Science Friday
Hosted by Flora Lichtman
On the release of Pope Leo’s encyclical about AI, we peek inside the Vatican academy that helps inform the pope’s scientific views.
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Hey, I'm Flora and you are listening to Science Friday.
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On Monday, Pope Leo presented his encyclical, an open letter from the Church on AI. The 40,000-plus-word document covers a lot of terrain, from screen time to resource extraction to job loss. But the core message is summed up in the title, Magnifica Humanitas, on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence.
Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed. The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention, awakening consciences, and indicating paths forward for humanity.
How did the Pope arrive at these views? You know, there's thousands of years of doctrine, but in addition, there's a group of scientists who convene and present to the Holy Father, the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, which has roots going back 400 years. Today, we're talking to a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, who has led conferences on AI for the Church. We'll hear about this encyclical and the role of these committees. Dr. Marcelo Suarez Orozco is an anthropologist and chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Marcelo, welcome to Science Friday.
Thanks, Flora, for having me.
Thanks for being here. So Pope Leo seems to be telling us in this encyclical that we are at a crossroads, that AI could be like the Tower of Babel, a sort of sign of humanity's arrogance. Can you walk us through this idea?
Yes, I want to start by saying this is a magnificent document. The metaphoric order, the Tarababbel, the idea of disarming a technology in the service of humanity. So I think it's an act of courage to put himself at the center of a debate where so much is unknown, so much magical thinking saturates. And I think that what you really should think about, Flora, is this was such an American way of introducing an encyclical. The popes write this and they let the others do the work.
This is a hands-on, very pragmatic, and this is a uniquely American story. It's a story of a pope from Chicago that chose the release of the encyclical in very unique ways. Really, I think the way the Holy Father rolled out the encyclical was uniquely American. He did it personally.
Do you mean because of one of the co-founders of Anthropic, Christopher Olah, was there?
One issue is that he had a number of personalities, very, very carefully chosen. Of course, among them, the co-founder of Anthropic, a company that is at the global epicenter of a debate about the futures of artificial intelligence.
I wanted to ask you about that because, you know, the encyclical is wary of AI. And so it was surprising to see one of the co-founders of Anthropic, Christopher Olah, there. You can even get to talk.
The machinery that makes this possible is the work of math and programming and science. But what character we choose, how it interacts with the world, how it ought to interact with the world, these are more clearly questions for the humanities, for religion, for philosophy, for society at large.
I found it perplexing, like, is it that the company, these companies are so powerful now that even the Vatican, which is, you know, one of the few institutions that is more powerful than tech companies, feels like they have to be in the room with tech executives?
Flora, I think this telecast's a claim that in previous moments, when mementous encyclicals were released, the issues were often issues that came under the general responsibilities of the state, of the nation-state, of governments. I think that what this is highlighting, the fact that now it's in the hands of private companies that are building, engineering, a future in which we're all going to be actors.
And this acknowledges that directly?
Very directly, by having the co-founder of one of the major AI companies, he's telling the world, "Take notice. Take notice."
Yes.
I think the concern the Holy Father has here is, when the human hand, the heart, our socio-emotional architectures are no longer in the driver's seat, please proceed with caution.
Hmm. You are an anthropologist, so the magnificence of humanity seems like it must be up your personal alley. How does, how did that, did that get filtered through any of your work?
Flora, I don't get to lobby in that sense. The work of the academies is work that responds to the, to the concerns, to the interests of the Holy Father. It's very, very important to highlight that this encyclical is deeply, deeply rooted.
In the history of the social doctrine of the church. That's the most anthropological of all the encyclicals, maybe. And that is, of course, by his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, who wrote during this, in the Industrial Revolution, on the need to protect workers, their dignity and their rights. It is a plea to protect human dignity. And as such, it joins a very, very significant global conversation that has been focused too much, too much
on the technological side of the equation, not enough on the human side of the equation.
I understand that you have led conversations at the academy about AI. We know AI is contentious. You have scientists from all over the world. Do those conversations get heated? What's, what's that discussion like?
Yes, you know, I would say that there are, there were three conceptual domains at the heart of AI where most of the passionate, let's call them exchanges, unfolded. First, what will augment human capabilities, make us all better off? And what will make us redundant, replace us? I think as importantly here was the issue of the unfolding of these technologies into systems, in industry, in governance, into education.
And that is entirely under-theorized. I think we live in a moment, Flora, of two tensions, a kind of a techno-effervescence that this is everywhere in Silicon Valley. It's a place in the world I know very well. I spent time at Stanford. I spent many years at Berkeley. So this is a world I understand.
Techno-effervescence is my favorite way of describing it.
And.
We do, yes.
It's techno-panic. I mean, if you do just basic surveys.
Folk are extraordinarily concerned. So this dialectic between techno-affervescence and techno-panic needs to be resolved to get into a techno-coexistence in the service of humanity. Science will benefit enormously from AI. We had at one of the summits, one of the leading vaccinologists in the world talk about how the development of vaccines, the development of medical breakthroughs is being enhanced dramatically.
But there's also a dark side, a side that dehumanizes us, a side that makes us tools, clocks, in a machinery without a heart.
We have to take a break, but when we come back, I want to go behind the scenes with you about what these, the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences meetings are like. Stay with us.
Support for Science Friday comes from the William K. Boz Junior Foundation.
Marcello, can you take us behind the scenes a bit? What is this gig like?
Well, I've been involved in various capacities with the academy for about two decades now. And it's a scholarly, it's a scientific academy. Its origins really go back to Galileo. It was Galileo's academy. And it is entirely secular in that our colleagues come from all faiths, all religions, all nationalities, all disciplines.
How are members selected? I mean, is there a pontifical type? Do you have to be a little bit soulful, if not spiritual?
No, not at all. Many of my colleagues are not Catholics. No, all religions, all nationalities, entirely secular. So you're nominated. It takes a long, long, long time. I mean, the main work I did for Francis way, way back over the last beginning, before Francis, actually, was on immigration and on refugee flows. That's my area of expertise. You know, my wife is an academic. Together, we founded the Harvard Immigration Projects. That's how they became interested in our work. I just got a call one day from a cardinal and a bishop in the church saying, "Hey, Marcelo, we understand you're a scholar of immigration. Can we come and see you?" And we were doing the largest study of its kind
in our, in our country. And I said, "Of course, come." You know, I'm normally Catholic. I'm Argentine, so I'm culturally Catholic. It's just in the air as you walk about the streets of Monocytus with a Malbec and with the stakes. It's that Catholicism is there. And then one day I got an email from Pope Francis. I thought it was a joke.
Stop. No.
Yes, you just get an email from Pope Francis saying, "You have been elected and I have appointed you a member of the council." Which is kind of the exact.
Like [email protected]?
Something like that. It's, it's, it's dot VA for Vatican.
I mean, do you, do you get to interface with the Holy Father? Like, do you send a memo? How does he engage with your ideas?
Yeah. So the Holy Father would attend our gatherings. Francis attended multiple times and he comes with us. He makes his own reflections.
Sometimes he asks questions. Sometimes there are side chats with the Holy Father. My very, very last encounter with Pope Francis was at his home in the Domus Santa Marta. We had gathered for a very significant summit on building resilience, for climate change, for AI, for all these major developments facing humanity. And we had a very informal exchange. I'm Argentine, the Holy Father. Pope Francis is Argentine. Of course, if you're Argentine, you talk about soccer. Big mistake to debate the Holy Father on soccer, which I did.
He's always right and you're always wrong. And then he very lovingly, but very firmly, is referring to the work of building resilience. He said in his Argentine-accented Spanish, Marcelo adelante, siempre adelante. That's sanctimonious. That's forward. We have to move forward.
Bring me into the room in one of these meetings. Like, what does it look like? Are they at the Vatican? Is the catering good?
So the meetings are at the historic Casino Pio Quattro, which was a summer palace for the popes. Between us, it's the most beautiful building in the Vatican. In the back, we have Francis's turtles that come out at noon and sunbathe under the beautiful Roman skies.
It's they're entirely scholarly gatherings. They're very global. Imagine a workshop at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, or at UCLA, or at Harvard. These are universities.
This is sounding less exotic by the minute.
And it's entirely the free exchange of ideas. And everyone understands the weight of an academy that began really in the 1600s that has been a very powerful instrument for the popes to reflect upon matters of scholarly and scientific interest. To give you a sense, at any moment, there are over 50 Nobel laureates who are members of the academy. And again, the academicians that get selected are folk of enormous renown.
And when you achieve enormous renown, you come to understand the fragility. We live in the age of fragility. We live in the age of uncertainty, and we live in the age of vertigo. And I think all the academicians live in that trinity. Fragility, uncertainty, vertigo. Just things are and AI is at the heart of the vertigo piece. The human systems are not very well adapted to the kinds of by the minute changes that AI represents.
I want to call back to something you mentioned earlier about this coexistence of techno effervescence right now and techno panic. How do you see the role of the church versus the role of science in resolving that tension?
Yeah, so we that's a wonderful question, and it really goes into the heart of the purpose of the academies. The academy's motto is faith and reason. Science and faith are distinct domains. Our domain is the domain of scholarship and of science, always guided by these fundamental tenets that are at the heart of the social doctrine of the church. By the way. This encyclical, the Enciclical Magnifica Humanitas,
is, I think, my opinion, the most brilliant synthesis of the social doctrine of the church ever written. It highlights our obligations as members of the human family to each other, to nature, to future generations.
Popleus said something exactly about this. Let's hear it.
We do not possess the technical answers, nor do we seek to displace those with expertise. But we bring a wisdom concerning the human that our present time desperately needs.
Amen.
Marcelo, thank you for taking the time to talk to us today.
Welcome, Flora.
I really appreciate it. That was great. Dr. Marcelo Suarez-Arosco is an anthropologist and chancellor at the University of Massachusetts Boston. This podcast was produced by D. Peterschmidt. If you liked it, consider leaving us a review or a rating on your favorite platform of choice. Thank you for listening. I'm Flora Lixman.
Page updated October 30, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated