Six years ago, I called for the Gandalf Option — and now I see that Pope Leo has endorsed my call. I admit that he didn’t mention me by name, but come on, the debt is obvious.
Yesterday, Pope Leo XIV issued a 64,500-word encyclical on Artificial Intelligence. Already I’ve seen two nationally-published columns critiquing it (plus the quip by @ayjay).
I wonder if Matthew Walther and George Weigel used AI to analyze 64,500 densely-packed words so quickly?
@ReaderJohn My assumption is that there were advance copies distributed to various press outlets and critics.
@ReaderJohn I’ve wondered if they get wind of the general gist of what will be said. Then they skim it looking for confirmation as they write their articles.
@ReaderJohn I laughed at, and of course appreciated, MW’s:
“The text begins with the arresting image of the Tower of Babel, perhaps the greatest biblical symbol of technological hubris, but seems to miss the point of the story, which is not that the tower’s builders should have been more ethical by incorporating feedback from a more disparate assemblage of stakeholders. The moral was: Don’t build it!”
@ReaderJohn I love his writing. I subscribed to The Lamp briefly: appreciated its quality but found it too RC-insider to be helpful for me. Every now and then he comes out with a “social teaching” that I appreciate greatly. He suggested that Post Offices offer savings accounts, which would make banking much more accessible to many more people; and that every American get a $1000 line of credit, also via the Post Office. Simple ideas you don’t hear from politicos.
@JohnBrady I apparently had a one-sided view of him. Catholic social teaching is not neatly Left or Right.