Manu Joseph: Pope Leo’s warnings about AI have hit the nail on the head about one thing

Silicon Valley’s billionaires appear to have thought a lot about the worthlessness of most humans. As if to prevent a revolt against them, they have proposed some solutions, which are in reality evidence that these guys have no idea what they are talking about.

For instance, their promotion of something called a universal basic income (UBI). Under this system, people would be paid an income by the government, mostly funded by corporate taxes, to do nothing and stay out of the way.

In their spare time, as tech savants see it, people will paint or write novels. As though what suffocates art is a lack of spare time.

Paid sloth, oddly, might be the objective of most people trapped in salaried jobs. That might be their very idea of luxury or what they will do if they win a lottery. But if sloth is ever forced on them, it would be misery.

For all the fulminations of people against work, doing a task, even a dreary task, has immense meaning. The Pope somehow knows this. I remember when I first moved to Bombay, I saw laid-off mill workers in their long gloomy shorts.

The mills had given them some money and sent them away because machines somewhere far off could do whatever it was they did, those old mills were no longer needed and what the new world required apparently were malls.

Belittled, many of these men tried to overcompensate by claiming an interest in politics, but mostly they squandered their lives and money drinking until they died of it.

The problem with a UBI is not just that; it does not solve poverty, it just creates a new definition of it. Even if all basic needs are met, a person can feel poor in an environment where others are rewarded more.

The Pope speaks for the world’s miserable when he invokes “human dignity.” He says AI should not be allowed to take it away; it should not be allowed to take away human ways of doing things, however imperfect.

He warns us of our exaggerated love for efficiency: ‘‘…elevating any single dimension of human existence to an absolute is always a mistake. Indeed, disorder does not arise only from scarcity; even unchecked growth can give rise to impoverishment.

In an ecosystem, balance is disrupted when one species expands at the expense of others; in human life, something similar occurs when one faculty claims to be the measure of everything. Thus, intelligence, when absolutized, overshadows other essential dimensions of life…”

Thus it has come to pass that a Catholic priest’s understanding of the world reflects a broader intellect than that of the tech savants who shape our era. Perhaps aware of their narrow ways, these savants appear keen to show they are more than just techies.

An inordinate number of them claim they have studied Greek philosophy. They seem that out of touch with real life. But, once you have found success in one domain, the way of the world is that it lets you hold forth on everything else.

That is one of the biggest dangers of modern life. The Pope identifies this, too. As he views it, our reverence for tech has made us surrender our lives and future to a handful of people and their products.

But why is the Pope so interested in the well-being of all? It may at first glance appear that what worries him is something philosophical or abstract, that AI can become a kind of being that God didn’t create.

And to some, AI might even become God. Or the devil. The Pope does muse about this. But he probably sees through the hype manufactured by some people to raise trillions of dollars through awe and fear. After all, the Vatican and other custodians of magic used to do it in another era.

Beyond the abstractions, I believe the real reason why Pope Leo took on AI may be far more interesting. The Vatican itself has been replaced as an elite in the modern world. Its glory and menace are diminished.

That is why the Catholic Church is nice today, compared to what you may have read of its history at its peak. In general, when people lose power, they become nice. It is the same reason why so many old people seem so lovely. It often works this way for institutions as well.

As a custodian of magic, it is but natural that the Papacy would fight the idea of absolute rationality. The Papal encyclical is an omen that religion and spirituality, and not government, are going to be the most potent counterforce to AI.

And this makes sense, because a rebellion against AI is not going to come from the millions it might vanquish. People at the bottom cannot fight billionaires on their own.

A recurring theme in this column is that the elite who lost out are the ones who fight the new elite, and they can only fight on ‘principles.’ This is how good things happen.