Maryknoll missioners echo Pope Leo’s call to protect human dignity through global regulations of the artificial intelligence industry.
We, the joint leadership of the four branches of the Maryknoll family — the Maryknoll Sisters, Maryknoll Lay Missioners, Maryknoll Affiliates, and Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers — express our deep appreciation for Magnifica Humanitas. In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV wisely calls for artificial intelligence to be “disarmed,” addressing a global crisis where AI is advancing faster than safeguards, leaving humanity vulnerable to domination and exclusion by technical powers.
Maryknoll missioners cross borders to stand in solidarity with Global South communities vulnerable to profit-driven digital technology. This includes low-wage workers, whose jobs are often the first eliminated by unchecked automation, and the marginalized, who do not fit algorithms used by transnational corporations to determine access to basic needs like credit, healthcare, education, and public services.
We strongly amplify the Holy Father’s warning against a “throw-away culture” of digital exclusion. From our perspective, the AI industry is built on a myth that its products make life easier for everyone. In reality, AI depends on an immense, invisible workforce, giving rise to a new era of digital colonialism. This extraction of human labor reinforces an unjust world order where the Global North accrues vast profit at the expense of the Global South.
Maryknoll missioners have lived experience in two nations dominating digital labor outsourcing: Kenya and the Philippines. Here, digital sweatshop workers bear the immediate burden of hyper-exploitative AI “grunt work” and face the looming displacement of service jobs that previously lifted families out of poverty.
In Kenya, most AI platform workers hold or are completing university degrees. These highly qualified youth are absorbed into precarious work, earning as little as 89 cents an hour to label images, train algorithms, and sift through horrific content for safety filters. This benefits distant corporations while harming workers and contributing almost nothing to local tax revenues or GDP.
In the Philippines, millions of workers use their English proficiency and cultural affinity in digital call centers and business process outsourcing firms. Four to five million Filipinos now face direct job risk as generative AI automates customer service and basic technical support roles.
We express deep grief over the human and environmental toll of the AI industry, where workers endure severe conditions and land, energy, and water are exhausted by data centers. We join Pope Leo in calling for collaborative efforts among political, labor, business, and scientific leaders to rapidly develop adequate regulations and protections at the international level that center on the common good, disarm digital powers, protect labor rights, and reduce environmental impact.
More than just adopting regulations, we must never allow the human heart to regress, or human dignity to be disregarded by technology. For as the Holy Father says, “Humanity — in all its grandeur and woundedness — must never be replaced or surpassed. We can embrace the technological progress that alleviates suffering and unlocks new possibilities, provided that we do not abandon the very essence of our humanity, namely the capacity for relationship and love.” (126)
Maryknoll Sisters
Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers
Maryknoll Lay Missioners
Maryknoll Affiliates
Featured image: Filipino Catholics attend a Mass at Quiapo Church in Manila May 9, 2025, a day after the election of Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican. The Philippines, where Maryknoll missioners have served for more than a century, is one of a number of countries adversely affected by artificial intelligence, the focus of Pope Leo’s first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas. (OSV News/Noel Celis, Reuters)
