Idolatry and A.I. [Magnifica humanitas]

Yuval Levin,  Idols of the Valley, The New Atlantis, May 27, 2026.

Levin is commenting on Pope Leo  XIV's recent encyclical, Magnifica humanitas. The following paragraphs are from the last two sections (of five) in Levin's article.

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Our new technologies are neither demons nor idols, and we must make sure to keep them that way. But it is the challenge of idolatry that will be greatest. It increasingly seems to me that the essential text of the era we are entering will be this opening portion of Psalm 115:

Not to us, LORD, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.

Why do the nations say,
“Where is their God?”

Our God is in heaven;
and does what he wills.

But their idols are silver and gold,
made by human hands.

They have mouths, but cannot speak,
eyes, but cannot see.

They have ears, but cannot hear,
noses, but cannot smell.

They have hands, but cannot feel,
feet, but cannot walk,
nor can they utter a sound with their throats.

Those who make them will be like them,
and so will all who trust in them.

Ever since I encountered this mysterious poem as a teenager, I have wondered at the image it paints of idolatry, especially in its stunning two final lines. The idols are made to seem human but do not partake of genuine embodied human experience. And both their makers and those who trust in them are destined to become like them — and so less than human — because they elevate them.

These lines have come to seem less mysterious to me in the last few years. They describe precisely the danger to which Pope Leo is pointing. It is the danger of turning our tools into idols, and thereby of becoming little more than tools ourselves. It is a danger that afflicts those who make these idols, and also threatens those who put their trust in them.

The appeal of idols has always been that they offer shortcuts. The God of the Bible demands that you live in a way that forms your mind and heart and soul toward your fullest human potential. This requires hard work but it yields a kind of person both capable and worthy of a flourishing life. The idol offers the material benefits of such a life without that formative work. And if all you care about are the benefits, not the form of your mind, heart, and soul, then the offer is awfully hard to resist. [...]

Such temptations of idolatry are ever-present. We resist them, now as always, by allegiance to a higher truth about ourselves that is as demanding as it is liberating. And we resist more actively and assertively, too — with the help of rules of conduct that constrain our appetites, of days of rest that offer us relief from the demands that expose us to temptation, and of formative disciplines of the soul embodied in family, faith, community, learning, work, and leisure toward which we are drawn by well-ordered loves.

All of these require us to choose the long, demanding, formative way through life. But various idolatries offer us shortcuts that promise the benefit without the work: Just turn yourself into a tool and you will be more productive without more effort. This is of course just what Magnifica Humanitas warns of. It is what AI at its most idolatrous and dangerous can offer. That doesn’t have to be what AI is in our experience — not at all. But it can be if we aren’t careful.