Thank you

I read da letter, here's my thoughts:

1. The entire methodology and intervention with this encyclical is pretty historically based and conditioned. He approaches the issue of AI as a specific and current challenge. He does identify the current moment as the era of AI, which seems to lean into what I called "AI realism," but the emphasis on transcendentalism and rejection of any kind of framework that would set computers on the same level as humans would avoid the Silicon Valley zeitgeist pitfall.
2. The Pope is fairly clear that LLMs in their current form are not what the hypemen claim them to be. He does leave some room for questions to be asked since the technology is rapidly changing and an encyclical is never meant to only be read when it is published.
3. The treatment is prudential and it seems like the Magisterium is, in my view, rather permissive. As I understand it, as long as it can be argued that humans are making the final call and the decisions made by AI are traceable, the Church is leaving the door open for AI being used to kill people. This is concerning.
4. I was pretty blown away by the historicity with which Leo approaches social doctrine and how he openly talks about its hiccups in this encyclical. He aligns strongly with Francis' view that de-emphasizes private property. Good news for us sickos of course

Papal infallibility is about what the popes teach, not about what the popes do. There are some controversies about whether popes in the past have taught things that are contradictory, such as John XXII with the Beatific Vision controversy, or Honorius with failing to reject Monophysitism (which opponents of papal infallibility would strengthen to saying that the pope taught monophysitism, not just that he failed to reject it, based on his anathemization in the subsequent council of Chalcedon).

IMO this opens up an interesting question of to what extent Alexander VI and previous popes that allowed slavery (or actively gave orders that would see it expanded) were teaching when doing anything at all. But I don't think it's necessarily contradicting the understanding of infallibility that the Church has held since Vatican II, which means that this shouldn't bring anyone from believing in Catholicism to not believing in Catholicism (unless they're really, really racist... which actually maybe does include a lot of people)

Can you link it? I'm trying to understand the claim of infallibility better and so far I've mostly been going off of John Henry Newman.

It's a NATO problem. It'd definitely be wrong to hold Ukraine to be uniquely responsible for NATO's legacy, and Ukraine isn't even formally part of NATO. If you want a full breakdown of the history of the NATO bloc's Nazi problem, have you read Michael Parenti's Blackshirts and Reds?

muster any genuine evidence there's a systemic problem.

Before I read I actually think it's cool if I write down some "research questions" here for anyone else to reply to with their thoughts on the encyclical.

1. Does the Pope's position on AI lean toward "AI realism" in the sense of validating that the current state of generative AI content being everywhere is the way things are gonna be forever? Or does he stake out a strong enough alternative position to the Silicon Valley zeitgeist?
2. What's the view on the agency of an LLM or any machine learning model? Is there an acknowledgement that, in their current forms, they're far more like stochastic parrots than the reasoning machines they're sold as?
3. What's the treatment of AI in warfare? If the view of AI in general is permissive and prudential rather than hard prohibition, what hard lines are put in place against the use of AI for targeting, surveillance, and autonomous combat in a war zone?
4. Concerning the development of CST, what innovations does the Pope identify strongly?

Only a psychiatrist can prescribe a pharmaceutical, not a psychologist, unless something changed since the last time I was in a psychologist's office.

how the drop tables

I can't believe I'm asking this again, but were there any drugs in his system? Preexisting conditions? I wish for a speedy end to his condition, but we all should keep in mind he was no saint.

Help I'm new to settler colonialism, is it bad when I'm fighting a war on 3 fronts and have 2 separate domestic uprisings in a week?

Americans spend all their lives obsessing over guns then miss their shot. The most useless people on earth.