Is there humanity in Pax Silica?

Share

Copy Link Facebook WhatsApp Twitter Telegram LinkedIn Email

Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical did not merely concern itself with the technology humans had developed–it seeks to challenge the humanity of its makers and users.

From the outset, Magnifica Humanitas expresses its hope “to collaborate in promoting the integral development of every human being” (MH 2) in an era of poly-crisis. Amid the prevalence of global war, poverty, and human rights violations, the Pope has relentlessly called for humanity.

This encyclical strengthens that clarion call. Seeking to uphold this magnificent humanity–the encyclical’s title, directly translated from Latin–takes center stage in Pope Leo XIV’s recent body of work. Where does technology, especially Artificial Intelligence (AI), fit within the wider web of social issues that dehumanize people?

The encyclical’s introduction (MH 15) sets out the foundational challenge for the global citizen today: “we must lovingly safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us and revealed in its fullness in Christ, the splendor of which no machine can ever replace.”

For Pope Leo, the mission is to protect the humanity bestowed upon us by our Creator, ensuring that technology does not impede recognition of our rights to a more dignified way of life.

Drawing on the biblical narrative of the Tower of Babel and its disastrous consequences, the Pope offers an alternative to the temptation to play God and lord over creation through technology: the heavenly symbol of Jerusalem.

Against simplistic readings of the encyclical, the Pope does not fully reject technology, especially artificial intelligence. In fact, the Pope embraces its “power to heal, connect, educate and protect our common home” (MH 9) and challenges people to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem, using technology to foster fraternal, peaceful coexistence and harmony. This aligns with the Catholic sacramental imagination, which finds God at work in created realities, wherein “Christian humanism does not reject science or technology, but embraces them with gratitude and realism, and grounds them within a higher vocation” (MH 129).

The choice between building Babel and rebuilding Jerusalem aptly captures the recent dilemma on many minds. Amid controversies surrounding the project, Filipinos are rightly questioning the Pax Silica initiative, a US-led international effort to secure supply chains and strategic technologies by establishing a large-scale AI manufacturing and innovation hub in the Tarlac area of New Clark City, Philippines.

Is Pax Silica leading us toward “work[ing] together in the presence of God to rebuild the walls of fraternal coexistence” (MH 9), thereby securing a better life for Filipinos? Or is it leading us toward enabling “a power that claims to dominate the heavens” (MH 9)?

Babel in New Clark 

Public frustration with the destructive potential of artificial intelligence and technology stems from what Pope Leo XIV calls “Babel syndrome,” which, according to him, is “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language–even a digital one–can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance” (MH10).

Technology freed from ethically responsible human hands will, in the long run, work against humanity, producing more victims than beneficiaries. Thus, the human person is sacrificed at the altar of economic and technological progress.

More concerning is the ecological damage caused by developing and sustaining AI, a worry Filipinos have with Pax Silica and one the Pope shares regarding AI’s evolution:

“Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly increasing carbon dioxide emissions and placing heavy demands on natural resources. As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows as well, requiring an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers, and energy-intensive infrastructure. For this reason, it is essential to develop more sustainable technological solutions that reduce environmental impact and help protect our common home” (MH 101).

Magnifica Humanitas builds on Pope Francis’ criticism of the “technocratic paradigm,” in which technology becomes the ultimate norm, deciding everything and “reducing creation to an object of exploitation and human beings to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency” (MH 92).

Pope Leo then cites Pope Paul VI, warning us about this form of development that disregards humanity: “the most extraordinary scientific progress, the most astounding technical feats and the most amazing economic growth, unless accompanied by authentic moral and social progress, will in the long run go against man” (MH 94).

In a recent press conference, indigenous Aeta people and farmers from Capas, Tarlac, raised concerns about the lack of transparency in the plan to establish the Pax Silica initiative, which would take over approximately 1,620 hectares in their villages.

They do not oppose development. However, they see Babel syndrome seeping into their lands. Without community consultations or environmental and impact assessments, our indigenous peoples and farmers are once again left in the dark, favoring technological advancement.

In Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV warned against this very phenomenon: “Development is not truly human if it increases consumption for some while shifting costs and burdens onto others, or relegates entire regions to subordinate roles, preventing them from realizing their full potential.” (MH 83)

Jerusalem over empire

Yet, Pax Silica’s potential environmental impact seems to be the tip of the iceberg.

As more specific statistics, data, and plans regarding the multilateral project remain undisclosed – whether they concern the technological hub’s logistics or the number of jobs this initiative will create–one thing is sure: its role in what seems to be an AI arms race.

The Pax Silica declaration, signed by more than thirty member states worldwide, seeks “a shared and trusted ecosystem of AI developers and vendors” to reduce “excessive dependencies” amid the “technological revolution in AI.”

While unnamed, experts point to the growing dominance of China’s AI supply chain and manufacturing capacity as Pax Silica’s focal target, with America as its key convener, leading the charge by strengthening economic and diplomatic collaboration among its initiative’s member-states to counter China’s leverage in AI infrastructure.

Although Magnifica Humanitas calls for integral human development that requires global economic cooperation, fair deals are crucial to ensure that development serves the common good.

Amid a brewing history of tense geopolitical relations between the United States and China, Pax Silica’s diplomatic implications, when gone awry, mirror Pope Leo XIV’s fears of “asymmetric and hybrid wars’ fought not only on the battlefield but also on the economic, financial, and cyber fronts, which deeply affect those who are poor and marginalized (MH 204).

Meanwhile, academics and activists have pointed not only to Pax Silica’s potential role in turning the Philippines into a battleground but also to its contribution to a history of Philippine foreign policy dependent on superpowers such as the US and China, yielding no major benefits for our country.

Peace advocates have also sounded the alarm about Israel’s membership in the initiative, citing Israel’s use of AI to advance what the United Nations has declared to be a genocide against Palestinians.

The name Pax Silica evokes Pax Romana during the time of Jesus Christ. The Roman Empire did not bring peace and order but oppression and the colonial subjugation of Palestine. Do we really think Pax Silica will bring greater peace and order? Will it bring genuine economic progress to the Philippines?

For the survival of all, we must heed Pope Leo’s clarion call to “disarm” AI, which entails “freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” “discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern,” and “preventing it from dominating humanity” (MH 110).

We must also heed Magnifica Humanitas’ call to reject the culture of war and promote peace by advocating a foreign economic policy independent of the interests of empires, such as America and China, while fostering collaboration for the good of all nations, especially ours.

Under Pax Romana, the Roman imperial power sought to establish peace through conquest and domination. God entered history as Jesus in that land, in the vulnerability of a newborn child, revealing a radically different way to peace.

As we usher in a new industrial revolution through AI, Pope Leo XIV reminds us that technology has the power to bring both good and evil, because “the construction of Babel or the rebuilding of Jerusalem begins within each one of us” (MH. 130). May we choose to yield technology, such as AI, to the flourishing of humanity and creation.