The last Apostolic
Exhortation by Pope Francis, entitled Laudate Deum and published
on October 4, 2023, dedicates a chapter to the technocratic paradigm that has
been imposed throughout the world, to which the following definition applies: a
certain way of understanding human life and activity [that] has gone awry, to
the serious detriment of the world around us. It refers mainly to the degradation of the environment in relation to
climate change of anthropogenic origin, although the phrase used can be interpreted
broadly, since there are many more ways to degrade the environment, in addition
to releasing gases into the atmosphere.
But it doesn't
stop there. The next paragraph says this:
21. In recent years, we have been able to confirm this diagnosis, even as we have witnessed a new advance of the above paradigm. Artificial intelligence and the latest technological innovations start with the notion of a human being with no limits, whose abilities and possibilities can be infinitely expanded thanks to technology. In this way, the technocratic paradigm monstrously feeds upon itself.
One could object to the use of the term artificial intelligence, as I have pointed
out in these posts, but it is obvious that this is not the Pope’s fault, since
the media, and even a few experts, insist on calling that way the latest
advances in computing, such as those usually called generative artificial intelligence. Eduardo
César Garrido Merchán points it out in a
note published on LinkedIn:
Intelligence
is a huge word. These [programs] are basically huge statistics models. Just
optimizing variables to make some output with respect to data. Nothing more. No
intelligence there.
Any expert in what has been called artificial
intelligence agrees with this. It seems unbelievable that some of them have
been fooled by the stupidity of the media and insist that these programs show
consciousness and other human properties.
But Pope Francis’ use of the term artificial
intelligence is anecdotal. What is important is what he says in the
rest of the paragraph, where he attacks the technological
singularity, so fashionable in our times. In the next two
paragraphs he says this about it:
22.
…the greater problem is the ideology underlying an obsession: to increase human
power beyond anything imaginable, before which nonhuman reality is a mere
resource at its disposal. Everything that exists ceases to be a gift for which
we should be thankful, esteem and cherish, and instead becomes a slave, prey to
any whim of the human mind and its capacities.
23. It is chilling to realize that the
capacities expanded by technology “have given those with the knowledge and
especially the economic resources to use them, an impressive dominance over the
whole of humanity and the entire world. Never has humanity had such power over
itself, yet nothing ensures that it will be used wisely, particularly when we
consider how it is currently being used… In whose hands does all this power
lie, or will it eventually end up? It is extremely risky for a small part of
humanity to have it”.
 |
| C.S. Lewis |
These words remind me of the book by C.S. Lewis The Abolition of Man (1943), about which I published
a
post in this blog. In that book, Lewis says that what is often called “man’s
domination of nature” ultimately boils down to “the domination of large numbers
of human beings by a small number of human beings.” I wonder if section 23 of
the Pope’s document has been directly or indirectly influenced by Lewis’s book,
although he does not cite Lewis. I also wonder if these words could be
considered a criticism of the 2030 Agenda, which basically tries to achieve
precisely this accumulation, in a few hands, of a huge power over the rest of
humanity.
In the following paragraphs, Francis elaborates on
this idea:
24.
Not every increase in power represents progress for humanity. We need only
think of the “admirable” technologies that were employed to decimate
populations, drop atomic bombs and annihilate ethnic groups... It is not
strange that so great a power in such hands is capable of destroying life,
while the mentality proper to the technocratic paradigm blinds us and does not
permit us to see this extremely grave problem of present-day humanity.
25. Contrary to this technocratic
paradigm, we say that the world that surrounds us is not an object of
exploitation, unbridled use and unlimited ambition...
26. …Human beings must be recognized as
a part of nature. Human life, intelligence and freedom are elements of the
nature that enriches our planet, part of its internal workings and its
equilibrium.
27. …The great present-day problem is
that the technocratic paradigm has destroyed that healthy and harmonious
relationship...
28. We need to rethink among other
things the question of human power, its meaning and its limits. For our power
has frenetically increased in a few decades...
In short: the Pope warns us that unlimited
technological growth towards technological singularity is immoral. One point
remains to be considered: it is almost certain that it will not be
feasible. This is my opinion, which I expressed in another
post.
Thematic Thread about What is Man: Previous Next
Manuel Alfonseca
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