Pope Leo XIV released a major encyclical recently called --Magnifica Humanitas," or "Magnificent Humanity." It is the American pope's first encyclical, a document that is considered one of the most significant papal teachings. It deals with A.I. and contrasts it with the essential differences of humanity.
The New York Times has a good review of it here and doubtless there will be many others in the weeks to follow.
I won't dwell on it much in this article except to affirm my agreement with the Pope that there is something special about human beings that is not captured by A.I., no matter how expertly programmed.
Yet, I wonder if the Pope has considered how the creation of A.I. by humans is dispositive to the existence of a God as the creator of all things, including humans.
People also created A.I. from the top-down, yet it isn't human.
But in every monotheistic religion God created the universe ("heavens") & humans. (Polytheism is different, with gods that may not have created anything at all, but merely have greater powers, longevity etc. than mere mortal. In that way, none of their gods get too powerful or arrogant, which is a good thing in its own way). So, God created Man from the top-down too, not evolution, in all religions. Yet humans are fundamentally different from any "intelligence" and, critically as the Pope says, there is something fundamentally different about humans that no amount of special "programming" can change. There's no special coding, even by God, that makes up for our connection to all life through billions of years of evolution.
If that's true, that evolution is the connecting thread - more like a major cable - to all life and the basis for our faults, desires, hopes, appetites, etc., then science is right and the bible & other similar tales are wrong about God as creator. And if they're wrong about that, they can be wrong about everything; they are the work of Men, not God then.
A.I. can never be human, even if we could somehow grow a brainless human body and stuff A.I. into its skull. It took evolution, not God.
What does the Pope say about that?
