Don't sacrifice human relations for AI, Leahy says

Former Canadian Ambassador to the Holy See (2008-12) Anne Leahy can be counted among those with misgivings about the term “artificial intelligence,” let alone the technology itself.

“Is it intelligence? Or is it super-developed computing power?” the longtime diplomat mused about these and many questions of an existential nature during her Oct. 4 guest appearance on the St. Basil’s Parish Conversations for our Times webinar series. “You've heard some people who have been involved in bringing this to the fore now regret the expression artificial intelligence.”

The late American computer scientist John McCarthy, recognized as the man who established AI as an academic discipline and coined the term, wished he had called it “computational intelligence.”

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Leahy, who also served as Canada’s ambassador in Poland, Russia and the Great Lakes of Africa, was interviewed for the webinar by Robert Czerny, a longtime parishioner of Ottawa's St. Basil’s and the brother of Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny. The 50-minute conversation, which preceded an interactive Q&A session, centred on unpacking Pope Leo XIV’s first major encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, released May 25.

Czerny, a translator, writer and editor, asked Leahy what Magnifica humanitas’ chief mission to help “safeguard the human person during the time of artificial intelligence” means to her.  

Leahy explained that the Pope is tapping into much more than just defending the dignity of work. It is about preserving the common understanding of what it means to be human. Even the power of the atomic bomb, she said, “which was the closest parallel we can use in terms of the challenge to humanity up until now,” does not alter core humanness.

“The atomic bomb itself did not change our cognitive processes, did not have an effect on our brains, did not (make us) less social than we used to be,” said Leahy. “The human being is supposed to be a social animal. We're created in the likeness of God, the Triune God, by definition relational. Artificial intelligence can affect that.”

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Alluding to the recent news about Anthropic co-founder and senior researcher Christopher Olah’s efforts to lobby the Vatican to publicly support the AI company’s stance that its models are capable of consciousness, Leahy said such efforts to humanize artificial intelligence should be rejected.

Olah sat beside Pope Leo in the Vatican’s Synod Hall during the rollout of Magnifica humanitas. The pontiff has held firm in his belief that these machines are not conscious.

He shared his convictions in an Oct. 2 post to his X account: “In this era of artificial intelligence, it is becoming urgent to distinguish human art from what machines produce. There is an ontological difference, even before an aesthetic one, between art and what a machine can generate through statistical calculation based on millions of images created by others. Algorithms lack the spark of humanity. For this reason, the Church wishes to renew an alliance with artists and cultural institutions to safeguard our humanity.”

Greater cherishment of human artistic achievement is one avenue to counter the rising tide of dehumanization. Leahy noted how this trajectory can be resisted by “paying more attention to the people around you,” specifically the language we use with one another at a time when so much “violence in words” is being fired back and forth on social media.

“I like very much that Pope Leo pays so much attention to the strength of words, disarming words,” said Leahy. “Choose your words carefully.”

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Devoting more hours disconnected from technology is another important step. The former Catholic social thought teacher at Montreal's McGill University is encouraged by the increasing number of young people admitting they “are spending too much time on screens.”

Leahy returned to this message of valuing human relationships more times during the webinar. She warned that one of the worst consequences of the AI revolution is “not being able to relate to one another.”

(Amundson is an associate editor and writer for The Catholic Register.)