In this encyclical, the Pope also acknowledges and apologizes for the Church’s role in perpetuating systems of slavery, while noting the reliance on trafficking, servitude and death embedded in the AI supply chain.
Considered in the context of the latter portion of the encyclical dedicated to the reliance on human suffering to produce AI, Pope Leo points out that a wealthy few experience transcendence at the expense of others. Their suffering is displaced on to the poor and exploited. Dehumanizing all of us.
Michelle Miller
I have a lot to say in my professional capacity about the AI encyclical, but for now I just want to point out the exquisite beauty in the rejection of transhumanism, posthumanism and the pursuit of frictionless perfection:
We just finished the first World Cinema Boxset and I was particularly struck by how Scorsese says he encountered Trances (Ahmed El Maanouni, 1981) on TV during downtime while editing The King of Comedy. He praises AI for speeding up the process, but if the process was fast you'd never seen Trances.
In a functional regulatory state, would this be considered monopsonistic behavior. Seems like it's essentially controlling labor market access, no?
Michelle Miller
Michelle Miller
I talked to @19thnews.org about my research on admins and AI for this great piece! 19thnews.org/2026/05/wome...
Here's the serious bit for anyone who'd rather skip the 4000 words of jokes
