Catholic AI creator says Leo XIV’s encyclical shows Pope aware how fast technology is evolving

Matthew Sanders, founder of Longbeard, a platform including Magisterium AI said the message of Magnifica Humanitas had been “a little bit stronger” than he had expected.

“Sometimes you worry that people aren’t realising how quickly this technology is evolving and therefore we’re not having sufficient conversation about the level of disruption that’s coming. Pope Leo, being a mathematician and user of technology who’s deeply aware of the Church’s social doctrine and history, understands this is a historic moment,” he said. 

‘AI needs to be disarmed’ is one of the “most remarkable statements of Magnifica Humanitas,” added Sanders. “The Pope made a point of mentioning this at the launch of the encyclical. It shows he feels there is a real risk of the adoption of this technology escalating and that we, the people, have to rise up and make it clear that we are not comfortable with this and want something to be done about this.

“The Church is obviously opposed to autonomous systems making decisions about life or death. If we look at the public conversation in the US there is not a lot of airtime given to [discussing] lethal autonomous weapons. It pops up once in a while but I am not seeing a sustained civil discourse on this.”

He signalled that comparisons between the AI age and the Industrial Revolution failed to acknowledge that the Industrial Revolution “unfolded over the course of 100 years… AI is coming at 10 times the speed with 10 times the impact over the course of the next 10 years.”

“All the heads of the AI labs respect Pope Leo as a moral voice. I think they will pay very close attention to what he has said here,” Sanders added. He believes that “much of what the Pope has said, the AI labs would deeply resonate with, for instance, when it comes to the dignity of the person, heads of AI labs have said that the technology that is coming can be heavily disruptive. They say, “We know there is going to be an impact on workers and governments need to study this question and come up with solutions because it is not really our place to address those issues,’” said Sanders.

He urged people to voice concerns regarding the use of AI to their politicians: “Often what happens is that we tend to focus on the labs. Ultimately, how AI systems are used, particularly in war settings, is a decision of our elected representatives. The Pope is inviting us to reflect about where power is and what direction it is headed and who is controlling it.”

He added that Pope Leo had “reminded people [in Magnifica Humanitas] what a healthy human anthropology looks like. The Pope has certainly reemphasised that human dignity has to be at the forefront and, effectively, any technology we are developing should be pointed at real problems.”

Sanders founded Longbeard 10 years ago and the site “pivoted” towards AI in 2023. Asked whether Magnifica Humanitas would influence the way the platform used AI, he replied: “We want to ensure we are perfectly in lockstep with the Holy Father. We want to decrease our dependency on secular AI models as much as we possibly can, recognising that those models are effectively trained to optimise for billions of people, not for a particular faith tradition like Catholicism.

He explained: “That alignment process requires very focused attention and energy that we not going to get from the secular labs. So we have to find a way to embrace sovereign AI. That will, of course, take time but there’s a lot we can do in the meantime to ensure that the AI we’re leveraging is able to faithfully represent Church teaching.”

Longbeard, a free platform, includes the Alexandria Hub, a partnership with the Pontifical Gregorian University which is digitalising historic collections of Church documents. Sanders said the platform focused on providing ‘context’ which was summarised and distilled so that the AI model was “referencing Catholic insight and teaching from human beings, as opposed to a machine.”

Asked for advice for engaging with the 42,000-word encyclical, Sanders said he did not advise tackling Magnifica Humanitas in a single reading: “I recommend you pray before even reading the document and try to surface any anxieties you have [about AI], and look at what are the things that worry you the most. Reflect about your children’s futures if you have children. Then sit with those anxieties and acknowledge them. Then I recommend you look over the table of contents of the document, and try to find the sections that speak to those worries and concerns.”

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