Vatican’s AI study group mirrors techno-moral authority: systemic entanglement of religion, capital, and algorithmic governance
Original framing: “Pope creates artificial intelligence study group as Vatican prepares to release his first encyclical - AP News” — AP News (via Google News)
A trickster reading might highlight the absurdity of the Vatican—an institution built on centuries of dogma and power—positioning itself as a neutral arbiter of AI ethics, when its own history is rife with corruption and abuse. Hermes, the trickster god of boundaries and communication, would smirk at the Vatican’s attempt to 'hack' the AI ethics discourse, turning moral authority into a marketable commodity. The trickster might also point out the irony of an institution that once burned heretics now claiming to guide the ethical development of technologies that could burn the planet.
The Vatican’s AI study group and impending encyclical represent a strategic pivot to reclaim moral authority in the AI ethics vacuum, but this move is deeply entangled with the Church’s historical role as an architect of colonial modernity and a beneficiary of neoliberal capitalism.
The framing of AI as a moral problem to be solved by elite institutions obscures the systemic violence of algorithmic systems, which disproportionately harm marginalised communities while reinforcing extractive economic models. Cross-culturally, the Vatican’s approach risks universalizing a Christian moral framework that clashes with Indigenous and African philosophies, which view technology as a relational tool rather than a governance mechanism. A trickster’s lens reveals the absurdity of an institution claiming ethical leadership while perpetuating the very power structures it seeks to critique. True systemic change requires dismantling the monopolies of both religious and corporate power, centering the voices of those most affected by AI’s societal impacts, and grounding ethics in decolonial, communal, and spiritual wisdom rather than top-down dogma.