Pope Leo’s Vital Message About Work in the Age of AI

In his new encyclical, Leo revives the importance of the dignity of labor.

“The dignity of work” is a somewhat old-fashioned phrase that’s seldom uttered these days. The left tends to view it with suspicion because it sounds like a justification for mandatory work requirements for Medicaid and food stamps. The right rarely utters it because it risks implying that this dignity should be rewarded with labor rights. So leave it to the pope to enliven our conversation about artificial intelligence by reviving the idea that work is intrinsic to human dignity.

The dignity of work, or better yet “the dignity of labor” (since we’re referring to work specifically within the economic sphere), is a necessary concept as the AI era dawns because the tech lords are trying to persuade us that eliminating the possibility of labor for a great swath of the population would be a blessing to humankind. In fact, it’s a nightmare that would sideline vast portions of humanity from a basic societal function and consign them to poverty. To the inequality of wealth and income would be added a new inequality of participation. AI’s billionaire proponents think cutting workers out of the AI economy won’t be a problem because to these oligarchs, labor exists only as a burden. It has no dignity. 

Pope Leo XIV disagrees. We take for our text the pope’s first encyclical, released on Monday and titled “On Safeguarding the Human Person In the Time of Artificial Intelligence.” Under the heading, “The Dignity of Work at a Time of Digital Transition,” Leo writes that “Work is not simply an instrument; it expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives. It is a requirement of the human condition, a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfilment.” More than “a means of sustenance,” work is “a context for expression, relationships and contributing to the community.” Remove it from all but “a small fraction of the........

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