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I used to think the Vatican would be old-fashioned, but the writing on its site is more readable than I expected. In particular, while reading the section “Deve
by jdw64 6mo ago
I used to think the Vatican would be old-fashioned, but the writing on its site is more readable than I expected. In particular, while reading the section “Development: Humanism and Posthumanism,” I found it interesting to compare the religious worldview of the West with my own more humanistic worldview.
This passage especially stood out to me:
> At the application level, AI in the strict sense raises questions about the reliability of data and the criteria by which programmers process it so as to make it available. It is unclear what biases or power systems influence the work. In particular, serious doubts arise regarding automated, AI-based decision-making processes in sensitive areas of human life: when deciding whether to provide medical care or grant loans or mortgages or insurance, or when prosecuting criminal cases in court or assessing the conduct of prisoners and the likelihood of reoffending with a view to reducing sentences, or when deciding on military attacks or law enforcement interventions.
It is funny because this almost feels like a complete summary of recent Hacker News debates in a single paragraph.
- jquinby 6mo agoThere is an AI working group in one of the dicasteries that has produced two excellent publications: Encountering Artificial Intelligence (https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/91230-encountering-artificial-intelligence-ethical-and-anthropological-investigations https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/91230-encountering-art...) Reclaiming Human Agency in the Age of Artificial Intelligence (https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/154545-reclaiming-human-agency-in-the-age-of-artificial-intelligence https://jmt.scholasticahq.com/article/154545-reclaiming-huma...)
- jdw64 6mo agoI think I will read this while running my agents in parallel. Thank you, my friend. The writing is genuinely excellent. In tech communities, we often talk about how many times productivity will increase, or whether AI has consciousness. But in religious documents, the focus is often on how the problems of the vulnerable and the community will change. That is interesting to me. The worldview is Western and religious, so it feels somewhat unfamiliar, but at the same time, it seems useful as a way to rediscover values that we may have forgotten.
- osullivj 6mo agoCatholic Social Teaching: 19th C origins. An alternate base to Marxism for social justice.
- throw0101a 6mo ago> Catholic Social Teaching: 19th C origins. An alternate base to Marxism for social justice. See specifically perhaps the encyclical Rerum novarum (Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor) from 1891: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_novarum * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_teaching https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_social_teaching Various others over the decades.
- dhosek 6mo agoRerum Novarum was written by Leo XIII. When Robert Prevost took as his papal name Leo XIV, it was a clear signal of priorities, at least to those who are educated in church history and teaching. (There aren’t many names that carry a signal as clear as Leo. The only name that would have been in the same league might have been Francis II).
- bombcar 6mo agoPeter II also indicates something.
- bigstrat2003 6mo agoRerum Novarum is an absolute banger. I had the pleasure of discovering it thanks to the discourse surrounding Leo XIV choosing his papal name, and I'm really glad I did. Leo XIII had some really insightful things to say about the problems surrounding workers' rights.
- toyg 6mo agoIt should be said that, as in many other fields, it was effectively forced on the church by external development. Marx published The Communist Manifesto in 1848 and Das Kapital in 1867; it took more than a generation for the church to accept that workers' rights were a thing. Even after that shift, the Catholic Church continued to be a fundamentally reactionary force in the realm of social policies, all the way through the second world war.
- jonjacky 6mo agoAlso pertinent and well-written, from the Vatican itself, including some quotes from Pope Francis: https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu... ANTIQUA ET NOVA: Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence. "Francis ... on 14 January 2025 ... approved this Note and ordered its publication." via https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43750835 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43750835, comment by jimmcslim on Pope Francis has died.
- reaperducer 6mo agoPeople love to wallow in the stereotype that the Catholic Church is old fashioned and anti-science. That's mostly propaganda leftover from 300 years ago. Catholic nuns were instrumental in the development of computers. A Catholic priest is fundamental to the Big Bang Theory†. Dozens of craters on the moon were named by and for Catholic clergy who discovered them. †https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lemaître
- dhosek 6mo agoI follow a couple Jesuit brothers on Blue Sky who work at the Vatican Observatory. One of them was tapped to receive an award for another astronomer at a ceremony she couldn’t attend. Beforehand, he said that he would be doing this but couldn’t name the astronomer but said that it was someone well-known and I realized that the only contemporary astronomers I could name were either Jesuits or Neil DeGrasse Tyson. (I don’t remember the actual astronomer, but she was none of these). Amongst scientific clergy, there’s also Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, a Jesuit who was part of the team which discovered the Peking Man fossils (although looking at the Wikipedia page, it appears his legacy is a bit more complicated than one can address in an HN comment).
- bombcar 6mo agoIt’s said when they found the first uncomplicated Jesuit they made him Pope ;)
- dhosek 6mo agoAlthough he’s still pretty complicated. I’m reminded somewhat of a Franciscan sister friend of mine who runs a blog (and until recently, a podcast) called “Messy Jesus Business” which leans into how complicated the whole being Christian thing can get.
- bombcar 6mo agoThere's one of those "midway" memes with a peasant on one side, saying "God is Love" and Aquinas on the other, saying "God is Love" and the middle is a bunch of Jesuit complications. :)