By Andrew Orlowski, The Critic
Pope Leo is right to push back against the prophets of AI supremacy and AI doom
Last week the world received the first encyclical of the Lord Gove era. Eagerly anticipated, and spread over two full pages of The Spectator magazine, Magnificent Govas contains his Lordship’s detailed thoughts on Artificial Intelligence.
“AI will transform our economies and societies massively and irrevocably,” Gove predicts. “It will change what it means to be human; it may even mark the end of humanity itself.”
Religious leaders of other faiths were galvanised into action. In Rome, Pope Leo XIV told the Curia that “Gove’s AI intervention shames us all” , and is urgently seeking an audience with the Sage of Old Queen Street, when the latter’s diary permits.
Of course, I made that last part up. But sadly, we must wait a little longer to read the thoughts of Michael Gove on Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnificent Humanitas: On safeguarding the human person in the time of Artificial Intelligence, because Gove does not address anything Leo writes at all.
The primary purpose of Magnificent Govas, on the other hand, is to remind us of Michael Gove’s foresight and wisdom in identifying artificial intelligence as a cataclysmic development for humanity, which is something he decided on as long ago as February this year. The Govas opens with three references to himself — this is what is really important here — but then fails to address any of Pope Leo’s points. In fact, we are offered no evidence that Gove has read the Papal encyclical at all.