Parents need support from schools and governments, he said, to help their children resist the excessive use of A.I., the possibilities of “isolation, bullying and cyberbullying,” and the pressure “to share intimate images or sensitive information.”
Scholars are divided about what effect, if any, the document will have on the technology industry, in which rival tech titans are racing for dominance.
Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at Santa Clara University in Northern California, said some technology leaders “will have to take it seriously in a sense,” partly because it provides them with “a moral imperative.”
Writing in the encyclical, the pope recognized the autonomy of governments and private companies. The church, he said, “does not claim to supplant the responsibilities of politics or institutions, but offers itself as a foundation,” urging other institutions to “recognize and promote whatever serves the dignity of persons, the vitality of communities and the common good.”
Others said that an encyclical’s primary targets are the clergy and the faithful.
“I don’t think the ‘tech bros’ in Silicon Valley will listen that much,” said Prof. Noreen Herzfeld, director of a program on technology and ethics at St. John’s School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minn. “But I think within the church, it will be there as a reference for priests and bishops and particularly for those of us who are educating seminarians or young people.”
Priests can use the contents of the document to guide conversations with parishioners who share their concerns about the technological pressures of modern life, Professor Herzfeld said.
Reporting was contributed by Josephine de La Bruyère from Rome and Elizabeth Dias from Vatican City.
