Invitation:
Our first ‘Last Friday’ event (Friday 26 June 2026 at 14:00/2pm CEST) will focus on probably the most critical global intervention on Artificial Intelligence that we have seen: Pope Leo XIV’s ‘Magnifica Humanitas’, which will be introduced by Dr Jean Gové from the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome (for details, please see below). This will be followed by an opportunity for questions.
If you would like to join the Critical Studies of Artificial Intelligence and Education network and/or attend our first Last Friday event: ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ and network launch, please complete this form. We will share the event’s Zoom link with you and will keep you updated.
Please note that attendance at the ‘Last Friday’ ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ and network launch event will be on a first come, first served basis (our Zoom account has a limited number of spaces). We will also be streaming the event here.
We very much look forward to seeing you.
Resumee:
Pope Leo XIV’s ‘Magnifica Humanitas’, introduced by Dr Jean Gové Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome
We are honoured to be joined at our first Last Friday event by Dr Jean Gové, who is a Lecturer at the Pontifical Gregorian University, Rome. Holding a PhD in analytic philosophy from the University of St Andrews, his research examines the philosophical foundations of AI systems, AI-mediated manipulation, and the societal implications of emerging technologies. Dr Gové is also a member of the EU AI Scientific Panel, which provides independent scientific expertise on AI risks to the European Commission under the AI Act. At the Council of Europe he serves as the Holy See’s delegate on the Steering Committee for New and Emergent Technologies, and coordinates the European AI Research Group within the Vatican’s Dicastery for Culture and Education. He has also served on Malta’s Government Technical Committee for Social Media Reform. As Diocesan Coordinator for AI at the Archdiocese of Malta, he designs and leads AI literacy and ethics programmes for educators, parents, professionals, and vulnerable populations.
Pope Leo XIV’s ‘Magnifica Humanitas’
Magnifica Humanitas (MH) is Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical and focuses “on safeguarding the human person in the time of AI”. After briefly situating MH within the broader context of other papal documents on AI, the talk will explore the overarching message Pope Leo XIV seeks to convey, certain key themes, as well as specific points pertaining to the context of education. Placing human dignity and integral human flourishing as central goals, MH offers a critique of the current political and economic situation that privileges a few at the expense of vast populations. MH carries on in the vein of other recent papal documents (even spanning back to Pope Francis) which harshly denounces the ’technocratic paradigm’; the reductive view which values individuals only insofar as they efficiently advance the narrative of profit, power, and control.
MH carries on in a long tradition of papal documents focusing on a body of teaching the Church calls ‘Catholic Social Doctrine’, which comprises principles such as the common good, subsidiarity, solidarity, the universal destination of goods, and social justice. Despite the challenging societal situations we find ourselves in, Pope Leo encourages us all “not to be passive spectators of social and cultural fractures, nor mere commentators on what is crumbling, but men and women prepared to enter the construction sites of history… in order to rebuild what has collapsed and protect what is threatened” (MH 241). To this end, the education sector – especially schools and formal education – are afforded privileged treatment in MH. The talk will present how the Pope both highlights some ways in which the uncritical adoption of AI tools – especially by the young – threatens integral flourishing, as well as how current structures, pedagogies, and attitudes need to change in order to adequately address these novel challenges.