Dr. Kate Ward

Making a Life: Catholic Social Teaching and the Meaning of Work out Feb 5 @BloomsburyUS! Frugal & well-behaved wage earner @MarquetteTheo; steercom @ctewc; she

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Making a Life: Catholic Social Teaching and the Meaning of Work is available for pre-order (and 10% off at the moment!) If something about your work life is troublesome, you hate jargon and you aren't sure about Catholic teaching, I wrote it for you. https://t.co/wJ5psGRbXY

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Missed this back in March--from a Jesuit economist, a case for UBI in light of AI labor disruption, and specific proposals for funding it https://t.co/erpchmmaQV

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Great piece, featuring a thought experiment on how Anthropic should be treating Claude based on their belief that it may become conscious, and the many downsides to entertaining that idea.

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

If we confuse generative AI’s ability to produce text with consciousness, we risk assigning moral responsibility to chatbots—and not to their makers, Ted Chiang argues. https://t.co/Cptx3aWppI

[Vatican News @VaticanNews]

You can now listen to an audiobook of Pope Leo XIV’s Encyclical Magnifica humanitas!
https://t.co/q7Ug6IY55I

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Those looking for insights on Magnifica Humanitas would do well to check out the ongoing series on https://t.co/y8WhArOTn3. I liked this from Julie Hanlon Rubio on the proper place of "pelvic theology." https://t.co/8A1qb4heTI

[✮ راينر براون @dondawastaken]

Never forget that you are the main data center. Drink water, and consume as much literature as possible.

[Sarah Edwards @eddy_sarah]

genuinely think this is one of the most beautiful documents of our time

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

@PDean2017 @jackmjenkins AI can't have a relationship with God, Patrick

[Hal Singer @HalSinger]

“A society that guarantees employment to only a small fraction of the population, despite having a high level of technical development, risks exposing many to forced inactivity. This creates a paradox of material progress and anthropological regression that undermines the foundations of a just and stable social peace. ...

At this time of transition, it is not enough to react only when jobs disappear; we must oversee the transformation in advance. One viable path is, first of all, to establish social criteria for innovation. Here, every introduction of automation and AI should be accompanied by verifiable measures to protect the employment, retraining and participation of workers. In this way, technology will be oriented toward freeing up human time and capabilities, rather than producing exclusion. ...

The labor market is one area in which the risks associated with new technologies more clearly emerge. It is thus necessary to remember that economic freedom is not absolute; it must always be measured against the common good and the dignity of every person. Entrepreneurial initiative can indeed be a true vocation, generating wealth and improving lives, rather than a variable that is dependent only on profit. This is possible when it recognizes that the creation of dignified, valuable jobs are an essential part of its proper service to society."

-- Pope Leo on the risks posed to workers from AI

https://t.co/FrA50hnpby

[Rushi @rushicrypto]

I was listening to a neuroscientist talk about AI and human behavior, and he mentioned studies showing that when people let AI make decisions for them, they feel less morally responsible for the outcome.

That genuinely stopped me cold.

[Jack Jenkins @jackmjenkins]

NEW from me: In new findings, researchers from a group of religious schools (BYU, Notre Dame, Baylor and Yeshiva) say popular AI models have a bias towards Catholicism when asked questions about conversion. https://t.co/DuIjXIK5KZ

[Madeleine Davies @MadsDavies]

Do read the speech given by Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah at the launch of the Pope's Encyclical.
"What has grown is far more subtle, odd, and beautiful than science fiction prepared us for . . . mysterious even to those of us who train them"
https://t.co/yw4nHLETNs

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Ooo, if there's a tie between the date and its observance in the US, this may be it.

[Manisha Sinha @ProfMSinha]

Historian of slavery here the Pope is single handedly showing us the best of America in these very troubling times and needed on the 250th of the republic, to see the virtues that made the U.S. admired all over the world, the ability to admit a mistake.

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

@josephnollasj That's Francis's image from Fratelli Tutti!

[becca @kokorobitch]

seeing uni lecturers say “I’m not going to turn into an AI cop” is so disheartening. it is not being a “cop” to assess whether your students have learned something - it’s being a teacher, and it’s one of your core responsibilities!!

[Paulina Guzik @Guzik_Paulina]

Christopher Olah, a Canadian billionaire businessman and researcher who co-founded AI giant Anthropic, sitting in the Synodal Hall and speaking next to Pope Leo said, closing his speech:
"I'd like to close with a request.
We need more of the world - religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments - to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction.
We need informed critics who will tell the labs when
we are failing. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.
Today is just the beginning - the start of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we, from inside, cannot.
Today is a powerful illustration of the form this global project of good will might take.
Let it also be a decisive first step toward a hopeful future for magnificent humanity."

[Kevin Ahern @kevin_ahern]

In #Magnificahumanitas Pope Leo follows Francis of citing non-magisterial sources, (though not as much)
Top sources Pope Francis with ~57 citations and JP2 40.

11 non popes include Plato, Aquinas, de Bérulle, Augustine, Guardini, Hannah Arendt, Viktor Frankl and Tolkien!

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

Thanks for following along and sorry I couldn't figure out how to thread on two platforms. Welcome Magnifica Humanitas! Can't wait for discussion and reception!

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

243-5: an ending focused on Mary in an unmistakenly liberative, Magnificat-focused tone, a move both deeply traditional (JPII always closed with Mary) and new, and that's our Leo XIV.

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

... I would encourage a careful examination of the supply chains of digital production, the working conditions hidden behind our devices and the mechanisms that profit from manipulation and war.

[Dr. Kate Ward @TheKateWard]

240. Every technical or economic decision should include spiritual discernment and be an opportunity for assessing whether the advances in AI are promoting justice and participation or concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a select few. ...