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I think you're not reading it in the spirit it's intended. There's a section towards the end (Chapter 5, I think) that is full of policy prescriptions. But most of the encyclical isn't "about" AI, it's "about" Catholicism, and is using AI as a lens to talk about principles the church has been building up over a century. In that sense the document is less concerned with frontier models and disinformation than it is with establishing Catholic social doctrine --- subsidiarity, solidarity, the common good, etc.

As far as the church is concerned, AI as an issue will come and go, but the ordering and prioritization of human relationships is timeless, and is the important issue. The subtext of the whole thing is that if you get the principles right, the tech policy will fall into place.

You can argue with those principles, but at that point you really are just arguing with Catholicism itself, which is fine, but is besides the point.

(I'm not engaging with or disputing your takes on policy, only with your comment as a critique of the encyclical itself.)

by ordinaryradical2 hours ago|

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Describing the pope’s proposals as progressive and anti-money laundering laws as the antichrist… this is like a parody of the most blinders-on kind of libertarianism.

For those of you playing at home, you can definitely have multi-lateral agreements without creating a one world government. We’ve had a chemical weapons ban for decades over which many of the multi-lateral parties were in hot and cold wars with each other. The nations are not going to magically combine over the presence of a treaty. Not how power works.

by idiotsecant2 hours ago|

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There are plenty of rules that we apply across the board. No nuclear weapons for anyone who's not already got them is an example. This doesn't take some spooky one world government to do. This post is wild. Essentially, you're saying that any attempt to regulate AI as the existential threat that it almost certainly is the antichrist. It's bonkers.

by mike_hearn50 minutes ago|

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That specific rule is enforced by America assassinating the leaders and scientists of governments that don't agree to it. See: Iran. I don't think that's what anyone means when they say multilateralism.

by wizzwizz43 hours ago|

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In an infinitely-large "truly multilateral world", what you are saying is true under the assumption that unregulated AI provides a competitive advantage for the jurisdiction, assuming preferences are each sampled from a totally-supported probability distribution. But we only have finitely-many jurisdictions, and it's not clear that AI accelerationism is actually good for anyone (except those extracting wealth from the corresponding financial bubble), so this conclusion doesn't follow.

by watwut3 hours ago|

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I mean yes, if we twist meanings of words enough, Pope is progressive. Except he is not, he is conservative catholic pushing for old school conservative catholic doctrine. He is not far right, he is not prosperity gosphel guy, but catholic doctrine was never that.

Of course you can have multilateralism and regulations. And no, AML is not an antichrist.

And Thiel with his plan yo create totalitatian fascist word is one of the greater danger to most of us. Way greater then AML regulations.

by mike_hearn23 minutes ago|

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"Antichrist" is not really a serious word you can pin down, but the AML system is regularly used in ways that are very un-Christ-like. For instance, Christ said to love thy neighbour, to be the good Samaritan, that people should not be punished for the sins of their family members and he preached tolerance.

Now consider the unlucky German-Turkish journalist Hüseyin Dogru, who was recently placed under trade sanctions by the EU Commission due to his reporting. But they did it while he was living in Europe. The sanctions force everyone - including his neighbours and supermarkets - to refuse to sell him anything.

Then they realized, what if his wife buys him food? So they sanctioned his wife too.

Then they realized, what if his parents buy him food? So they sanctioned his parents as well. Now the entire family cannot buy anything.

Literally the entire family has been put to economic death. The state will imprison anyone who helps them and confiscate the entire net worth of anyone who conceivably might help them. All appeals have been denied.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%BCseyin_Do%C4%9Fru#EU-San...

He is now completely screwed and is reduced to living on a subsidence budget of ~500 EUR/month, calculated to be just enough that his family don't literally die of starvation.

https://x.com/hussedogru/status/2037859218326180064

https://diariosocialista.net/2026/05/28/alemania-recrudece-l...

This is possible because of the systems-level implementation of the AML/sanctions system and its existence outside any kind of justice system. It's the kind of thing that Thiel meant by a totalitarian antichrist. If Jesus were alive today he would presumably have harsh criticisms of this kind of thing.

by idiotsecant2 hours ago|

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That's how far the global overton window has shifted. The pope is now the voice of reason.

The world is barreling toward conditions that haven't existed for a century. God help us.

by krapp2 hours ago|

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Plenty of people besides the Pope have made essentially the same criticisms about AI and the dangers of the cultlike influence it seems to have on our society. Every one of those people were dismissed as paranoid and ignorant Luddites who simply feared and hated progress if not humanity itself until the Pope came along and voiced an opinion on the matter. Then and only then was criticism of AI taken to be valid, or at least taken seriously, because of the invocation of religious authority. (but now all the tradcaths are sedevacantists because the Pope is "woke" and obviously a Luddite who hates progress and humanity.)

I'll take it, but I really wish we didn't need it.