At a news conference discussion of Pope Leo’s Magnifica Humanitas encyclical, Leo was joined in discussing a subtopic concerning the “Threat of ‘Anti-Human Vision’” by Anthropic’s co-founder, Christopher Olah.

Izzat de Pope?

Pope Leo said, “The risk extends beyond the misuse of certain technologies.” He went on: “More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision.”

Olah wisely pontificated: “Some might believe that matters of AI are best handled by computer scientists like myself. They are mistaken. The questions raised by A.I. are bigger than the A.I. research community, not just in their implications, but also in their nature.”

Olah used an example of an airplane or bridge, where engineers can understand every aspect of them because engineers designed them and studied the physics behind them. Olah then said, “A.I. models are not like that. They are grown on a structure roughly modeled after the brain on an enormous inheritance of human thought and speech, and what is grown is far more subtle, odd, and beautiful than science fiction prepared us for.”

Pope Leo’s cautions about A.I. seem to me, in an irreverent way, too secular! While unnecessary to believe in a fundamentalist image of Satan’s presence, a neo-orthodox Christian view can envision an active battle between good and evil going on in the world today. Such a conflict can get highly sophisticated and seductive if the realm of A.I. is involved. I think in terms of C.S. Lewis’s wonderful portrayal of such in his book The Screwtape Letters. Since A.I. arises from human thought and its application and beyond, its potential corruption can take on many seductive and destructive temptations and evil power plays. The Chinese Communist Party has already accomplished this already to some extent in America.

If A.I. can create an actual marriage between a person and an A.I. spouse, what other satanic seductions and intimations can occur? In the hands of ever more sophisticated terrorist groups, cartels, and Islamo-fascist influencers cooperating with communist forces at home and abroad, the good guys vs. bad guys and righteous vs. profoundly evil can get hard to detect and interdict!

Pope Leo’s and Mr. Olah’s concerns are prescient.

Written by Peter Olsson for the American Thinker ~ May 27, 2026