Ms O’CONNOR (Hobart) – Mr President, I move –
That the Encyclical Letter Magnifica Humanitas of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV be considered and noted.
Before I begin I feel morally obliged to acknowledge the mixed history of the Catholic Church. While it has arguably provided sense, higher purpose and order to human existence, it has also caused profound harm over the centuries: neglect, abuse and cover-up at the highest levels of the clergy and the subjugation of women and minorities, all while amassing great wealth and power. I acknowledge all the countless victims and survivors of the Church’s countless crimes, including those alive today who still do not have justice for their suffering.
In bringing on this debate today about Magnifica Humanitas, I am not here to laud the praises of the Catholic Church, an institution. As a perpetually lapsing Catholic, I have lived experience of, as did my parents, both of whom were damaged by the whips and canes of nuns and Christian brothers. The only beating I ever received at school was from a Catholic nun, for running on the seniors’ oval. They were quick to strike those nuns, Mr President.
I do, however, acknowledge that, in part, it is my parents’ Catholic education and the parts of my schooling by nuns that imbued in me a strong sense of social justice, and I’m thankful for that.
This is the social doctrine of the Church at the heart of Magnifica Humanitas, the Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Leo XIV on safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence. The social doctrine of the Church addresses issues that touch personal, community and global life and speak to the work of governments and lawmakers and the work we do in this Council and in the community every day. It requires of us a necessary focus on human work and social justice, economy at the service of the person, politics as a service to the common good, defence of life and family, integral ecology and care of creation, and peace, international solidarity and human rights. On all these measures we live in a time of darkness and in the dark, it is human nature to look for light wherever we can find it.
There are times when the Catholic Church is a source of light, and I believe these are such times. The Pope’s Encyclical Letter Magnifica Humanitas is a source of light for those with the time to read it or listen to His Holiness speaking of it.
The rapid, in some cases forced, overlay of artificial intelligence (AI) and the infrastructure that enables it raises questions over what it is to be human, to have consciousness, morality, creativity and connection with each other. This is the central theme of Magnifica Humanitas. AI is moving faster than human society has yet shown it’s able to control and AI developers reckon the less control by way of laws and regulations, the better for their profits and their egos.
It’s happening right here. AI data factories look set to pop up like ugly, noisy resource‑hungry mushrooms all over the island, nine at last count. All of them have huge questions hanging over them: power, water, noise, amenity. None of them have anything like a social licence. As it takes the axe to the State Service to fund its unpopular, bankrupting stadium, this government is in fact accelerating its AI Accelerator program. AI will be embedded across all agencies.
We don’t know to what extent or what the guardrails the Premier has promised are or could possibly be given the way this technology works. We do know people’s jobs and the dignity of work is being stripped away from our fellow Tasmanians who are being replaced by robots. It is short‑sighted and brutal from a government that has long boasted it is all about jobs, and it will certainly have an impact on the economy of this beautiful city I represent
Just recently I received correspondence from the outgoing lord mayor extremely concerned about the impact of the public sector job cuts on the economy of Hobart. She says:
As we know from recent experiences in Launceston and Bell Bay, the loss of jobs locally can cause huge knock-on effects on local communities and businesses. While there’s no easily accessible plan or document that outlines the location of these jobs, the CPSU advises that the significant majority of these jobs will be ones currently located in the Hobart CBD. Loss of jobs means less money circulating in our economy. In particular, a loss of jobs located in the CBD means these people will not be in the city spending salaries on coffee, lunches, retail and after‑work entertainment.
Mr President, I thought it was a good time for this Council and indeed hopefully this parliament to reflect on the words of His Holiness in Magnifica Humanitas. It’s a message to not just people of Catholic faith, but a message, a most timely one, to people of all faiths and of none. Pope Leo is a man, it seems, almost perfectly born for these times. An American at a time when Trump and his billionaire cronies are shredding the social fabric, goosestepping us into fascism, and accelerating the planet’s decline. A mathematician at a time when algorithms stealth our every online moment, determining what we see, influencing how we feel, what we think, what we buy, who we love, who we hate. These algorithms are feeding division and social sickness. They have not yet been, and may never be, a force for human good.
His Holiness guides us in how to make sense of the new tech‑driven world. In many respects it’s a dehumanising world that we now inhabit. He reflects on the inherent dignity and inalienable rights of every person, what makes us human, and how to protect our humanity in a time of digital revolution. In Magnifica Humanitas, His Holiness reminds us of the right to a good life, meaningful work, a fair share of society’s wealth, and a healthy planet. All of these things are undermined or threatened when a powerful, pervasive, corporate‑driven technology is embraced without pause to consider risk, and to ensure the public good, the common good of humanity and this beautiful planet is the paramount consideration.
Plenty of Tasmanians would agree, I think, that the Rockliff government is rushing us headlong into an AI data factory proliferation, AI embedded in the machinery‑of‑government future without thinking enough about it in their desperation to fill the financial black hole at Macquarie Point. The jobs that would be sacrificed – 1700 at last pronouncement across agencies – are a huge price to pay for those individuals and families, our communities, and our economies. Some of these jobs are irreplaceable. One example is the head of our world‑class herbarium at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, or the emergency resilience and recovery officers in the Department of Premier and Cabinet and cuts to emergency services while a monster El Nino bears down on us. You cannot replace those roles with AI. You cannot replace human expertise and decision making with AI. I pause here for a moment to remind honourable members that it was during the break not that long ago that we discovered that the Parole Board of Tasmania had used AI to write a decision on a released prisoner that was designed to curb her freedom of expression, and indeed the Parole Board, in its use of AI, cited fake case law. That has enormous potential to lead to very significant miscarriages of justice.
There will be an economic downturn on the communities we represent, very much so in Hobart as a consequence of these job cuts and the replacement of humans with AI in the machinery of government. If the Liberals think AI will save us or save them, they are deluded. It is a nonsense to suggest AI data factories are an economic boon. Post-construction, they employ few, but where they’re built around the world they’re angering plenty from right across the political spectrum. Pope Leo urges caution on AI. He acknowledges it may have benefits, but only if it is used for the public good. So, we should be cautious, starting with a moratorium, perhaps, on AI data factory construction until the community has a say, the impacts are understood, and the planning settings are right. According to Pope Leo, the fundamental dignity of each person is neither acquired nor earned, nor does it need to be justified. Among the new tech ideologies, one he finds particularly insidious is the one that suggests every person must earn or justify his or her own worth to the point of attributing greater value to those who are more efficient and effective. From this perspective, he says persons end up being reduced to a means of achieving results, a resource to be used and exploited. The value of persons, he reminds us, however, does not depend on what they achieve or produce. There are rights that apply to everyone, simply by virtue of being human. These inalienable rights, of course, are the foundation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, human rights charters and acts around the world, including in numerous Australian jurisdictions, but not the Commonwealth nor Tasmania yet, and that is important unfinished business.
The Pope reminds us that truth is a common good and democracy something worth safeguarding. Echoing his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII from 135 years ago, with his encyclical Rerum Novarum, or ‘new things,’ about the dignity of labour, of work. In Magnifica Humanitas, his Holiness holds that politics or the state has the role, in his words, ‘of orientating economies and technologies to the common good, promoting dignified work, social inclusion and an equitable distribution of the benefits of innovation.’ He specifically, and repeatedly, in his encyclical, reminds governments and lawmakers of their moral obligation to work for the common good.
I warmly encourage honourable members to take the time to read this encyclical. I think I’m on my fourth reading now, and I’ll probably be reading it on and off all my days. It is such a profound philosophical piece of work. I’ll just read into the Hansard some of his Holiness’s words, he says:
Each generation inherits the task of shaping its own era, of guiding history to become a place where the dignity of every person is safeguarded, justice is promoted and fraternity is made possible. Yet every era also runs the risk of creating an inhumane and more unjust world. Whenever humanity is in danger of marring its true identity, we Christians –
And this is a message to the Christian world, Mr President –
lift our eyes to the Incarnate God, knowing that it is ‘only in the mystery of the Word made flesh that the mystery of humanity truly becomes clear.’
He encourages Catholics worldwide to diligently contribute to every initiative that builds a more just world, and that’s not just a Catholic concern, is it? He encourages dialogue with all men and women of our time, with whom we share in the events, questions and aspirations of humanity. He says:
In recent years, it has become increasingly evident how rapidly and profoundly digitalization, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics are transforming our world. Technology should not be considered, in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity. On the contrary, it has formed part of our history since the beginning as a ‘profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man.’ Over the centuries, technological development has significantly improved the living conditions of humanity. At the same time, each phase of progress has also revealed the ambiguity of tools that can cause harm when not oriented toward the good. Today, however, we find ourselves facing a new situation. The power and prevalence of emerging technologies are interwoven into the fabric of daily life, shaping decision-making processes and deeply affecting the collective imagination: ‘Never has humanity had such power over itself.’ New technologies open up a horizon extending in directions that are imaginable but not yet fully predictable. This complicates the assessment of their potential impact and the long-term effects they may have on both the dignity of individuals and the common good.
It now falls to us to face the challenges of our time with clarity of thought and responsibility. It is necessary to establish adequate regulatory tools capable of upholding justice and curbing the distorting effects of technological power. Nevertheless, the issue is not limited to regulation. As Pope Francis warned, we must realistically ask ourselves who holds this power today and how they use it. It must also be recognised that nuclear energy, biotechnology, information technology, knowledge of our own DNA and many other abilities which we have acquired have given those with the knowledge – and especially the economic resources – to use them, an impressive dominance over the whole of humanity and the entire world.
In the past, it was largely up to the state to guide and direct innovation. Today, however, the main drivers of development are private, often transnational parties that are endowed with resources and the capacity to intervene that surpass those of many governments. Technological power thus takes on an unprecedented, predominantly private aspect, which makes it even more challenging to discern, govern and direct such power towards the common good.
We are living, he says, through a rapid phase of transition, a change of era in which, while some are vying for the future of new technologies and others dedicate themselves to reflecting on the matter, most people are watching and waiting, observing from afar and merely hoping for the best. For this very reason, crucial questions impose themselves on our conscience and can no longer be avoided. Where are we going? Toward what goal do we wish to orientate ourselves? What direction should we choose for people and as a human community?
He makes the comparison between the biblical story of the Tower of Babel and the Book of Nehemiah. The Tower of Babel, of course, is the story of peoples from all over the world, through arrogance and pride, seeking to build a pathway to heaven and in that process the whole thing fell apart because it was every man and woman and dog for themselves. Of course, the consequence of that, in biblical terms, was a scattering and a division within that human family.
The Book of Nehemiah, on the other hand, is a story in the Bible of ancient Israel, which after the Babylonian exile, a proportion of the people returned to Jerusalem, which was a wrecked city – the walls had collapsed, the gates had burned – and the people of that town got together and they talked to each other and they worked out what they were going to do to restore their city. They worked together for the common good as a collective. That’s a central theme of Magnifica Humanitas.
His Holiness encourages us not to follow the example of Babel as we confront these new technologies, but to look out for each other, establish a dialogue of reason, and work collectively for the common good. He says building for the common good means accepting the limits and weaknesses of humanity without considering them an error to be corrected. Today, the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of a technology that promises to free us from all weaknesses and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations. All too often we place our hope in unlimited upgrades, in forms of progress that exacerbate inequalities and in immediate solutions incapable of healing people’s wounds. As a result, while some pursue the illusion of unlimited self-assertion, many are deprived of basic necessities.
The church reminds us, he says, with a firm and humble voice, that true fulfilment is not achieved by eliminating weakness, but through harmonious growth. It is found where freedom and responsibility are intertwined with mutual care and true solidarity and where progress is measured by the dignity of each person and the good of all peoples.
He says we need to establish standards for discernment in dealing with AI, the dignity of the human person, the universal destination of goods, the preferential option for the poor, care for our common home and peace. Let us translate these standards into practices such as responsible planning, the assessment of human and social impact, the inclusion of the most vulnerable, the promotion of digital literacy and guiding research and industry towards justice and peace. He says in the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanisation, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human.
Now, Mr President, some of us in this room are Christians and some of us are not, and I am not – despite my Catholic upbringing – what I would call a ‘Christian’, so perhaps some of us in this room fall into His Holiness’ categorisation of people as precious allies.
Pope Leo says: (TBC)
The Church regards all who sincerely seek truth, goodness and beauty as companions on the journey and considers them as precious allies in defending the dignity of every person and in caring for creation.
Mr President, he makes the observation that you can’t treat artificial intelligence in a neutral way. He says: (TBC)
In order to protect the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, I believe that today we must once again reflect on the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and social justice.
I’m convinced that a harmonious relationship between these principles requires that they be considered collectively so that it becomes clear how they relate to and complement each other.
And a reminder to us all, Mr President, it is the state’s responsibility to ensure cohesion, unity and the proper organisation of civil society so that the common good can be pursued with everyone’s contribution. In practical terms, this means that public authorities have the delicate duty to harmonise the different sectoral interests with the requirements of justice, seeking a balance between individual interests and the common good without leaving behind the most vulnerable.
When politics abandons a long-term perspective and reduces itself to short-term calculations or sterile polarisations then the language of the common good loses credibility and at the same time social inequalities and divisions grow.
He says: (TBC)
In this day and age, social justice must also grapple with the environment shaped by digital technologies. The spread of global networks, platforms and artificial intelligence systems is changing the way we obtain information, communicate and access services. Justice demands that we prevent the emergence of new forms of exclusion and deprivation of freedoms, individuals and peoples hindered or denied access to basic technologies, communities exposed to invasive surveillance and social groups penalised by opaque algorithms that perpetuate prejudice and discrimination.
In the digital age, a just social order guarantees everyone equal access to opportunities, protects the youngest and weakest members of society, combats hate and misinformation, and subjects the use of data and technology to public oversight so that the guiding principle is not solely profit, but the dignity of every person and the common good of all people.
And I pause here at the moment, Mr President, to make the observation that we are a long way from there in Tasmania today, particularly under this government which has attached itself, in the case of Firmus, to a company that seems much more smoke and mirrors than anything of substance and in fact the investment market determined that to be the case when Firmus sought to list on the stock exchange.
So, in his section about responsibility, transparency and the governance of AI, the Pope says: (TBC)
The use of AI is never a purely technical matter. When it enters processes that affects people’s lives, it touches on rights, opportunities, status and freedom, important and sensitive decisions concerning employment, credit, access to public services, or even a person’s reputation, risk being fully delegated to automated systems that do not know compassion, mercy, forgiveness and, above all, the hope that people are able to change and, therefore, give rise to new forms of exclusion. There are clearly harmful uses, such as the manipulation of information or violations of privacy, yet there’s also a subtler danger for when AI systems present themselves as neutral and objective, they end up reflecting and reinforcing the stereotypes or ideological bias of their designers and developers.
We’re already seeing that, Mr President, in the fundamental character of many of the chatbots, or the ‘agents’, as they’re called; designed as they were, largely by men, very powerful, wealthy men, a number of whom are arguably sociopaths. They provided the intellectual input to the character, the nature, if you like, of AI agents as we know them today.
He says:
Indeed, entrusting an algorithm in practice with the power to select who is worthy or not, without anyone bearing responsibility for that judgment, is to hand over the task of redefining the boundaries of human possibilities. In this process, political responsibility is also lost, not just empathy toward those excluded, which can, after all, be simulated. The exclusion of the vulnerable becomes cloaked in a veneer of neutrality and objectivity, against which it becomes difficult to raise objections. In this way, injustice goes unnoticed, and compassion, mercy and forgiveness – understood not as mere appearances but as real political actions – gradually disappear from view.
… we cannot consider AI to be morally neutral. In reality, every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations. If a system is designed or used in a way that treats some lives as less worthy, or excludes them without the possibility of appeal, then it is not merely a tool “to be used well,” since it has already introduced criteria that contradict the inalienable dignity of the human person.
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He goes on to talk about the impact of unemployment on young people and on families, how damaging that is to the social fabric and to a person’s sense of worth. He says:
The quality of a civilization is measured not by the power of its means, but by the care it is able to offer, by its ability to recognize the other as a face not merely as a function. The ability to care for one another is a fundamental dimension of our humanity, one that is learned and mastered through lived experience. Reading stories to a child, offering company to an elderly person and arranging a home so that it is welcoming are simple gestures often rooted in family life. They teach us to value care at a societal level and train us to recognize others as persons worthy of attention. Technology can also support this mutual care between people, for example, by providing tools that help us anticipate and organize things, without undermining human freedom and judgment. After all, human beings are the subjects of relationships and responsible for their own decisions.
[…]
If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy. In the name of progress, “necessary sacrifices” may begin to be justified, placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed optimization of peace.
What are we do about it? He says treasure truth, seek truth, listen to the truth tellers. He says protect democracy, treasure it, see it as a true expression of human freedom and dignity. He encourages investment in public education and elevating digital literacy for people of all ages, so our fellow citizens do not miss out.
He speaks of an economy that values dignity. Here right now, in Tasmania, for those 1700 state servants who face the axe, we should all extend our hearts to those employees. That is not the actions of a government that recognises the inherent dignity and the right to work. It’s quite galling to hear members of this government talk about ‘jobs, jobs, jobs’ and yet here they are slashing jobs in the State Service, which will impact on urban and regional economies, and replacing people with artificial intelligence.
I’d like to encourage the Tasmanian Labor Party, the official opposition, to see this as an opportunity to step up and work for the common good. Labor quite rightly and proudly speaks for jobs, for people to have the right to dignified work, and Labor this morning in the other place focused very much on State Service job cuts. The corollary of that is what this government is doing to replace those jobs with artificial intelligence, with technology that’s being imported to this state straight from Silicon Valley.
His brief points at how we make the world a better place in a time of rapidly accelerating technological innovation. He says, ‘Let us remain faithful to the truth!’, let us invest in education, let us cultivate relationships, and let us love justice and peace. These objectives or values, I would like to think, are something that guide us in our work every day.
There’s an old and often used adage that we live in interesting times. Indeed, perhaps more than at any time in human history, we do – never a dull moment in local, national and global affairs these days. What with the climate breakdown, the rolling collapse of ecological systems and decimation of biodiversity, the staggeringly rapid decline of the United States’ democracy and erosion of democratic institutions and trust across the world, an unchecked global pandemic ongoing, raging inequality, genocidal wars raging in Palestine and the Ukraine, the rise of global fascism and rapid development of the unregulated new technologies, we’re told by experts, threaten humanity – these sure are interesting times. These are also clearly dangerous times. It feels some days like our fevered, distressed world has gone completely mad.
All these crises are connected; they’re intersectional. The breakdown of the natural world and the systems we and all living things on earth rely on for survival is damaging profoundly the social fabric that wraps around us all. It fractures us into haves and have-nots and those who have even less than nothing necessary for a good life. Think here of the people of Gaza and the West Bank. We have a global economic system which sucks all it can out of our life support systems, often by corrupting democratic governments, and it ensures that there isn’t enough to go around. It drives inequality and breeds sociopathic billionaires who are antagonistic to fairness, equality, democratic expression and the common good, which His Holiness reminds us of. Humanity and the planet are paying a very, very high price for this intersectional injustice.
In Pope Leo’s predecessor Pope Francis’s encyclical Laudato si’, which I read some of into the other place when it came out, he connects ecological breakdown with the modern social and economic crises we face. He said ‘the cry of the earth and the cry of the poor cannot be separated’ and think here of the people of Nepal as one recent devastating example of this intersectionality. In Laudato si’, Pope Francis reaffirmed his call for intergenerational justice.
The proliferation of artificial intelligence, its impact on the lives and hopes of young people and on the natural world can be viewed through the prism of intergenerational justice. That principle, whether we’re Catholic or Christian or what His Holiness calls ‘precious allies in the struggle for truth and justice and care for the earth’, that principle should guide all governments and all the work we as legislators do. Intergenerational justice certainly has guided the Greens since our beginning, every day since we were born as a political movement working for the common good.
In closing, on AI, we must be cautious. We need to heed the message at the heart of Magnifica Humanitas: respect and protect human dignity, reject dehumanising philosophies and tools that can rob us of our rights, or regulate them so we have some control and that they are able to work for the common good. But we have to protect our rights – our right to work, our right to express creatively our history, our stories, our beautiful planet and we have to uphold the common good through words and through our deeds everywhere we can and in this place, so, Mr President, I commend Magnifica Humanitas to the Council, and I thank His Holiness for being a source of light and truth for our times.
