Fr Niall Coll. Human dignity is “non-negotiable”, Bishop Niall Coll has said in response to the new papal encyclical on Artificial Intelligence. The document, titled Magnifica Humanitas, warns that technology must always be at the service of people, rather than the other way around.
Writing for The Irish News on June 1, the Raphoe bishop suggested that the pontiff’s first encyclical “proposes a moral framework for evaluating AI – one that speaks directly to the fears, hopes and responsibilities shaping the present moment,” specifically those of young white-collar workers who are uneasy about the threat AI poses to their jobs and their sense of purpose and identity.
Meanwhile, in his homily at the 150th Anniversary Vigil Mass of St Patrick’s Church, Dungannon on Sunday, Archbishop Eamon Martin referred back to the first major social encyclical of the modern era, namely Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum from 1891 which stressed the importance of workers’ rights and human dignity.
He drew a link from the 1891 encyclical to the present: “I think it’s an amazing coincidence that just this past week, another Pope Leo, this time Pope Leo XIV, has written his first encyclical on the theme of developments in artificial intelligence. The Holy Father believes that once more Humanity is standing at a ‘historic crossroads”.
While the Archbishop of Armagh emphasised that Pope Leo was not criticising technological advances in themselves, he urged his audience to question the justness and honesty of AI.
“To this end we ought to consider in the midst of all sorts of new inventions, trends, fashions and other novelties, what is it that lasts?” Answering his own question and quoting Pope Benedict XVI, Archbishop Martin continued: “The only thing that lasts forever is the human soul, the human person created by God for eternity.”
Bishop Niall Coll echoed Archbishop Martin’s words on human dignity, citing that a key principle of Magnifica Humanitas is “human dignity as the non-negotiable criterion” and a measure of all technological development.
The question that Archbishop Martin left his audience in Dungannon with is whether or not AI will “serve human persons or instead tend to dehumanise or aim to replace them”, a question which Pope Leo also asked humanity to consider and discern.