Pope Leo issues an encyclical about artificial intelligence

This came out two weeks ago, and I'm not commenting on it as I'm reading it right now: I just converted it to an epub and at 43,000 words it's about 80 pages long in a double-page format on my laptop. It's going to take some time to chew through and form opinions on. There's definitely a lot to think about.

In it, he quotes Gandalf! Some commentators have proclaimed it as a slam against Peter Theil who created the Palantir [company/system] and is decidedly using it not for the betterment of humanity.

If anyone would like a copy of an epub of the encyclical, send me your email address as a private message and I'll send it to you. It's only 95k, so easily fits as an attachment.

An Ars Technica article on the encyclical:
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/05/citing-gandalf-pope-leo-says-we-must-disarm-ai/

The inevitable Slashdot page on the encyclical:
https://slashdot.org/story/26/05/26/0441241/pope-leo-warns-of-risks-from-ai-in-42300-word-encyclical

And the actual encyclical!
https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html