What is the Synod on Synodality?

A multiyear global process launched in 2021 inviting Catholics to share feedback on how the Church can journey together. After the 2024 assembly in Rome, local churches are implementing synodal practices and reporting progress in 2026.

What does synodality mean in practice?

Prayerful speaking, deep listening to all voices, and constructive dialogue. The intent is that synodality becomes part of the Church’s DNA so participation and discernment shape mission and governance.

What was Vatican II and why does it matter now?

Vatican II (1962–1965) renewed worship, theology, governance, and ecumenical relations to better engage the modern world. Debates continue about the pace and completeness of implementation at local levels.

How does the Church view equality of women?

The Church teaches equal dignity of men and women while reserving ordained ministry to men. Many women and reformers call for deeper inclusion and leadership. The discussion remains a focal point within wider renewal.

Is the development of Artificial Intelligence out of control?

John Scoble
2 days ago
8 min read

Purpose

The history of religious traditions demonstrates that prophets arise from time to time. These prophets are not fortune tellers. They are generally wise people with high levels of consciousness who interpret current events and emerging trends. They call on the people to wake up and change course. Their message is unwelcome to the powerful and those who benefit from the trend. Consequently, they are often ostracized and driven out of society.

When we look at artificial intelligence, there are prophetic voices who are screaming out warnings that AI is developing at a rate that humanity cannot control. These voices include former senior executives of AI development companies who, for ethical reasons, have decided not to collaborate in the development. These include Dario Amodei (who left Open AI in 2020 and co-founded Anthropic), Jan Leike (who left Open AI in 2024) and Ilya Kutskeva (who left Open AI in 2024 and founded Safe Superintelligence Inc.).

In October 2025 in Australia, the Castlereagh Statement was developed following a national summit hosted by the University of Sydney. This summit brought together educators from schools, universities, vocational providers as well as representative of government departments, the arts and industry. The Statement provided a unified vision for engaging with AI in education settings. https://castlereagh.ai/

In March 2026 in the USA, a broad coalition of business, religious, government and academic leaders issued the Pro-Human AI Declaration https://humanstatement.org/ The declaration contains five sections on keeping humans in charge, avoiding concentration of power, protecting the human experience, human agency and Liberty, and the accountability of AI developers.

The prophetic voices also include Pope Leo XIV, whose May 2026 encyclical “Magnifica Humanitas - on the care of the human person in the time of artificial intelligence” issued similar warnings. https://www.vatican.va/content/leo-xiv/en/encyclicals/documents/20260515-magnifica-humanitas.html

Artificial Intelligence developments

It is worth declaring immediately that I am not an expert in AI. I am interested in the technology and have followed newspaper and television reports on the industry e.g. Four Corners https://iview.abc.net.au/video/NC2603H017S00 I have used Chat GPT and Perplexity for research and drafting purposes. I have read the Pope’s encyclical in full. These are the sources of my knowledge. I have also used Ai Assistants to draft some of the technical aspects of this paper.

It is important to recognise that whenever new technology is developed, there are positive and negative applications and impacts. I acknowledge that AI has the potential to be of great benefit to humanity, particularly in the medical and education fields. However the focus of this paper is on the potential downsides.

For those who may not be familiar with AI, here is a simplified version:

Level	Description	Examples
1. AI Assistant	Responds to prompts and answers questions.	ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini.
2. AI Agent	Can plan, use tools, search the web, write code, send emails, book appointments, and carry out multi-step tasks.	Emerging "agentic AI" systems from OpenAI, Anthropic, Microsoft, etc.
3. AI System that Improves Itself	Can modify or create better versions of its own software or design new AI models.	An active research goal, but not yet autonomous in the strong sense.

Most experts would say that current frontier systems like ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini are moving from AI assistants toward agentic AI. They can already use tools, reason over long tasks, and help build software—including AI software itself. But they are not yet autonomous self-improving systems in the sense usually discussed in AI safety and futurist debates. However, some suggest the technology is evolving so fast that we may see autonomous self-improving systems within 3 to 5 years. If so, elderly citizens would be unwise to ignore the developments on the basis that they won’t be around to worry about it.

Some technological breakthroughs including artificial intelligence

Pope Leo’s encyclical

Magnifica Humanitas is a detailed analysis of AI in the context of Catholic social teaching. It contains the wisdom of more than a decade of consultation between the Vatican and industry participants. There is also a helpful Pastoral Kit designed for group prayer and reflection. https://religionsforpeaceaustralia.org.au/?p=23085

I will not attempt a summary here. There are many summaries and commentaries in the Catholic and secular media. One helpful commentary is “Ten takeaways from Magnifica Humanitas”, published by Global Catholic - see

https://www.globalcatholic.com/ten-takeaways-from-magnifica-humanitas/

My main concerns

Lack of awareness/ slow response.

There is an unhealthy lack of awareness in the community of both the speed of development and the potential implications. It has taken decades for the world to understand and respond to humanity’s impact on the climate; the global response has been inadequate, and we may be unable to recover. In the case of artificial intelligence, the world doesn’t have decades to respond.

Power and Money are driving AI development.

The power and control of humanity’s future is in the hands of a small, wealthy, predominantly white male elite, whose primary motivation is financial gain. The race is on between large private corporations and between nations (especially US and China) to dominate industry and control the future. The main drivers seem to be power and money, with little consideration of the impact on the world’s population and future generations. Pope Leo quotes his predecessor, the late Pope Benedict XVI: “Like the natural environment, the “digital ecosystem” can be preserved or exploited, shared or monopolized. Solidarity demands that decisions regarding data, algorithms, platforms and artificial intelligence take into account not only the immediate benefit for a few, but also the impact on all peoples and on future generations.” (MH Kindle 44)

No ethical guidelines.

There are no known ethical guidelines for AI development, and the world may be incapable of establishing guidelines and effectively holding key players accountable for their actions. Pope Leo writes: “It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required. Otherwise, change will be governed only by technocratic thinking and presented as necessary and inevitable, ultimately imposing rules shaped by those who control data, infrastructure and computing power.” (MH Kindle 58) It is difficult to have confidence in the capacity of humanity to achieve this when one considers the current decline in the moral authority of the United Nations and the willingness of some world leaders to ignore international standards of behaviour that have been hard won since World War 2.

Potential malevolent use.

It is conceivable that autonomous self-improving systems will be developed and adopted by malevolent actors for widespread data fraud, unrestrained warfare, damaging terrorism or widescale unemployment with associated social disruption.

Pope Leo notes that “Important and sensitive decisions—concerning employment, credit, access to public services or even a person’s reputation—risk being fully delegated to automated systems”. (MH Kindle 56).

Regarding the use of AI in warfare, It has been widely reported that when Anthropic tried to impose limits upon the US government’s use of Claude for warfare purposes, the government removed Anthropic from its preferred list of AI providers. On this general subject, Pope Leo wrote: “armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate self-defence. For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms.” (MH Kindle 101) and “it is not permissible to entrust lethal or otherwise irreversible decisions to artificial systems”.(MH Kindle 102).

On the topic of data fraud, it is not inconceivable that a malevolent hacker could invite an AI agent to improve their hacking capability, leading ultimately to an autonomous system constantly improving its hacking. No personal data would be safe under this scenario.

Take action

How can we influence this situation? It would be easy to sit back and do nothing, on the basis that it is all too hard, and individuals can’t make a difference. I disagree. Here are some possible courses of action:

Educate yourself. Read up on the topic. Keep abreast of developments.
Use AI and learn how to do safely and intelligently.
Read the Castlereagh Statement mentioned above
Read the Pro-Human AI Declaration mentioned above
Read Pope Leo’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas. Indeed, I strongly recommend this to Christians. Chapter 4 contains proposals for change.
Educate others; speak with family and friends about the topic
Raise your concerns with State and Federal politicians – advocate for regulations which put at least some control with elected governments.
Use only AI systems with established ethical standards
Join public campaigns in favour of ethical development of AI

Through individual and collective action, we may be able to achieve what Pope Leo called for when he wrote: “Let us cultivate what Pope Francis called a “situated anthropocentrism,” which recognizes the human being as a creature embedded in a network of relationships with other living beings and with all of creation. Fidelity to the truth requires integrating the possibilities offered by technology within a framework marked by wisdom, which is capable of safeguarding both the dignity of each person and the future of our common home. (MH Kindle 119)

FAQs - Is the development of Artificial Intelligence out of control?

What is the main concern raised in this paper?

The paper argues that artificial intelligence is developing at an unprecedented rate and may soon exceed humanity's ability to control it. It points to warnings from former AI executives, educators, religious leaders and Pope Leo XIV, who believe society is not paying sufficient attention to the potential risks.