Pope’s Magnifica Humanitas: A blueprint for navigating the AI era
▼ Summary
– Shareholders at Meta, Microsoft, Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros. have criticized AI data centers’ environmental impact and demanded transparency on AI use in creative industries.
– With OpenAI, Anthropic, and Grok going public, investors will soon gain influence over these currently private AI companies.
– Investor advocates assert it is wrong to use technology to kill, harm, or oppress people, and that human creativity is essential in storytelling.
– These advocates, from diverse faith backgrounds, echo Pope Leo’s call for clear criteria and effective oversight of AI affecting public goods and fundamental rights.
– The article questions whether this moment will be remembered as a failure to prevent wealth concentration or as a turning point to rebuild common humanity.
At companies like Meta and Microsoft, shareholders are raising alarms over the environmental toll of AI data centers , facilities that guzzle energy, drain precious water supplies, and release significant greenhouse gas emissions. Meanwhile, within the creative industries, investors are pressing leadership at giants like Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros. for greater transparency on how artificial intelligence is being deployed, while defending the irreplaceable human element in storytelling.
With OpenAI, Anthropic, and Grok poised to enter the public markets, a new wave of shareholder influence will soon extend to these currently private entities. This shift offers a powerful opportunity to hold these companies accountable before they scale further.
These investor-led actions do more than spotlight corporate missteps. They reaffirm a fundamental principle: technology must never be used to kill, harm, or oppress. Every person deserves access to safe and effective health care and the chance to earn a dignified living. The stories we share carry meaning, and they require the human creative spark to endure.
These advocates come from diverse faith traditions, and some from none at all. Yet their informed, persistent efforts echo the core message of Pope Leo’s encyclical, which insists that “the use of AI, especially when it touches on public goods and fundamental rights, must be guided by clear criteria and effective oversight.”
Encyclicals serve as markers in history. A century from now, how will we be remembered for how we navigated this crossroads? Will we appear too cautious or shortsighted to stop a small, immensely wealthy, and self-serving group from tightening its grip on humanity’s shared future? Or will these years be seen as a turning point , a moment when we rebuilt our common humanity?
Let this be the era when people of good will and diverse talents unite through their own magnificent humanity to shape a future that honors our Creator.
Father Séamus Finn, OMI, serves as a global leader in faith-based and socially responsible investing and is a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Sister Susan Francois is the assistant congregation leader and congregation treasurer for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.
(Source: MIT Technology Review)
