The Pope Joins the Chat that Women Were Already Having

When Pope Leo XIV released Magnifica Humanitas, his landmark encyclical on AI and human dignity, it lit up LinkedIn, Substacks, and newsfeeds worldwide. Kimberly read it the morning it dropped. Jessica, whose complicated relationship with religious institutions runs deep, read it anyway. And both of us had the same reaction as Abi Awomosu's: women have been saying this, uncited. In this episode, we explore the encyclical's arguments, like:technology is never neutralunchecked growth impoverishes rather than enrichestreating limitations as defects is a category error, and concentrated technocratic power may be beyond the reach of regulation. And we also name what's missing: the women, the scholars of color, and the critics who were making these exact arguments years before the Vatican caught up.We draw threads from the Pope's letter through late-stage capitalism, the bread-and-circus dynamics of the attention economy, and what Jolene Blais called AI's role as a "catabolic agent." We talk about certainty language, the death of expertise, and why scientists are trained to live with uncertainty (and why that training is increasingly under attack). We end up, somehow, at microplastics, frugal hedonism, egg freezing, and communes. It's that kind of episode.In this episode:What encyclicals are and why this one matters — even if you're not CatholicThe specific passages we highlighted and why they resonatedAbi Awomosu's critique: women have been saying this, uncited — and her piece "Vatican Washing: Why All the Tech Broligarchs' Roads Now Lead to Rome"The "Who Said It First" problem and why it's more complicated than it looksPosthumanism and transhumanism, and the Pope's sharp warning about treating some lives as less worthyData centers, extractive infrastructure, and colonial parallelsWhy scientists hedge (and why that's a feature, not a bug)Late-stage capitalism, the disintegration of community, and why collective action is harder when the technology driving us apart is the same technology we'd need to organize againstFrugal hedonism as a form of resistancePit & Peach: Kimberly's mom heads back to Mississippi (with a plan), and Jessica takes her first step toward freezing her eggsReferences & LinksThe encyclical:Magnifica Humanitas — Full text, Vatican.vaWhy is Anthropic helping launch the Pope's encyclical? — National Catholic Reporter (co-founder Chris Olah spoke at the Vatican presentation — yes, really)Scholarship & criticism:Abi Awomosu, "How Not to Use AI" — SubstackBender, Gebru et al., "On the Dangers of Stochastic Parrots" (2021) — the paper Timnit Gebru was fired from Google over; a preview of nearly every argument that followedTom Nichols, The Death of Expertise (2017)Books:Klara and the Sun — Kazuo IshiguroHe, She and It — Marge Piercy — feminist cyborg novel from 1991 that remains eerily prescient on AI, corporate power, and communityThe Art of Frugal Hedonism — Annie Raser-Rowland & Adam GrubbFrom our archives:WTBAI: "The Trojan Horse of AI" with Jolene Blais & Jon IppolitoOur paper in Frontiers in Education: AI as Cultural Intermediary Leave us a comment or a suggestion! Support the showContact us: https://www.womentalkinboutai.com/