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The reply evaluates the implications of the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas regarding artificial intelligence and its integration into human existence.

May 27, 2026Open Access

Existential Alignment and Magnifica Humanitas: On The Gentle Totality and the Voluntary Relief of the Human Being - A Reply

Key Points

The reply evaluates the implications of the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas regarding artificial intelligence and its integration into human existence.
Analyzes the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas within the framework of the essay Existential Alignment.
Explores concepts such as metastructure and existential alignment in the context of AI.
Contrasts theological imagery from the encyclical with philosophical ideas of human interpretation and freedom.
Highlights AI's role as a metastructure affecting human self-interpretation and social dynamics.
Suggests a transformation in understanding the doctrine of just war in the context of modern violence and power.
Presents a theological perspective linking AI with biblical motifs of Babel, Jerusalem, and the Garden of Eden.

Abstract

This reply discusses the papal encyclical Magnifica Humanitas of 25 May 2026 in the horizon of the essay Existential Alignment: When Steering Appears as Meaning (DOI https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.20273834). It acknowledges the encyclical as an important contribution of Catholic social teaching to the question of artificial intelligence, while arguing that the dynamics of the AI age cannot be understood solely as a technological, political, or social problem. At the centre of the reply stands the thesis that AI has become part of a metastructure that connects to human logics of relief and reward, thereby generating new forms of pre-structured self-interpretation. The reply further develops the concepts of metastructure, Gentle Totality, Existential Alignment, Reward Model, and Existential Non-Absorption already formulated in the aforementioned essay in relation to Magnifica Humanitas. In its theological section, the text contrasts the encyclical’s use of the images of Babel and Jerusalem with the motif of the Garden of Eden and interprets the AI age not only as a problem of hubris, but also as a longing for a relieved pre-freedom. Finally, the reply points to the far-reaching reassessment of the doctrine of just war by Pope Leo XIV under the conditions of modern logics of violence and power.

Existential Alignment and Magnifica Humanitas: On The Gentle Totality and the Voluntary Relief of the Human Being - A Reply

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