Pope Leo XIV’s new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, is not about artificial intelligence. As its name makes clear, it is about the human being. It examines an ancient question that has suddenly become urgent: namely, are humans more than very smart machines?

This is Pope Leo’s first encyclical, but it follows his namesake Pope Leo XIII’s famous Rerum Novarum encyclical from 1891. Rerum Novarum was the Church’s response to the industrial revolution, the transformation of labor by machines and capital, and the creation of a huge class of poor workers. Magnifica Humanitas, similarly, is a response to the rise of artificial agents that are, in certain respects, much more capable than humans.

The issue at stake is not only economic or technological, but anthropological. Today, as in the 1890s, there are those whose position acknowledges no inherent worth to the human person. From materialists in ancient times, through radical 18th century Enlightenment philosophes, to many of today’s atheists, the vision of the human person as merely animated matter captured the imagination of those who wished to shake off the yoke of institutional religion—and indeed, at times, of humanist morality.

Read the full piece in Persuasion