The overarching message is that builders should deeply consider the impact of what they're building on civilization.

"Technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it."

Therefore builders "bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility" because "every design choice reflects a vision of humanity."

The questions shouldn't just be 'can we build it?' or 'will people want this?'

We need to also ask 'should we build it?' and 'will this make humanity better?'

The encyclical calls on us to “join forces in building up the common good.”

This is a message we need right now.

▲ vermilingua 5 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not only builders, the greatest takeaway for me is that everyone has a responsibility in shaping the discourse, culture, and usage of transformative technology. This "the builders will do the right thing" mentality is even (in my interpretation) explicitly called out in several places:

> It is the pursuit of the common good that gives life to a people, understood not as a mere collection of individuals, but as a living reality in which people learn to recognize that they themselves are interconnected and jointly responsible for the res publica. In this sense, every person contributes to the building up of one’s people...

> When it comes to decisions regarding economic flows and digital platforms, as well as the governance of data and algorithms, we cannot allow a handful of actors to dictate these processes on their own; instead, we must build forms of cooperation that respect the various levels of the global community and make them jointly responsible for the common good.

> We cannot be satisfied with merely calling for the moralization of machines — the so-called “alignment” of AI with human values — without also having the courage to insist on a further condition: the possibility of openly discussing the ethical frameworks involved and subjecting them to shared standards of social justice.... What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions.

▲ Xmd5a 17 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Therefore builders "bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility"

> This is a message we need right now.

Feels good man. The solution found by the private parties driving technological change is sainthood. Or aiming for it. At least, better than you. They have the vision of what's good for the herd, but the more time I spend as a sheep, the more it seems the "herd" is just a way to recycle the story of their own exceptionalism stripped of any mark of individuality. A simple visit to fiftyyears.com will greet you with "We back the indispensable". I guess it's the same "we".

▲ Xenoamorphous an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they should do something.

From Crichton's book Jurassic Park, which like most of his books is about the perils of technological advancements.

They used the quote in the movie, slightly tweaked.

▲

throw4847285 an hour ago | parent [-]

I would replace the word scientists with engineers in that quote. People often conflate the two, but in my experience, scientists tend to be more cautious and there are built in checks and balances in the process (however flawed).

Engineers/technologists tend to have no such guardrails, and are also usually embedded into entirely profit motivated environments, whatever their own values might be.

	▲	velcrovan 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This sounds like you don’t have much exposure to actual professional engineering disciplines. I’m sure civil, electrical, structural and mechanical PEs would be quite surprised to hear there are no guardrails on their professions.

▲ bem94 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I have only read a few passages (and some of the excellent quotes others have shared here), but I find the underlying message here so much more compelling than those found in the various "manifestos" which come out of Silicon Valley.

I think reading this helps me imagine a version of the future I'd actually like to live in. A version where technology is used well (rather than preaching for abstinence from technology) and where values other than "intelligence" (in whatever guise) are on an equal footing.

Even writing that makes me feel naive (and to an extent I know it is) but I think it would be inconsistent for someone who cheers for humanity's efforts to solve/chip away at "impossible" problems (like LLMs were thought to be not so long ago) to shirk from the challenge of making the world better for _everyone_.

▲ snikeris a few seconds ago | parent | next [-]

> I think reading this helps me imagine a version of the future I'd actually like to live in. A version where technology is used well (rather than preaching for abstinence from technology)

I believe the Amish figured this out over a century ago.

▲ bluesign 27 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The thing is why that this feels so good future is; it is a system with no constraints. A bit like Star Trek universe in Roddenberry's imagination. This kind of utopia can only be achieved with all honest actors, but in reality systems are usually designed around bad actors.

Even with all morally good actors locally, there is no guarantees for external forces. Thinking it hypothetically, even with global coordination ( all good actors ) there is not a proven path that would lead us to better place from any starting point from past.

	▲	mapt a minute ago \| parent [-]
		To get from here to Roddenberry's communism, according to Roddenberry's lore, we passed through the Eugenics Wars, the Second Civil War, and then fifty years of World War Three and the 'post-atomic horror' before coming to our senses.

▲ exceptione 10 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

  > much more compelling than those found in the various "manifestos" which come out of Silicon Valley.

Whenever I hear these "tech overlords", I am always baffled at the total lack of culture, the absence of taste, the empty visions and the implied complete subjugation of humans to ideals of "efficiency" or "quick and easy". Maybe they would have been more interesting people if they had been brought up in beautiful towns and cities, if they had lived in a rich cultural environment instead of being raised as consumer of cheap and flashy pop culture. Maybe we should tax bad architecture, it gives me headaches but others might incur heavier damage.

As an aside, at least Trump is drawn to the grandeur of high culture from historical times, but he also doesn't understand a jota about aesthetics, and so the White House gets turned into a tacky gypsy-style abomination with one dollar ornaments.

▲ zplo68 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Science and Engineering is morally detached.

Ask a scientist or engineer what philosophy or theology has taught us about the source of morality and their education, training and experiences havent prepared them to answer that question.

This didnt matter so much in the past because their activities never had the scale it does today. For basic training in philosophy if you are mid or upper level exec whose decisions are going to effect a whole lot of people, go to open yale courses and take the intro to Philosophy classes. It will help develop your answer to the question - why do you do what you do if you are going to die anyway tomorrow.

	▲	slfnflctd 32 minutes ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Far too many of us (particularly younger people, but not only them) undervalue or are dismissive of philosophy. I once was like this, partly because at the time I'd been brought up - like most humans - to believe my parents' religion held all the answers philosophy might address. I quickly learned as an adult that whether you're a person of faith or not, it's not pointless at all. It's the foundation of everything. Philosophy is how you explain the deeper reasons behind why you follow whatever religion you do, or adhere more meaningfully to whatever kind of agnosticism, atheism and/or 'spirituality' (with or without woo) you espouse.
	▲	moron4hire 24 minutes ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		This can only be true if you believe in a certain mad-scientist version of these things. We as a society have systems (however flawed) to hold scientists and engineers to ethical standards: e.g. peer review and in many cases--e.g. civil engineering, architecture, medicine--even legal frameworks to enforce ethical standards. Science and engineering are human endeavors, they are not divorced from the human condition, they cannot be separated from humanity and human rights. Maybe you mean mathematics is amoral and are committing the common conflation of "engineering is just applied science and science is just applied mathematics," which is a really bad case of missing the forest for the trees.

▲ cma an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I would also recommend God and Golem, Inc., A Comment on Certain Points Where Cybernetics Impinges on Religion:

https://monoskop.org/images/1/1f/Wiener_Norbert_God_and_Gole...

Norbert Weiner was an atheist but he talks about three areas religion is the only thing to have really examined that relate to capable AI: omniscience, omnipotence, and worship (gadget worship). It has very prescient stuff on blackbox learning/distillation, reinforcement learning/reward hacking, alignment through human feedback.

His The Human Use of Human beings and Cybernetics are extremely good too and have more of a mash of the themes between Rerum Novarum and Magnifca Humanitas, and more near-term automation.