Pope Francis Slams Musk and Thiel, Joins Anthropic Founder in Warning Against Reducing Humans to Machinery

According to Watchful Beating monitoring, in 1891, Pope Leo XIII issued the groundbreaking encyclical "Rerum Novarum" in response to the Industrial Revolution. Exactly 135 years later, Pope Leo XIV officially released his inaugural encyclical "Magnificent Humanity" during his tenure. The encyclical aims to establish a new ethical and social framework for the age of artificial intelligence. The Pope warned that the AI revolution, driven by "idolatry of profit," is threatening human dignity, and declared a strict prohibition on entrusting lethal military decisions to automated algorithmic systems.

The core thrust of the encyclical directly targets Silicon Valley monopolies and the new form of digital enslavement. The Pope criticized the transhumanist vision espoused by Silicon Valley leaders such as Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, condemning the elitist tendency in AI development to categorize specific groups as "inefficient, useless, and surplus." The Pope pointed out that tech giants are utilizing massive data collection to construct a "visibility architecture" to manipulate the public, degrade individuals into exploitable digital profiles, and even generate "new forms of enslavement and digital colonization," such as in the rare earth mining process at the base of the supply chain. The Pope not only called for advancing "AI disarmament" to dismantle malignant competition but also made the rare move of publicly apologizing for the historical failure of the Catholic Church to condemn the crime of slavery.

During the encyclical's release ceremony, the Vatican broke with tradition by inviting artificial intelligence unicorn Anthropic's co-founder Christopher Orla to share the stage with the Pope, aiming to directly impose ethical constraints on the Silicon Valley model makers. The Pope emphasized that algorithms cannot provide any ethical justification for war and that in crucial decisions such as military actions, credit assessments, and public assistance, processes must be transparent and allow for public appeals. At the same time, the Pope reiterated that the Catholic Church's traditional theory of a "just war" is obsolete in modern conflicts. In response to statements by U.S. Vice President Wans claiming a just war to defend the U.S. military's bombing actions in Iran, the Vatican explicitly rejected this assertion. The Pope also requested a profound self-purification within the Catholic Church, cleansing internal structures that have led to abuses and opacity in power, sexuality, and conscience.