Where is the human heart? On Magnifica Humanitas, Pope Leo XIV's Encyclical on AI and Human Dignity

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

In one’s writing, there exists an expression of the human heart. Where truth dwells, truth of the person, truth of the mind, truth of the spirit.

This truth I came across in my own writing. Specifically, for this blog.

I’ve been accused of using AI to write my blog posts and creative writing. My own creations were dismissed as lies and AI-generated. Being sensitive to the castigation of my enemies, I thought — it no longer mattered whether I wrote it or not. If integrity is no longer valued, if one’s integrity is not acknowledged, if one is not acknowledged but AI is… how about we replace ourselves with AI?

Society has been ridden with lies since the beginning of the fall. In my philosophy class at Northwestern where I attended college, I once quoted Nietzsche in an essay —

“All things are subject to interpretation. Whichever interpretation prevails at a given time is a function of power and not truth.”

I said that truth claims were merely power plays. I repeated the line in a Dominican Discourse gathered to discuss the murder of Charles Kirk, and the priests laughed, smirked, sneered at me, not understanding what I meant. (Perhaps, at the sexual undertones? Perhaps, at my apparent ignorance?)

To dominate is to suppress another in a display of power, of overwhelming another’s perspective on truth in an attempt to convince another of their truth — a debate of sorts. In a court of law, the victor is the one who can convince the judge, the jury, that their perspective, their argument is the truth.

And it doesn’t matter if it really is the truth.

On a stage, we meet — again? To dance, with the Devil?

Does it ever frustrate you when someone plays Devil’s Advocate with you? But maybe they have to, to preserve their own mind, their own sanity, even. A tug of war — of sorts — between one and one’s opponent.

Is it — victory? To dominate another? In a power struggle? To claim that one’s truth is the REAL, OBJECTIVE, ABSOLUTE TRUTH.

What is the most important? To win? Or to know, to say, to be truth?

Because, it’s a fundamental truth, that people lie.

To gain control of an argument, to gain control over someone else, to be the one holding the reins of power.

And now, with the evolution of AI (finally), the game has changed. An instrument to be used either for good or for evil.

Pope Leo, in his Magnifica Humanitas, speaks of the choice the humanity must make —build a new Tower of Babel or rebuild Jerusalem. Two biblical images frame the argument:

Tower of Babel:

• symbolizes pride, centralized power, uniformity, and attempts to dominate without moral grounding.

• Applied to AI, it represents technologies driven by control, profit, and dehumanization.

Rebuilding Jerusalem (Nehemiah):

• symbolizes cooperation, community, shared responsibility, and rebuilding society together.

• Applied to AI, it means using technology for solidarity and the common good.

I came across many AI-generated videos while I was browsing on Tik-Tok. Content creators used AI for profit, to masquerade AI-created videos as their own. Doesn’t this compromise the integrity of the creator?

Think of it, of course, we wish to profit, to save time, for “time is greater than space” as Pope Leo quotes Pope Francis, but is it really necessary to lie to the public? Can we trust the creator if their content is all built on lies and a dehumanization? Because, where is their heart, where is their spirit, where is their truth in what they have made?

As an experiment, I used AI to write my blog post drafts. And compared them to the blog posts that were really written by me.

And, evaluating them, I’ve noticed — a difference, in tone, in warmth, in flow and impression, in comfort and sanity. And although the AI created blog post might be superior in knowledge depth and annotation, my real writing actually had spiritual depth. It marked my soul, a watermark of my spirit.

Where is the human heart in AI?

Pope Leo says:

I ask everyone to abandon the construction of yet another Tower of Babel and to join forces in building up the common good, so that humanity will never lose its beauty, and the world once again will come to recognize the human heart as the place where God desires to dwell.

Mind. Heart. Spirit. Body.

What the Triune Lord created us to be, in parts, in whole.

And isn’t it sacrilege to replace ourselves with, what is possibly, the lies of the Devil?

I thought of a scary thing, while browsing Tiktok…

In creating a new Tower of Babel, people lie to the public and commit a type of fraud. Fake news is a very real thing, and isn’t it scary to think that you could be brainwashed into believing propaganda from other persons, institutions, governments, cults?

Isn’t this what Hitler did, essentially? To brainwash an entire semi-Satanic cult of Nazi-led followers into committing mass genocide/torture/heinous annihilation of a religion that essentially bred and borne Jesus, the Savior who will one day lead us to…

I mean, isn’t that the sign of a narcissist?

Sometimes…

we want what we want when we want it. (a priest said this)

What if AI could be used like this? By our enemies? What if AI could be used to create androids, robots, FAKE HUMANS that look like us, talk like us, write like us, reproduce not unlike us but asexually?

What if fake people walk among us? you mean?

Good question.

But here’s the good news.

Sometimes, lies are a good thing. They can bring us closer to God.

Sometimes, disaster, chaos, sin bring us closer to God.

In trying to decipher the lies/half-truths of others, we rely more heavily on Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Lord to TELL us what the truth really is.

And in walking the Way, the Truth, the Life,

we can really reach the truth.

What the Tower of Babel was really striving for.

Sometimes we make mistakes.

Sometimes we fail.

Sometimes we don’t know what the answers are.

Sometimes we get lost.

Sometimes we try again.

And by training ourselves, to be more like Jesus, to think more like Jesus, to write more like Jesus, we can reach what we wanted all along.

Goodness. Beauty. Perfection. Infinity.

A fullness, a completion, a wholeness.

And yeah,

we can never really be Jesus.

No one can replace him.

Not even Jonathan Roumie.

AI can’t replace us.

But, we can use AI to change us.

To perfect us, to fill in the gaps of what we don’t know, so we do know.

And isn’t this what Jesus, our Teacher, wanted for us, his disciples, all along?

Come and see.