> 176. In the development of her doctrine, the Church has gradually come to a deeper awareness of the gravity of these issues. It is true that past events cannot be judged anachronistically, as though the moral criteria that matured over time had always been available. Yet neither can we deny or diminish the delay with which both society and the Church came to denounce the scourge of slavery. In antiquity and the Middle Ages many individuals and even ecclesiastical institutions had slaves. Already in the early modern period, the Apostolic See of Rome, responding to requests from Sovereigns, intervened several times in order to regulate and legitimize forms of subjugation, and, in certain cases, the enslavement of “infidels.” [174] It was only in the nineteenth century that a formal, absolute and universal condemnation of slavery was clearly articulated, notably under Pope Leo XIII. [175] This development offers a clear example of the Church’s growth in understanding the perennial truths of Revelation that she safeguards. Although there was not always consistency in practice — given that slavery was long tolerated before being unequivocally condemned — there has been a continuous affirmation throughout history of the dignity of every human being, created in the image of God, even if it took eighteen centuries for its full incompatibility with slavery to be explicitly recognized. This constitutes a wound in Christian memory, one from which we cannot consider ourselves detached. [176] It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many in stark contrast to their immeasurable dignity as persons infinitely loved by the Lord. For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon.

As he surely understands but does not quite bear to be completely honest about it, the Church has only been a humanist institution for the past ~150ish years. The history before is bloody, and brutal, from genocide and slavery to wholesale cultural destruction, from its very beginnings.

Followed by a very keen remark:

> 178. Even today, colonialism assumes new forms. It no longer dominates only bodies, but appropriates data, transforming personal lives into exploitable information. Entire regions, especially those marked by structural fragility and limited geopolitical relevance, are currently subjected to a new mindset of extraction: that of health data, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic information. These have become the new “rare earths” of power: vital data which, once aggregated and analyzed, can be used to train predictive models, guide investment strategies, anticipate crises and, above all, determine who and what is deemed to matter. Those who control the health data of entire peoples — often collected under the pretext of aid, research or innovation — possess a structural leverage over the future, for they can shape needs and markets. They can also decide, before others, to whom medicines, investments and protections will be allocated. Here lies one of the most urgent moral challenges of our time: to ensure that shared knowledge becomes a true common good rather than an instrument of dominance. This requires restoring to individuals not only the data that describes them, but also the ability to decide how it is used, by whom and for whose benefit. Otherwise, the digital age will not be post-colonial, but colonial in another form.

By then we might not even have computers anymore, or we might have "transparent" computers, i.e. have everything on the cloud and just tell our AI agents what to do.

Sorry Pope Leo, things are not going to suddenly turn into a wonderful utopia, but maybe buy some stocks so you can at least make a buck from what's coming.

The Catholic Church is not anywhere close to being a neutral institution who will be writing something like this in good faith (no pun intended). This is an organization based on prejudice, subjugation and outright delusion built on literally millennia of persecution. All of their observations will be made from the standpoint that their worldview is the only correct one, which is unacceptable in every way.

For example, ChatGPT will quickly and efficiently answer all your questions about how and where to get a safe abortion, including pros and cons, history and other specifics. This is something the Church is vehemently opposed to on principle. Anything else they have to say on the topic is therefore irrelevant.

I guarantee that whatever AI doom they're warning about will never be anywhere close to the damage the continued existence of the Catholic Church causes and will continue to cause in the future.

Anyone who thinks otherwise doesn't know history nor read the headlines of the past several decades.

Hey, I love it when Bob from Chicago tells Trump to go to hell, but beyond that I couldn't care less what he or the truly horrific religion he leads thinks about anything, let alone new technology.

One thing that isn't talked about enough is how so much is going into AI but not much is coming out of it. The rhetoric from tech bros is still that AI is "going to" change the world. Hasn't really changed the world yet, except driven up everyone's utility bills and put hundreds of thousands of people out of work.

I encourage people, especially software engineers here, to remember the previous "new hotness" tech advancements - blockchain and NoSQL DBs being two recent examples. In both instances there was a flood of VC money into startups that have mostly failed because each was supposed to change the world (or at least change software). I spent a lot of my free time in those days trying to "find a problem" for blockchain and NoSQL to solve. I remember thinking I must be a lousy software engineer because I just wasn't getting the hype. Now I know it's because whenever something new comes out, people talk about how it can do X Y and Z, and there's a disconnect between what a technology CAN do, and what it SHOULD do. I can use blockchain for all sorts of things, but in most cases it wouldn't be the best option. Same for NoSQL DBs. Same for LLMs. The more you understand blockchain, the more you realize it's only good as a globally-distributed, immutable ledger - and currency is the only practical application of that in our society today (e.g., Bitcoin). NoSQL is the same way - yeah you can use MongoDB for whatever app, but it's going to be a bad time maintaining and scaling when you're storing relatively simple and consistent records. A CRUD app usually doesn't warrant a NoSQL DB.

LLMs are the same. I'm finding they are good at search-type tasks, where frankly not much "thinking" is involved. Therefore, with respect to writing software, they are best suited for simple, internal tools. Even then, I have to baby it, especially with today's LLMs. Claude Opus has been nerfed (most-likely quantized) to make space in the datacenters for Mythos, and eventually Mythos will be bad too for the same reasons. The question becomes, as it always has, "will LLMs rise up to the challenge" and history tells us "no." These things never live up to the hype. When you understand how LLMs work, you understand why ChatGPT 3.5 isn't that much worse than GPT 5.5, artificial benchmarks be damned.

An organization that - for centuries - has actively protected child molesters, has sat on billions of dollars, has sided with Nazis, has been involved in multiple fraud and money laundering cases has absolutely zero standing to advice anybody on anything.