All hail James Joyce today, on “Bloomsday”—the worldwide
celebration of the 24 hours (June 16, 1904) that constitute the “plot” of his
novel Ulysses—and, not coincidentally, the same day that he began to see Nora Barnacle,
his future muse and wife.
The
above somehow feels an especially appropriate quote in an age in where “insult
and hatred” reign supreme. And, as the novelist writes, “That’s not life for
men and women.”
In my post two weeks ago on Pope Leo’s apology for the Church’s stand on slavery over the centuries, I promised to discuss his much-anticipated encyclical, or
formal papal pastoral letter, on artificial intelligence. That time has
arrived.
When you
consider the upcoming stakes for AI (one analyst I heard this past said it had
greater potential to affect humanity than space exploration), there has been
precious little time devoted to how to ensure it serves rather than degrades
humanity.
By
reminding tech lords, legislators, and ordinary citizens of that basic
principle, Leo’s examination of this new force in our lives can potentially
kick-start and even frame the debates that should be taking place now in the
public square.
Fully
cognizant of AI’s potential benefits, Leo is anything but a technological
Cassandra. (Though predictably, the Murdoch-owned Wall Street Journal
has turned up its nose at the pope’s urging to install brakes on the runaway
technology, with op-ed contributor Louise Perry snidely asking, “Does the Pope Use Air Conditioning”?)
At the
other end of the political spectrum, some have written that Leo has not gone
far enough in denouncing the ills now becoming apparent in AI.
But his
caution only enhances his case that this new technology cannot develop
without safeguards that rest on human morality, and in particular on the
Catholic Church’s notions on the market economy, technology, and social justice
dating back to the groundbreaking encyclical of his predecessor and namesake
Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum (1891).
Leo XIV
has called for measures ensure the dignity of work in the face of
AI, including regulating private companies’ AI development and retraining
workers whose jobs are threatened. He has also advocated for critical thinking
education about the technology.
It’s not
just the danger to livelihoods that concerns the Vatican, however, but also
AI’s potential misuse for modern warfare:
“The
growing ease with which autonomous weapons systems can be deployed makes war
more ‘feasible’ and less subject to human control. This violates the principle
that armed force should be used only as a last resort in cases of legitimate
self-defense. For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be
subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for
human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such
arms.”
In
addition, the encyclical raises the alarm about transhumanism, or
enhancing human beings through technologies, and posthumanism, which,
imagines “a hybrid of human beings, machines and the environment.”
The
ultimate impact of these two forces, according to the encyclical, could be to
make it “easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or
less worthy…placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed
optimization of the species.”
As Fordham Univ. papal expert David
Gibson’s op-ed last month in The New York Times observed, Magnifica
Humanitas has arrived at a “propitious moment,” when “The
disruptions of the post-liberal world and the threats posed by A.I. have led
many cultural conservatives to make economic justice a priority.”
Even
President Trump, who early in his second term likened placing limits on high
tech to restricting the growth of a baby, felt compelled to sign an executive order early this month calling for AI companies to voluntarily provide the federal government access to “covered frontier models” for a cybersecurity review up to 30 days before their planned release to “other
trusted partners.” It came amid sudden alarm that some powerful AI models
autonomously identify and exploit hidden vulnerabilities in real-world
software.
It will be
up to the tech barons whether they will enter into dialogue with the pope and
other advocates for a more deliberate, regulated AI pace or if they will
continue to proceed with no guardrails. But Leo has spelled out the moral
stakes in no uncertain terms.
It’s true that Bewitched got tons of comic mileage at out of recurring characters like Doctor Bombay, Uncle Arthur, Samantha’s father Maurice, Mrs. Kravitz, and Aunt Clara.
But the old reliable standby, as far as I’m concerned, was Samantha’s mom Endora.
The show’s writers (including future Same Time, Next Year playwright Bernard Slade) must have had a great deal of fun not only concocting her bon mots at the expense of what she regarded as her witless, antagonistic mortal son-in-law, but also rhyming spells like the above that she would continually use to torture him.
Agnes Moorehead received six Emmy nominations, along with a reliable paycheck for the eight seasons that Bewitched was on the air. She made no bones to interviewers that she had an accomplished career before she signed up for the sitcom, including Oscar nominations for The Magnificent Ambersons, Mrs. Parkington, Johnny Belinda, and Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte. The impression left was that this role as the acid-tongued witch mother was beneath her.
Was Bewitched
formulaic? You bet. But Ms. Moorehead furnished much joy over the years to its
fans. I wish she could have enjoyed that aspect of her job a bit more.
The contrast with the other great English landscape painter, J.M.W. Turner (only a year older), could hardly be starker:
* Constable, not elected to the Royal Academy till age 52, found considerable favor in his last decade; Turner, the youngest Academician when elected 25 years earlier, polarized the public with his late works.
*Constable was deeply devoted to his sickly wife Maria Bickness and their seven children; Turner was a perfectionist who often shunted aside those closest to him.
*Constable held traditional beliefs in the Anglican Church; Turner was a thoroughgoing iconoclast.
*Constable, according to art critic John Ruskin, was “an industrious and innocent amateur blundering his way to a superficial expression of one or two popular aspects of common nature,” while this influential Victorian not only bought works from Turner but watched him create in his studio.
(To understand how Constable and Turner became bitter rivals—including a pivotal 1831 incident involving placement of their paintings in the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition—see this fine 2018 blog post by art historian and an independent lecturer Cindy Polemis.)
For the longest time, though several documentaries were made about him, Constable didn’t possess the kind of cantankerous, eccentric personality that attracted feature film creators, as his contemporary and rival did when Mike Leigh made his 2014 biographical drama Mr. Turner. He still hasn’t had an extended cinema treatment.
But in 2024, “The Painters,” a segment of the regionally distributed movie Once Upon a Time in Suffolk, dealt with Constable’s friendship with John Dunthorne, with whom he competed to impress a young lady in need of a new portrait.
In one sense, the personalities of Constable and Turner were expressed through their subject matter. The turbulent Turner was fascinated by stormy weather, as in his 1824 watercolor Brighthelmston, Sussex. Constable looked to the tranquil, lush English countryside, reflecting his belief, as noted in Robert Cumming’s Art: A Visual History, that “nature, with its freshness, sunlight, trees, shadows, streams, and so forth, was full of moral and spiritual goodness.”
For
a nation plunging in earnest into the Industrial Revolution, such Constable
paintings as The Hay Wain and Study of the Trunk of an Elm Tree (1821),
as well as The Leaping Horse (1825) depicted an exquisite but fragile
natural landscape in danger of being lost.
