This past week, on the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church, Pope Leo released his first encyclical: Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. While I have not had the opportunity to read the entire encyclical, yet, there is one thing that stuck out to me in the beginning paragraphs. Pope Leo sets the reality and development of AI today in the image of the construction of the Tower of Babel. Among the connections that he makes is that in the construction of the tower, the people “chose homogenization over communion.” He describes a “Babel syndrome” in which uniformity neutralizes differences.
Perhaps we may not think of these things as they relate to AI, but whether we make that explicit connection, that the pursuit of AI pushes us toward homogenization, like a “single language, single technology (and) a single direction,” the image resonates with a number of issues and situations facing our nation and culture today.
It seems to me that many see unity only under the principle of homogenization and uniformity, that all must be like one another in order to be united; we must think like those around us; we must act in the same way, enjoy the same activities; there is even a growing number who think unity comes when we speak the same language or have the same ethnicity. Dare I say, some would see that unity only comes when we worship the same way and that were there is a difference in worship, there is disunity. Perhaps those ideas are right, that these things are needed for unity. But, as Pope Leo emphasizes, mere unity is not the goal of Christian life, but rather, communion. It is communion that we seek and that brings humanity to fulfillment. Through communion we share in a oneness that transcends sameness and reveals the beauty of distinction and difference. Communion upends the lies of false peace and illusions that uniformity promises.
Communion is not homogenization and likeness; it requires diversity and differences that are maintained and essential to there being a true communion. There must be differences and distinctions and that in this condition, without conflict, division or separation. It is fitting that this message comes to us days before the celebration of the Feast of the Holy Trinity, the revelation that God Himself is a communion with distinction and difference existing in a single substance.
The distinction and identities of the three persons is essential to the Holy Trinity and communion is what makes Him one God. Created in His image, we must reflect that image: to embrace the differences in the fulfillment of God’s Will and seek communion rather than sameness.