Their influence can stop people from learning how to live wisely
24 May 2015 (Holy See). Pope Francis wrote on the digital world in paragraph 47 of his encyclical Laudato si' on care for our common home, dated May 2015, in the section on the decline in the quality of human life and the breakdown of society.
More from Pope Francis · AI and culture · AI and philosophy · Before ChatGPT
Who else?
What it refers to: Media and the digital world once they become omnipresent, an influence the encyclical links to information overload and a sort of mental pollution.
Other voices
- “We're all going to get mentally dumber in the AI age” Richard David Precht, Thinker,
- “Teach them why AI flattens their critical thinking” Unnamed author, chief program officer at Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute,
- “I call this pretend empathy, because the machine does not empathize with you” Sherry Turkle, Researcher,
- “The mechanical brain comes to the aid of the spiritual brain” Pope Paul VI,
- “A world which feels more, not less, automated; and in many cases less, not more, stupid” Newsletter by Exponential View,
- “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us” Henry David Thoreau,










