In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV rightly rejects the idea that markets alone can be trusted to shape society’s technological future. Recognizing that AI raises questions that prices and profits cannot answer, the Chicago-born pope has posed a direct challenge to Chicago School economics.
ROME—The Tower of Babel is the biblical story of how humanity, united by a single language and a single ambition, attempts to build a tower to heaven. The project ends in collapse, with God punishing the builders for their hubris by fragmenting humanity into different languages and cultures. The parable, which Pope Leo XIV explicitly invokes in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, bears an uncanny resemblance to AI. Will the technology be humankind’s salvation, as its evangelists claim, or will it lead to damnation, as skeptics fear?
ROME—The Tower of Babel is the biblical story of how humanity, united by a single language and a single ambition, attempts to build a tower to heaven. The project ends in collapse, with God punishing the builders for their hubris by fragmenting humanity into different languages and cultures. The parable, which Pope Leo XIV explicitly invokes in his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, bears an uncanny resemblance to AI. Will the technology be humankind’s salvation, as its evangelists claim, or will it lead to damnation, as skeptics fear?