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A reflection for Catholic Developers.

Pope Leo XIV鈥檚 new encyclical Magnifica Humanitas addresses some topics that many Catholic technology executives and product developers have been either wrestling with or growing indifferent to: It鈥檚 not possible to bolt ethics onto AI well after the business model and the technology have been formed. We need to frame them in from the start.  The Pope calls this kind of careful, forward-thinking approach, which at CatholicIU we call 鈥�prudential design.鈥�

The Pope makes a bold call for 鈥減rudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI.鈥�  This demanding, ethical standard stings a little in an industry obsessed with speed, but when you understand that human welfare is at great risk, it鈥檚 the only wise course of action. Sometimes the right move is to slow down, widen your aperture of concern, so we don鈥檛 release technology that weakens people鈥檚 interior capacities in the process for mere material reasons.   We must restore our understanding of the immaterial and instrumental goods that St. Thomas Aquinas so generously explicated.

Every design choice we make sends a message to the world. This brutal reality should make every developer pause and recollect, rectifying their profession with their faith. Are we building technology that treats people as monetizable and nudge-able collections of neurotransmitters, or as ensouled persons with great dignity?

We must design systems focused on the 鈥渁lways interiorly developing鈥� human person, rather than on business metrics alone. According to a Catholic understanding of anthropology, the human person possesses capacities that can be directed either toward authentic human goods or toward lesser ends.

Catholics involved in the development of new technologies have a privileged role in the world. They are able to shape technology that either lifts the human person higher or quietly compromises their natural dignity while undermining their God-given capacities.