The Nienna-shaped valley between Pope Leo and Silicon Valley

With Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV did more than strike a disarming blow to the machinations of Silicon Valley venture and technology elites, and did less than the Church could have to make good on its warning against technological and economic monopoly. On the latter I will be short: I struggle with the theory of the encylical and the praxis of appearing with Anthropic. I understand the history of engagement, and the sovereign opportunities at hand, but temporally the choice is not neutral and feels premature. I don't profess to know better, but that is my opinion.

On the former, the text of the encyclical is lucid and clear. Arendt, Plato, Church authorities; all mentioned and in service of a careful position on AI as a res novae with deep implications for human spirituality, dignity and collective imagination. The upshot is that to move fast and break things is a sign of spiritual, moral, and intellectual immaturity divorced from ingenuity. It escapes few that the papal invocation of Tolkien, and Gandalf in particular, stands in stark contrast to the Palantirs, Andurils, Erebors, Valars, and Ardas of the American technological class:

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till."

Against Silicon Valley's tendency to dominate nature and scale solutions to all problems, the Pope offers a pastoral, localized inspiration and reassertion of one of Catholicism's most influential literary influences in recent history. The notability of this reference in the The Lord of the Rings is that it comes from Gandalf The White, no longer Grey. A dualism and moral rectitude is thus clear: the "domination" of the Palantiric class stands in opposition to the spiritual moralism of Church teaching. At some point, so it goes, all must choose one world or another.

But before Gandalf was White he was Grey, and he studied as Olórin in the halls of Nienna, one of Tolkien's demi-gods, embodying grief, pity, courage, and endurance. As a child I always gravitated towards Nienna amongst all characters in Tolkien's world - in that liminal, reclusive grey space where wisdom and care collide. In our world that increasingly demands allegiance and coalition, to be grey seems a scandalous refusal of moral clarity.

However, between domination and love a world exists. And it is often this world, powerful and in reserve, that ensures the two do not collapse into each other. It does not escape me that in the same encyclical, the Pope apologised for the Church's historic role in one of the most ultimate forms of domination: slavery. To follow the path of Nienna, is to ensure that a valley exists between lovers and leaders, where neither are able to command with impunity.

What does that mean for technology, and AI in particular? While the Pope struck at the heart of the corrupted seeing stones proliferating amongst the Silicon Valley elite, offering a blistering moral check on unchecked ambition and dominance, the way was made clearer for the growth of a valley of life between moral and temporal poles.

Because there is a particular kind of power that holds the long vision of the world at heart, and stands in reserve to grieve, endure, and encourage its flourishing. It is the voice of alternatives and obviation, rather than singularity and domination.