way that they tend to focus on national interests.
RASCOE: Do you think the Pope's words will matter to people who aren't Catholic - people of other faiths or people who are not people of faith?
SULLIVAN: Oh, absolutely. When we have a chance to really digest this encyclical and when we have a chance to see the programs that the Vatican is going to push out after releasing this teaching, a lot of people are going to realize, oh, my gosh. Here's a guy who stands up for my values. Here's a guy who thinks we need to be a whole lot more thoughtful about the economic changes that we're letting AI unleash. We need to be a whole lot more thoughtful about how we're raising our children around this technology.
And most of all, human beings need to be at the center of any ethical AI policy. The focus should not be on the technology and what cool new feature it has this month. But instead, are we as human beings better flourishing? Are we living more magnificent lives as a result of having this technology in our midst, or are we not doing well? Are people being left behind? And if it's the latter case, we really need to rethink what we're doing with AI.
RASCOE: That's Meghan Sullivan, director of the Notre Dame Ethics Institute. Thank you so much for joining us.
SULLIVAN: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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