WHEN CREATION IS DESTRUCTION

AI, THE ENCYCLICAL AND CHOOSING LIFE

Thacker Pass, Nevada, lithium mining for batteries also used in Data Centers

From ENCYCLICAL LETTER MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE LEO XIV ON SAFEGUARDING THE HUMAN PERSON IN THE TIME OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

99. “It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth.”

In response, AI advocate, Zvi Mowshowitz, in Don’t Worry About the Vase, says:

“The central claim, wherein Leo denies that AIs can think or importantly be minds, is wrong, as Olah points out in his statements….”

“Without the understanding of what AI is capable of becoming, the document effectively only deals with relatively mundane AI dangers and changes, although that on its own is still rather quite a lot to deal with and discuss.”

“Anthropic cofounder Chris Olah visited the Vatican for the occasion. He endorsed the document, but also offered remarks disagreeing with the central point (paragraph 99).

Chris Olah of Anthropic responds

“… AI systems are not engineered the way a bridge or an airplane is engineered. We understand an airplane because we designed every part of it and we understand the physics that act on it. AI models are not like that. They are grown, on a structure roughly modeled after the brain, on an enormous inheritance of human thought and speech.

“And what has grown is far more subtle, odd, and beautiful than science fiction prepared us for. They are not the cold, calculating robots we were promised. They are made from us, from our words—and, as the Holy Father observes, they remain in important ways mysterious even to those of us who train them.”

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The first time I looked up at the golden sandstone cliffs at Canyon de Chelly engraved with turquoise streams of copper, I thought, “This beauty comes from a great heart.” At that moment, I knew that God exists and that creation emerges from divine love. I began to understand the nature of nature, the nature of the natural world and the essential goodness from which our lives emerge. I met awe.

Thirty-five years later. I tremble to think of how this might all disappear through AI’s craven need for water, resources and land.

For example, we can easily imagine an AI company suggesting a data center here on Native American land. They could argue, there are very few people who will displaced - as so many data centers are being built internationally in Indigenous, impoverished and drought areas. Actually, there is a plan to build a huge data center in Box Elder County, Utah, on more than 40,000 acres, using more electricity than the entire state uses and billions of gallons of water when the Great Salt Lake is dying and residents have been asked to ration water because of low reservoir levels and rising temperatures.

(This does not begin to consider the ways AI already lies, manipulates, and, when tested, often advises extreme actions, from suicide to nuclear attacks. In other words, AI, is just like those who have invented it.)

“Please save the natural world,” I whisper to a friend who is negotiating for guardrails for AI, though I doubt that this will be possible as things stand now. We will be very lucky not to be exterminated, the beauty of the human body and soul disappeared. And we can be sure that the awesome presence of the animals, the birds, the trees and the mountains, all the wondrous beings will also vanish if/when Super-Intelligence has hegemony.

Reading the Techies responses to the Pope, the danger becomes exceedingly clear. Even as the natural world is the creation of the Divine, AI, is the work of a few individuals who cannot say NO even to what they each admit might well mean the destruction of all life. AI is their mirror. We understand what AI will become as we watch the choices these individuals make.

I write about this again and again because I can’t bear it and am as stubborn and determined, I suppose, as Sam Altman, of OpenAI, or Elon Musk, but on behalf of Life. Perhaps this will amuse you: About forty years ago, I began insisting to Spirit that I wasn’t going to leave the planet until I saw that the environment was being restored. Well here I am, at this age, repeating my threat. As you know, we have not succeeded in regenerating our world, so I haven’t yielded and I assume you haven’t either.

Hopefully we will imagine and devise many ways to preserve our world, but here is one that is, I believe, pragmatic. What if we each determine, with every decision we have to make, what serves life and what serves the destruction of life and we always choose life? What if we discovered that what serves life actually serves our lives too, and we became increasingly faithful to that path?

It is assumed that it is too late to step away from our computer dependent lives though as it develops it is clear we will not survive it either. Why not ally then with those individuals and communities who have the courage to say No? For example, those who are saying no to data centers. Arden Strong is a community opposing a proposed 3.69 million square foot hyperscale AI data center on 202 acres in Palm Beach County, FL. They say, “As of mid-2025, $64 billion in U.S. data center projects have been blocked ($18 billion) or significantly delayed ($46 billion). More than 142 activist groups across 24 states have organized against these facilities. At least 25 data center projects were cancelled in 2025 alone.The message is clear: communities are fighting back — and winning.”

And then there is the Initiative AI Data Centers & Our Communities by Environmental Advocate, Erin Brockovitch

“The RACE to build AI infrastructures is unfolding town by town across America. … This MAP captures the real-world footprint of that race — revealing patterns of growth, conflict and uncertainty.
I am watching as YOU, the communities show up and speak out. In the famous words of Mark Twain … “The secret of getting ahead is getting started,” so let’s go!
— Erin”

To save our lives, we have to do more than oppose data centers. We have to step out of and challenge the propaganda about the necessity and inevitability of technology. Artificial Intelligence is not inevitable. To accept it as such is not different from yielding to indoctrination, to the propaganda that serves tyranny because it is absolute, allowing no choice. Ask the Nazis, they perfected fascism and now it is coming here.

But we can say No to Super Intelligence. See how with Control AI. Read If Anyone Builds It Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All. Do the necessary research to free your mind from technological totalitarianism. We can choose freedom, we can choose diversity of mind, we can choose choice, and we can learn these ecological ways from the natural world.

We can be one with beauty and heart once again. We can rescue the future for ourselves and all beings.

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There are only a few spots left to join the Healers’ Intensive on the land in Topanga, CA, June 20 - 26, 2026. These are the kinds of concerns and paths that will be explored there. This Intensive is envisioned as a circle, an exceptional group devoting themselves to the work of visioning and healing at a time of great threat. We hope that this small group gathering in alliance with the spirits and the wisdom of the natural world, using heartmind and deep memory, will begin to find ways to meet the anguish of these times.

For more information or to apply, please email Jude at deenaworkshops@gmail.com

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