The National Catholic Register reported that Leo broke the ice before blessing the meal with the Spanish bishops with a joke at AI’s expense.
According to Yago de la Cierva, who is managing the organisation of the Pope’s visit, “He (Pope Leo) said that before leaving for the trip, he had contacted artificial intelligence to ask: What should the pope say to the Spanish bishops? And artificial intelligence told him: Pope Francis would say … So he stopped it and said: ‘I think there is another pope’.”
And although Pope Leo XIV has been pope for over a year, AI still seems to be struggling. National Catholic Register journalist Jonah McKeown reported that he had asked ChatGPT something about Pope Leo XIV, and got the response, “There seems to be some confusion with the name, since there has never been a Pope Leo XIV. However, there have been several popes named Leo throughout history”!
After the joke, the Pope, who’s recent encyclical Magnifica Humanitas stressed the importance of the human person in an age of AI, used technological imagery to deliver a deeper message: “Then he told the bishops that we have another algorithm, and that other algorithm leads us to love people, to accompany them, and to become servants of the word,” de la Cierva said.
Good man – clever, funny, profound.
Read thte article in the National Catholic Register here.