Whether that implies anything about subjective experience... I think that question is unknowable by definition. Either substrate matters (in which case things have to be made of carbon for some reason?), or it doesn't (in which case... God only knows what that implies. Windows XP might have subjective experience).

That catholic church has a long and sordid history of protecting its own.

The Pope has already spoken quite a bit about ai, and exhorted priests to keep ai out of their homilies, which should be a sacred fruit of prayer and study.

Just from what I have seen he said and my Catholic Theological background, I would say he will definitely be talking about at least a couple things: 1) the relationship between ai and our intellectual labor, and how to use it fruitfully to grow without losing ourselves in it (a very similar concern to many on hn as far as I understand); and more importantly for him and again for many 2) how to use ai in society in a way that everybody can enjoy the fruits of it, instead of just the elite few (similar to the priority of Rerum novarum). This Pope chose his name because of this theme, and has consistently demonstrated that social justice is amongst his highest priority concerns - to the point that he has asked the Church to stop focusing so heavily on sexual ethics because there are such weighty injustices in the world that require our focused effort and attention.

For the shrinking Catholic church it's trying to regain relevance. For Anthropic it's PR.

This is a bad sign. I'm an atheist too, but I don't think religions should appeal to outsiders.

The idea is that by relaxing norms, he wants to gain more members. But it doesn't actually go that way. It alienates the core, and the people for whom compromises are made don't want to join anyway.

You can see this with the number of members for Unitarian churches (declining) vs Amish (growing).

It's the same with Gamergate. Games which chase inclusivity often fail, because the very people they appeal to don't actually want to play video games.

Post-industrial world needed human capital. Hence, the need for human value. If you notice most of this "need" has arisen out of then need for industrial expansion.

Post-AI will be interesting. Will we go back to pre-industrial or get something better.

If you've read any Vatican publications, the theme is being the authority on the ontology of reality.

EDIT: A decree for bioethics https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/docu... I'd expect a similar deal for AI.

> Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical, Magnifica humanitas, on preserving the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, will be released on May 25. A presentation event with the Pope and various speakers is scheduled for the same day at the Vatican.

Among the "various speakers" is Christopher Olah. But hard to express under 80 characters I bet.

When the question asked is roughly of “can an AI ever be considered a human soul?”, there isn’t a philosopher alive whose individual opinion would be considered more meaningful than Pope Leo’s.

It’s unlikely that the church’s opinion would influence the future business choices of Anthropic. I think it still remains a positive business move to publicly engage with the church.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanae_vitae

It was me. Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that Chris Olah co-authored the encyclical with the Pope. I just found it noteworthy that there was someone from the “industry” at the encyclical presentation on May 25, which I think is a first. Usually, they are all clergy or academics.

If what you say is right, I would challenge that by still insisting the corporations can only do what governments let them. You might say they run governments behind the scenes, to which I would say, who let them? They keep influencing elections? Then elections don't seem to be working, that's the root cause perhaps? In all the major political issues, that's the trend I'm seeing, democracy failing, but then I'll challenge myself and ask why is it failing?

The old sentiment of "if it can't be fixed, it isn't a problem" seems rampant. Modern democracy itself is a fix for some other sets of problems. In the US at least, it is in theory designed to be mended and fixed. Perhaps the real cause is lack of political will power by everyone pursuing politics, to even talk about changing the way the government is architectured, altering constitutions, talking about parting ways with land and population (secession), or incorporation of some. Perhaps the population just isn't that interested in educating themselves on matters of civics, therefore how democracy works needs a rewrite at its core?

Either way, I rambled on, i know, but it's with a point i hope is obvious: the common political sentiment around billionaires, corporations, oligarchs (or similar "woke" or "DEI" dogwhistles on the right) simply don't address root causes. They're reductive by design, not accident.

At least they didn't pick Dario lest he burst in flames

- Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum; current Pope Leo XIV chose his name as an explicit gesture to his nominative predecessor

- This encyclical is a return to the earlier tradition of latin names (Magnifica Humanitas) for encyclicals, as opposed to many of Pope Francis' which used Italian (Laudato si')

- The official date it was signed was 135 years to the day since Rerum Novarum

- The Pope is personally appearing and speaking at the presentation; usually these encyclicals are just released at a small press conference without the Pope himself being there

Rerum Novarum intentionally tracked a third path, rejecting both socialism and laissez faire capitalism at the end of the 19th century. Gesturing so overtly towards it suggests that this new encyclical will also try to establish a "third way," grounded (as the title suggests) in human dignity.

Leo XIV has not published any encyclicals yet; this will be his first, and an extremely ambitious one at that. I also am very eager to read it.

I wouldn't say that this is entirely the case. Most religions are in the same position they were in back in 2008. With the Church attempting to accommodate modernity and slowly declining; with a fractured Muslim world; with Buddhism and other religions largely invisible in the West. To speak plainly, the only real exception is Judaism, which has doubled-down on growing into a weird and violent master-race cult, and which has voluntarily surrendered any claim to moral credibility. (So much the worse for anybody unlucky enough to live in Israel's neighborhood!)

https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/reports/child-labor/list-o...

They're not talking about the economic value of humans or even the psychological value of humans as subjects with experiences and a right to liberty or care or something. The idea they're trying to recall and reinvigorate is a sense of human value that transcends that temporal, material noise altogether and that is truly universal. It's the human value that welcomed slaves, prostitutes, wretches, merchants and kings as peers in something grander than economy or state or lineage or tribe or creed.

Now, you can make a well-developed case that that's hogwash and that the human value that matters is the one that alleviates suffering or grants liberty or even the one that grants material reward for some virtue or bloodline or whatever, but that's not what these guys are talking about. They mean a human nature that is always there and always worthy, just as much when it's experiencing temporal poverty/suffering/abuse as when it's basking in temporal wealth/success/freedom.

The idea is that Christian or not, Catholic or not, it does good for everyone to think of human value that way and the critique -- for a long time now -- is that for all the flash and glimmer of technology and its material benefits, it sometimes makes it very very easy to forget.

Most of us humans inherently value each other. There are exceptions, and small communities can get nasty. But for the most part, small human communities tend to be supportive and valuing each other.

This really only stops being the case when you get large-scale societies that allow humans to view others through an overly abstract lens. Combine that with an unchecked accumulation of power, and you have the potential for those in power to view the rest as without value.

The Catholic Church also does not teach that there cannot be restrictions on immigration, it simply says that we should treat people with dignity while enforcing such restrictions.

To claim that you didn’t intend to do what you did is either lying or dangerously ignorant.

I tend to agree -- Even if I'm not sure what that quite looks like, and even if I'm not sure if that's better than what we already have.

Presidents have their favorite past counterparts, so did emperors, and clearly the Pope does as well.

Does this kind of imitation prevent truly creative action taking? Did Akhenaten have someone in mind when he declared his own religion?

So far none of the AI stuff I've seen has really been about "the computer has no soul" and more around the danger that dehumanization can bring (which has been a refrain since the previous Leo, mind you).

-- Guards! Guards! by Terry Pratchett

Most of the people he encounters are super friendly, welcoming and willing to bend over backwards to help him out. It's genuine human connection and willingness. He will speak to people from every possible background, including people in the Taliban and honestly at the end of the day, we're all humans and most people respect that.

Things have become blurred with social media, digital life, closed and private nature of the modern world but if you take a step back, you can realize humans are typically, very helpful, friendly and unique characters.

You would think that a great reduction in extreme poverty would give people pause, but it is almost always barely acknowledged. The strange conclusion is that people who tell you they care the most about poverty do not actually care about it in the slightest. It is just a vehicle for their resentment.

Christianity and Catholicism doesn’t fool me. If you’ve ever wanted to see the mythical devil - look to those preaching and they legacy of hate that they carry.

This is not merely a matter of "favorites" or "imitation" but one of legitimacy. Rome was not built in a day and so forth. Often the most successful paradigm-shifting leaders are ones who can deftly command the legitimacy of the past while adapting their society to a new future. But attempting the latter while disposing of the former usually fails, as in the case of Akhenaten.

Maybe they've grown. Is Bangladesh at the stage where they outsource labour to other countries yet?

But I don't know if that takes away from the idea itself and what fruitful counterpoint it might play in modern discourse.

(Yeah, it’s a problem, but they can’t see it)

“Robert Mueller just died. Good, I’m glad he’s dead. He can no longer hurt innocent people!”