Pope Leo XIV recently released his encyclical titled “Magnifica Humanitas.” In it he details the dangers of Artificial Intelligence. He uses the biblical story of the Tower of Babel to represent those dangers. He writes: “[The tower] was an impressive feat: a single language, a single technology, a single direction.” Reflecting on the meaning of the story, we might wonder if this is not all bad. After all, having a single language encourages communication and interpersonal relationships. Or does it?
Bishop Erik Varden, in his article “In Praise of Translation” quotes Rabbi Joseph Herman Hertz. Hertz translates the story of Babel in this way: “Now the whole earth had one language and few words.” We might speculate what those words were: “progress,” “mastery,” “profit,” and “greatness.” Naturally, a language with few words centered around selfishness will lead to greater inhumanity. Hence for our own sake, God confused the languages of the people in the story of Babel. Pope Leo recognizes this danger when he writes: “However, the project concealed a profound danger. It was a project conceived without reference to God, supported by a uniformity that eliminated diversity and that chose homogenization over communion.”
Like the Industrial Revolution before it, the AI revolution has the capacity to transform how we live and relate to one another. In adopting this technology, Pope Leo warns us to avoid the “Babel syndrome,” which is to say, one language with few words.
