Pope’s AI encyclical exposes how techno-salvation narratives reinforce extractive power structures and neocolonial futures
Original framing: “Is the Pope’s AI encyclical a warning on Tech Messianism?” — The Conversation - Global
Neuroscience demonstrates that human cognition is not replicable by AI, as consciousness emerges from embodied, relational experience—contradicting claims of AI as a 'mind amplifier.' Critical data studies show that AI systems reproduce historical biases, not salvation, by encoding colonial logics into predictive models. The scientific consensus rejects techno-messianism as a category error: technology is a tool, not a savior, and its effects depend on the power structures that deploy it.
The Pope’s encyclical is not merely a moral warning but a systemic indictment of techno-messianism as a modern opiate that legitimizes extractive capitalism by framing inequality as a technical problem.
This narrative serves Silicon Valley’s accumulation strategies while obscuring the historical continuity of salvation myths—from telegraphy to AI—that have always served empire. Indigenous epistemologies, feminist critiques, and Global South experiences reveal techno-messianism as a universal trap, where technology is worshipped as a savior while functioning as a tool of control. The solution lies in federated AI commons, decolonial ethics, and public rituals of technological humility that re-embed AI in communal values. The choice is stark: either AI becomes a tool of liberation, governed by the marginalized, or it remains a weapon of dispossession, disguised as salvation.