Quote · All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
Anthropic's Digital God, Pope vs AI, Job Loss Narrative Flips, Open Source Crackdown Coming?
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Reacting to Pope Leo's AI encyclical: Who guards the guardians?
At 26:50 · chapter starts 17:37
Jason walks through the key arguments of 'Magnifica Humanitas,' Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical: technology is never neutral, it mirrors the values of those who build and finance it, and AI risks concentrating power in the hands of a few. The Pope called for regulation, worker retraining, child safety guardrails, and a ban on autonomous weapons. [1] — Jason Calacanis "Pope's encyclical: 235 pages, 42,000 words: Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical on AI, 'Magnifica Humanitas,' ran 235 pages and over 42,000 wor…" 17:57 Notably, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah was involved, despite being an atheist — and tech giants including Amazon, Google, and Meta lobbied the Vatican on April 29th to water down the language, without success. David Sacks steelmans the Pope's concern about centralization but pivots to a deeper warning: creating an AI regulator risks handing government the very power the Pope feared would fall to tech companies. He invokes the Latin principle quis custodiet ipsos custodes — who guards the guardians — and traces the American founders' separation of powers as a second-order answer to that timeless question. His preferred solution is a competitive market, not a regulatory body, as long as competition among five frontier labs is maintained.
Pope Leo XIV's 235-page encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas' warns that technology takes on the characteristics of those who build, finance, and control it. Despite Amazon, Google, and Meta lobbying the Vatican to soften the language, the Pope held firm — calling for regulation and asking whether AI will serve humanity or concentrate power in the hands of a few.
Pope Leo XIV's first encyclical on AI, 'Magnifica Humanitas,' ran 235 pages and over 42,000 words — roughly the length of a full book.
Sacks argues the real AI centralization threat isn't a tech company — it's a government that gains the power to approve models and then expands its definition of 'safety' to include censorship. He invokes the Latin principle quis custodiet ipsos custodes: who guards the guardians?
Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical warned the Industrial Revolution would harm humanity. Since then, real wages rose 8–10x, global poverty fell from 75% to under 10%, child labor in the US dropped from 18% to zero, and the workweek shrank from 60+ hours to 34. Gurley says Leo XIV is making the exact same mistake.
Since Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical warning against the Industrial Revolution, the workweek fell from 60+ hours to 34 hours globally, and real wages rose 8–10x — proving the prior Pope's fears were misplaced.
Since 1891, technology and capitalism reduced global poverty from 75% of humanity to under 10%, while life expectancy rose 60% and child labor in the US fell from 18% to zero.
