The Vatican newspaper published a reflection by Eugenio Mazzarella on Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo’s encyclical on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.
Mazzarella, a philosophy professor, Heidegger scholar, and former member of the lower house of the Italian Parliament, wrote:
The Church is not only depositum fidei [deposit of faith], but also depositum humanitatis [deposit of humanity]. For reasons intrinsic to his faith in an incarnation of the divine which is both a historical and meta-historical event, it always has been.
But today, in the world of globalization and technology held together in a mutual reinforcement of unprecedented possibilities and problems, this depositum humanitatis, in which to make the faith it has received bear fruit, is called to safeguard it in an eminent way, and with full awareness. Magnifica humanitas is the title of this awareness … Magnificent humanity, one in which the Church places its trust to “illuminate” even the age of AI.
This holds true provided that humanity remains true to its own innate greatness and does not escape itself by retreating into algorithmic constructs.