Magnifica Humanitas has opened the doors for deeper conversations between the Church and the tech industry regarding “how AI is going to affect humanity”, according to priest and former Silicon Valley executive Fr Brendan McGuire. Source: National Catholic Register.
Fr McGuire said tech companies are searching for “wisdom” right now, and Pope Leo’s encyclical can offer it.
The Church has “been working with the different tech companies for a number of years … directly from Rome, in the Vatican, and also here locally,” he said.
In 2024, Anthropic, an AI safety company and creator of the Claude AI system that filed to go public on June 1, reached out to the Vatican for ethical guidance.
Fr McGuire helped shape Claudeʼs Constitution, the 23,000-word document governing how Claude reasons through complex moral questions.
The priest also co-founded the Institute for Technology, Ethics, and Culture – a formal partnership between Santa Clara Universityʼs Markkula Center for Applied Ethics and the Vaticanʼs Dicastery for Culture and Education.
Earlier, Fr McGuire worked for the Personal Computer Memory Card International Association, an industry consortium of computer hardware manufacturers.
The Irish priest holds degrees in engineering and computer science from Trinity College Dublin and has a theology degree from St. Patrickʼs Seminary and University.
“More intensely over this last year, weʼve been more deliberately, and more intentionally, engaged in deeper conversations monthly … mostly with Anthropic, and we believe this document now will be able to deepen these relationships even more,” he said.
These relationships will prompt “real dialogue as to how AI is going to affect humanity,” he said.
“I love the reframing that the Pope has done” by asking, “How do we have all of humanity … flourish inside of AI? Instead of the other way around,” Fr McGuire said. “Itʼs a reframing of the whole issue.”
While some wonder if tech companies will listen to the Pope’s call, Fr McGuire said he believes they will, as people in the industry “are looking for wisdom.”
Those in the tech industry “are men and women of goodwill, and they want this AI to go well,” he said. “And if itʼs going to go well, then theyʼre going to have to have people outside of the programmers, and the mathematicians, and the technology people, and engineers.”
“They need wisdom from outside. Itʼs not just the Catholic Church. Every religious tradition needs to lean into this moment,” he said.
FULL STORY
‘Magnifica Humanitas’ Seen Deepening Church-Tech Ties, Former Silicon Valley Exec Says (By Tessa Gervasini, EWTN News via National Catholic Register)
