Speaker 1: I want to talk about the new pope and how
Speaker 1: impressed I've been with him thus far. And the one
Speaker 1: area that I think I'm most impressed with is this
Speaker 1: sense he has this sort of audacious program that apparently
Speaker 1: he wants to set out on this audacious goal of teaching.
Speaker 1: And it was revealed in two different spots. First, he
Speaker 1: had this address to the group of cardinals. This was
Speaker 1: about a day or so after he was elected, and
Speaker 1: he talks about why he picked the name Leo the fourteenth.
Speaker 1: So for those who don't know, when a new pope
Speaker 1: is picked, he's got a name. His name is Robert Prevost.
Speaker 1: And nonetheless, when you're selected to be pope, you take
Speaker 1: on a different name, a regnal name, as they call it.
Speaker 1: This tradition began very very early on in the history
Speaker 1: of the Church, where someone was picked to be Bishop
Speaker 1: of Rome, aka the pope, and his name was Mercurious,
Speaker 1: which is, you know, the name of a Roman god,
Speaker 1: a pagan Roman god. So everyone was like, eh, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe why don't we just call you John instead? Or
Speaker 1: I forget what the name he was that he picked
Speaker 1: something for the New Testament anyway, So popes took on
Speaker 1: the habit of picking a name different from their own name,
Speaker 1: and in some ways this mirrors the pattern that's employed
Speaker 1: by a lot of Catholic religious communities when you take
Speaker 1: vows to live in community as a monk or as
Speaker 1: a friar, for you know, different kinds of religious communities,
Speaker 1: you take a new name. And this is itself a
Speaker 1: little bit drawing off of the biblical example of the
Speaker 1: changing of someone's name in both the Old and the
Speaker 1: New Testament was always a sign of someone being given
Speaker 1: some new mission. Abram becomes Abraham, you know, Jacob becomes Israel,
Speaker 1: Saul becomes Paul, Simon becomes Peter, et cetera. So the
Speaker 1: popes have always have done this for centuries. And he
Speaker 1: takes the name Leo. Why does he take the name Leo, Well,
Speaker 1: he is Leo the fourteenth, and he says that he's
Speaker 1: doing this as a nod. The pope said that he
Speaker 1: took the name Leo in part as a nod to
Speaker 1: his predecessor with that name, Leo the thirteenth. Now Leo
Speaker 1: the thirteenth is the first pope that there was ever
Speaker 1: any like TV video of or you know, video camera
Speaker 1: video of. He was the head of the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: from eighteen seventy eight to nineteen oh three. And one
Speaker 1: of the things that Pope Leo is most Leo the
Speaker 1: thirteenth is most famous for is that he's the first
Speaker 1: pope to He was a pope during the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 1: The Industrial Revolution is happening as he became pope, and
Speaker 1: Leo the thirteenth wrote something that's called an encyclical, which
Speaker 1: literally means a letter that's passed around, passed around to
Speaker 1: everybody in a cyclical, in a circle. He wrote this
Speaker 1: encyclical basically a long teaching document called Rerum novarum, which
Speaker 1: literally means about new things, about new developments. And in
Speaker 1: this Pope Leo applied the wisdom of the Catholic Church's teaching,
Speaker 1: her ideal, her principles of justice, her ideals of justice,
Speaker 1: and applied it to the very at that time, very new,
Speaker 1: very groundbreaking problem and changes that were happening in the
Speaker 1: global economy, looking at global governance, global economies, looking at
Speaker 1: the way in which capitalism was reshaping our relationship with work,
Speaker 1: Looking also though at the rise of socialism, okay, the
Speaker 1: incipient rise of the idea of socialism at that time.
Speaker 1: This is long before the Russian Revolution, and Leo charted
Speaker 1: this ground for the Church. I'm not going to be
Speaker 1: able to first of all, not being as fully educated
Speaker 1: on Rare Room Navarum as I should be. Maybe I
Speaker 1: need to go read it Leo though. To summarize, Leo
Speaker 1: was sort of charting a course for the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: to say, no, we reject so many of the principles
Speaker 1: of socialism. The notion that the state should control all
Speaker 1: of the means of production is and completely deny any
Speaker 1: sort of right to property is wrong. We have to
Speaker 1: reject that. On the other hand, there is a difference
Speaker 1: between the Catholic conception of things and a pure libertarian capitalist,
Speaker 1: laissez fair capitalist view of the world, for example. So
Speaker 1: there's sort of this tension between the Catholic concept of
Speaker 1: what's called the universal destination of goods. That human beings
Speaker 1: have a right to property, but it is a right
Speaker 1: sort of in a qualified sense in comparison to how
Speaker 1: Americans think of rights. When an American talks about rights,
Speaker 1: it's this iron clad thing that absolutely upheld by courts,
Speaker 1: right to freedom of speech. If someone censors you, you
Speaker 1: take them to court and you win. It's this ironclad
Speaker 1: right more or less are the least. That's how we
Speaker 1: perceive it, and for certain kinds of core constitutional rights,
Speaker 1: that's how we perceive it. The Catholic Church, though, to
Speaker 1: talk about rights in sort of more qualified senses. Yes,
Speaker 1: you have a right to private property, but the idea
Speaker 1: is that, well, ultimately your money, you're just a steward
Speaker 1: of from the eternal perspective, the goods of the earth
Speaker 1: that you have over the course of your life. You're
Speaker 1: not keeping them. Eventually they go away. That's the universal
Speaker 1: destination of goods. We are granted goods in this world
Speaker 1: as custodians of it. And that's true both on a
Speaker 1: supernatural level but also on a natural level. On a
Speaker 1: natural level, you will die, you will not take your
Speaker 1: stuff with you. Where is your stuff going to go?
Speaker 1: From this Catholic conception, taxation is not viewed as theft.
Speaker 1: The goods of the world are for the people of
Speaker 1: the world to help them, and if governments play a
Speaker 1: role in administering justice in various ways, taxation is not
Speaker 1: itself intrinsically evil. Now, there can be just systems of taxation,
Speaker 1: there can be unjust systems of taxation, and also there's
Speaker 1: this idea that the political economy that are a capitalist
Speaker 1: market system is not inherently, intrinsically always perfect. We don't.
Speaker 1: The idea that the invisible hand always works, I think
Speaker 1: is both you know, obviously wrong, given that the invisible
Speaker 1: hand has often worked to create things like monopolies and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Often the hand of the markets can
Speaker 1: work very well price allowing the system of pricing to
Speaker 1: do its work, rather than a centrally planned economy. The
Speaker 1: Soviet Union demonstrate to demonstrated to us how a centrally
Speaker 1: planned economy of price fixing and price controls for all
Speaker 1: kinds of things results in more unintended disaster, stress consequences
Speaker 1: than one could possibly fathom. But there's a need for
Speaker 1: governance to maintain principles of justice. Okay, let's think of
Speaker 1: the example of monopolies. Okay, monopolies are not good. Monopolies
Speaker 1: can happen quote organically in a laisiz faire system, and
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of recourse that people can have
Speaker 1: to stop them. So to have systems of law, to
Speaker 1: have strong, a strong legal culture in place, strong foundations
Speaker 1: of law to help govern your markets, to encourage competition.
Speaker 1: But also then the demand to respect the rights of workers.
Speaker 1: Leo wound up being very pro labor union. Lee are
Speaker 1: the thirteenth writing and you know, at the turn of
Speaker 1: at the turn of the twentieth century, Leo was very
Speaker 1: pro labor union, just in the sense of, we need
Speaker 1: to have some kind of mechanism to allow individual workers
Speaker 1: to have the right to negotiate with labor, with capital,
Speaker 1: with management on some kind of a fair playing field. Okay,
Speaker 1: that the whole idea of a private sector labor union is. Okay.
Speaker 1: Ownership is incentivized to keep most of the profits for itself,
Speaker 1: for its shareholders, and one of the ways you do
Speaker 1: that is by paying your labor less. But an individual
Speaker 1: laborer might desperately need that job and therefore not have
Speaker 1: the kind of negotiating power as himself by himself to ask, hey,
Speaker 1: I would like a fairer wage. I'm working my butt off,
Speaker 1: I would like a more dignified wage. That's hard to
Speaker 1: do if you're just one man, especially if ownership, if
Speaker 1: management views you as replaceable, well, you don't want to
Speaker 1: work for this. Someone else will see it. Unionizing allows
Speaker 1: labor to negotiate with management on a more even playing field.
Speaker 1: And one of the things we saw in America in
Speaker 1: over the course of the twentieth century was the growth
Speaker 1: of labor unions did help with increasing the standard of
Speaker 1: living and you know, building up you know where you
Speaker 1: work the line at Ford and you can support a
Speaker 1: family of you know, five or six to buy a house. Now.
Speaker 1: So Leo the thirteenth was as a pope a really
Speaker 1: kind of seismic. His writing of the document Rear Room
Speaker 1: of Arm was this incredibly important Catholic intervention into some
Speaker 1: of the great social, economic, and political controversies of the day.
Speaker 1: Pope Leo. We've discerned this both from a speech he
Speaker 1: gave to the College of Cardinals shortly after his election
Speaker 1: and an interview given by a cardinal from Chile who
Speaker 1: was saying at dinner after the papal election, he's there,
Speaker 1: the cardinals have dinner with the Pope after they elect him.
Speaker 1: And he asked him, sort of off the cuff, so
Speaker 1: why did you pick the name Leo? And he got
Speaker 1: this answer. This is what Cardinal Chomale from Chile reported.
Speaker 1: He says, let's see if I can pull it up.
Speaker 1: He told me. So, it's Cardinal Chomale saying this about
Speaker 1: the Pope. He the Pope told me he is very
Speaker 1: concerned about the cultural shifts we are living through a
Speaker 1: Copernican revolution, really, artificial intelligence, robotics, human relationships. Chomale said
Speaker 1: he was inspired by Leo the thirteenth in the midst
Speaker 1: of the Industrial Revolution, wrote ree Rum novarum, launching an
Speaker 1: important dialogue between the Church and the modern world. So
Speaker 1: that's I thought that was really interesting. The cardinal continued.
Speaker 1: The new Pope believes the Church has a vital role
Speaker 1: to play in today's moment of perplexity. Cardinal Chomali added,
Speaker 1: there is a Chomale talking there is a revolution happening
Speaker 1: with ai et cetera, and it must be addressed seriously.
Speaker 1: The Church can contribute through its moral authority and also
Speaker 1: its academic strength. I'm so impressed by this, honestly. Now,
Speaker 1: this is Chomallee reporting what the Pope said to him.
Speaker 1: The Pope did, though, reaffirm it. The next day, he writes,
Speaker 1: I chose to take the name Leo the fourteenth. This
Speaker 1: is his address to the College of Cardinals. Happened about
Speaker 1: two days after he was elected. There are different reasons
Speaker 1: for this, but mainly because Poblio the thirteenth, in his
Speaker 1: historic encyclical re Roum Novarum, addressed the social question in
Speaker 1: the context of the first great Industrial Revolution. In our
Speaker 1: own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of
Speaker 1: her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and
Speaker 1: to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose
Speaker 1: new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice, and labor.
Speaker 1: Why am I impressed by that? It demonstrates such confidence,
Speaker 1: It demonstrates such confidence in the Church in the Gospel that, No,
Speaker 1: the Catholic Church is not going to be some sort
Speaker 1: of quiescent sitting on the sidelines, little nice social club
Speaker 1: that you go to on Sundays that isn't afraid or
Speaker 1: lacks the heft to speak to the powers of the world,
Speaker 1: to speak to the wealthy and the powerful about what's happening. No,
Speaker 1: we have the confidence that we are going to speak
Speaker 1: about it. That the Pope, the leader of a billion Catholics,
Speaker 1: is not going to be you know, kind of like
Speaker 1: the Queen of England or King Charles or something, you know,
Speaker 1: ultimately without much power, without much pristige, without much real
Speaker 1: influence as far as changing what we believe no, the
Speaker 1: Pope is going to stand there front and center and say, yeah,
Speaker 1: we have this incredible treasury of wisdom, and the Pope,
Speaker 1: as the head of a billion plus Catholics, has the
Speaker 1: moral authority to credibly stand there and teach about these
Speaker 1: new developments and try to apply the Gospel to them,
Speaker 1: try to make sense of them, try to understand the
Speaker 1: serious ways in which AI and other developments are going
Speaker 1: to have real serious consequences, some good and some maybe
Speaker 1: quite bad for economies, for labor, for human dignity. When
Speaker 1: we return, I want to talk about some of those things.
Speaker 1: That's next on the John Girardy Show. Pope Leo the
Speaker 1: fourteenth announced he took this name because, like his predecessor,
Speaker 1: Leo the thirteenth, who was pope from around the turn
Speaker 1: of the twentieth of the nineteenth into the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: was one of the first popes to really engage with
Speaker 1: the economic and social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution.
Speaker 1: Pope Leo the Fourteenth, elected last week, wants to apply
Speaker 1: the wisdom of the Church to the new industrial revolution
Speaker 1: that we are about to face, particularly with a I
Speaker 1: I think this is such a needed worthy in some ways,
Speaker 1: even audacious program for the pope, an audacious goal for
Speaker 1: the pope to really tackle this, and it's such a
Speaker 1: breath of fresh air in a way. I think for
Speaker 1: a very long time, maybe since JOm Paul the Second.
Speaker 1: I don't know Benedict the sixteenth a bit, but I
Speaker 1: think much of the papacy of Pope Francis, and to
Speaker 1: a certain extent, a lot of the bet Popenedict's papacy,
Speaker 1: maybe for better or for worse, A lot of it
Speaker 1: was focused ad intra, if you will. On the inside.
Speaker 1: It was the Catholic Church thinking about itself, talking about itself,
Speaker 1: and that's not a bad thing necessarily, that's not always
Speaker 1: a bad thing sorting out, you know. Pop Benedict was
Speaker 1: very concerned, for example, about the Church's public worship and
Speaker 1: how how do we express our public worship. He tried
Speaker 1: to liberate the Latin Mass, allow every priest to offer
Speaker 1: the Old Mass, the pre nineteen sixties right of the
Speaker 1: Catholic Mass, which was celebrated mostly in Latin. He tried
Speaker 1: to give every priest permission. He gave every priest permission
Speaker 1: to say that because he wanted the church's interior expression
Speaker 1: of itself to be coherent and Pope Francis kind of
Speaker 1: undid that. Frankly, Pope Francis also wrote a lot about
Speaker 1: the topic of evangelization, and maybe one of the most
Speaker 1: positive aspects of his papacy was his eye, which Pope
Speaker 1: Leo himself cited in his first address, was the kind
Speaker 1: of approach to evangelization that Pope Francis laid out the
Speaker 1: primacy of Christ in proclamation that our missionary efforts shouldn't
Speaker 1: be first about well, we're helping people, helping build wells. No,
Speaker 1: the primacy of our missionary works should be about Jesus Christ,
Speaker 1: which was a principle from this document. Pope Francis wrote
Speaker 1: about the subject the missionary conversion of the entire Christian community,
Speaker 1: that every part of the church must be viewed as
Speaker 1: a mission field, greater collegiality between bishops. These are all
Speaker 1: good things that Pope Francis talked about and did, but
Speaker 1: it was very internally focused. It was the church sort
Speaker 1: of focusing in on itself, looking at itself, and perhaps
Speaker 1: I think from many people's point of view, one of
Speaker 1: the least successful aspects of Francis's papacy that was very
Speaker 1: navel gazing was the constant synods that Pope Francis would hold.
Speaker 1: A synod is a gathering of a group of the
Speaker 1: world's bishops to talk about something, And most of the
Speaker 1: synods that Pope Francis convened over the course of his papacy,
Speaker 1: it was about internal stuff and they were these very
Speaker 1: high stakes things, felt very highst where we were like
Speaker 1: talking about stuff that everyone thought was already settled. Should
Speaker 1: divorced and remarried Catholics be able to receive community? Well?
Speaker 1: John Paul the Second had already very firmly established that
Speaker 1: as a no, why is it now a topic of conversation?
Speaker 1: Should pre skip married? Like why are we revisiting this?
Speaker 1: It's been asked and asked and asked and said no,
Speaker 1: And ultimately Pope Francis said no, should women be able
Speaker 1: to be ordained deacons? Why are we doing this women?
Speaker 1: We've been asking the question, asking the question, and the
Speaker 1: Church has said no, no, no. It was a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff about internally what the church thinks about this
Speaker 1: that or the other. Uh? Should uh, you know, gay
Speaker 1: couples be blessed? Pope Francis in twenty twenty one said no.
Speaker 1: Pope Francis in twenty twenty three or twenty four said oh,
Speaker 1: maybe under certain conditions and then said no again. So
Speaker 1: I feel like a lot of And this reached its
Speaker 1: sort of zenith, of sort of internal looking when we
Speaker 1: had a synod, a gathering of all the world's bishops
Speaker 1: about cinnidality, a synod about the topic of meeting for
Speaker 1: synods to talk about stuff, talking about talking, and I
Speaker 1: think it's very refreshing to hear from the pope, the
Speaker 1: new pope, you know what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 1: You know, we're so busy talking among ourselves that we've
Speaker 1: got these enormous cultural shifts happening, and the Catholic Church
Speaker 1: got to engage with this stuff. So to see a
Speaker 1: pope who is relatively quite young, relatively speaking, or at
Speaker 1: least young enough that he's able to engage with and
Speaker 1: understand this stuff. Okay, the last two popes we elected God,
Speaker 1: you know, God bless Pope Francis, got blessed Pope Benedict.
Speaker 1: But Pope Francis was seventy seven when he was elect
Speaker 1: Pope Benedict was seventy eight when he was elected. Much
Speaker 1: most of their respective papacies, they were in their eighties.
Speaker 1: To have a relatively young pope who understands these shifting
Speaker 1: tides of technology, you know, the first pope to have
Speaker 1: had a Twitter account, I think is actually really important
Speaker 1: and kind of refreshing. So I'm very hopeful about this
Speaker 1: idea that you know, we have. We've got a lot
Speaker 1: of this internal stuff figured out as a Catholic Church.
Speaker 1: We should have confidence that the wisdom we have developed
Speaker 1: about human nature, the wisdom we have come to learn
Speaker 1: over you know, two millennia of reflecting on the Gospels
Speaker 1: about human nature, about human dignity, about you know, how
Speaker 1: labor and capitals should interact with each other, about technology
Speaker 1: and technological developments and the ways in which it offsets
Speaker 1: labor and human dignity and all of those impacts. For
Speaker 1: the Pope to have that kind of confidence and say,
Speaker 1: all right, let's look outward and yeah, we can still
Speaker 1: meet in synods to discuss stuff, but maybe let's take
Speaker 1: you know, as as Cardinal Cardinal Chomale said, talk so
Speaker 1: that this Chilean cardinal who's talking about Pope France's wanting
Speaker 1: to do this. Cardinal Chomale, this is him sort of
Speaker 1: secondhand reporting what the Pope said so don't take it
Speaker 1: for the gospel. He says, the church can contribute through
Speaker 1: its moral authority and also its academic strength. Yeah, the
Speaker 1: Catholic Church has got more brilliant academics at more universities
Speaker 1: who have thought deeply about this stuff, meditated about this
Speaker 1: stuff from the perspectives of law and economics and bioethics
Speaker 1: and so many perspectives. And for the pope to say, yeah,
Speaker 1: let's take all of that, let's take all of the
Speaker 1: wisdom I can, and let's address this stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: I can't. I'm so impressed by it. And I really
Speaker 1: hope that Pope Leo's got the time and the ability
Speaker 1: to really seriously address this stuff. He seems like a sharp,
Speaker 1: a very intelligent man. And I gotta say, I'm I'm
Speaker 1: you know, I'm really hopeful about this papacy and you know,
Speaker 1: he this this man could be pope for the next
Speaker 1: twenty years. And I'm really liking all the initial signs
Speaker 1: of what I see, or very much most of them.
Speaker 1: So I'm I'm superre excited about all of this. When
Speaker 1: we return. What are some of these issues where AI
Speaker 1: is impacting justice, labor, ethics, bioethics, et cetera. That's next
Speaker 1: on The John Girardi Show. But Leo says he wants
Speaker 1: to have the church engage with discuss teach about what
Speaker 1: he's sort of being called the next Industrial Revolution AI,
Speaker 1: new technologies that could be replacing human work, and I
Speaker 1: want to talk about what some of those challenges are,
Speaker 1: what some of those challenges could be. I've seen this
Speaker 1: sort of on a very practical level. My sister is
Speaker 1: an animator for Disney. She's she's a computer engineer, she's
Speaker 1: a computer scientist and animator for Disney. So she's sort
Speaker 1: of at the level of for several Disney movies that
Speaker 1: she's worked on. If you look up Christine Gerardi, you
Speaker 1: can see she's in the credits for Frozen Too and
Speaker 1: Canto and a bunch of other Disney animation not Pixar,
Speaker 1: but Disney animation films that have been released the last
Speaker 1: several years. One of the things she sort of told
Speaker 1: me is that the union she's a member of is
Speaker 1: incredibly concerned in its negotiations with Disney over AI. And
Speaker 1: I remembered her talking to me about it a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago, and I was like, Eh, you know,
Speaker 1: how bad, how bad can it be? You know? And
Speaker 1: now I realize, oh, yeah, that's bad, because I think
Speaker 1: a lot of what AI can be used for is
Speaker 1: very simply to replace jobs, the jobs that engineers and
Speaker 1: animators have and coder you know, doing computer coding, where
Speaker 1: a lot of that stuff seems like the kind of
Speaker 1: thing that you can set artificial intelligence to do. Mean,
Speaker 1: we're already starting to see AI generated video. There's starting
Speaker 1: to be AI animation generated commercials now that you're starting
Speaker 1: to see. I mean, they're kind of painfully obvious. The
Speaker 1: AI is not very good yet, but it's getting there,
Speaker 1: and we're only kind of starting to see the level
Speaker 1: of disruption that AI can have within then. As much
Speaker 1: as I hate the word disruption everyone it's such a
Speaker 1: LinkedIn word, Oh I'm a disruptor, disrupting the kind of
Speaker 1: oh it's a disruptor breakthrough anyway, the kinds of disruption
Speaker 1: that AI can have within the labor market, the ways
Speaker 1: in which artificial intelligence can replace human beings. And this
Speaker 1: is why I'm excited that the Pope's can write about it,
Speaker 1: because I think every country, certainly every country in the West,
Speaker 1: is going to struggle with this. Are we going to
Speaker 1: allow AI to lay off a ton of people. We
Speaker 1: put limits on the kinds of things that AI can do.
Speaker 1: How does automation, you know, automation that is replacing human
Speaker 1: jobs with those human beings got to do something? You know,
Speaker 1: do we say yeah, second up, buttercup? Or you know,
Speaker 1: how do we deal with these things? This is not
Speaker 1: the first time that the Catholic Church has dealt with
Speaker 1: the problem of an industrial revolution where technology is replacing
Speaker 1: human beings and human labor, and the question of how
Speaker 1: do we justly and fairly treat human beings and human labor.
Speaker 1: Now there are other and in some ways more sinister,
Speaker 1: even more even more sinister. I'd say, developments with AI
Speaker 1: that I hope the Pope is willing to touch upon
Speaker 1: because it has to do with bioethics. There's a story
Speaker 1: from the New York Times from I believe this was
Speaker 1: this was a year ago April twenty second, twenty two,
Speaker 1: twenty four. Generative AI arrives in the gene editing world
Speaker 1: of crisper CEERIPR, much as chat GPT generates poetry. A
Speaker 1: new AI system devises blueprints for microscopic mechanisms that can
Speaker 1: edit your DNA Generative AI technologies can write poetry and
Speaker 1: computer program This is an article by Kaid Mets from
Speaker 1: the New York Times. Generative AI technologies can write poetry
Speaker 1: and computer programs, or create images of Teddy Bears and
Speaker 1: videos of cartoon characters that look like something from a
Speaker 1: Hollywood movie. Now, new AI technology is generating blueprints for
Speaker 1: microscopic biological mechanisms that can edit your DNA, pointing to
Speaker 1: a future when scientists can battle illnesses and diseases with
Speaker 1: even greater precision and speed than they can today. Now,
Speaker 1: crisper technology is already here, crisper methods or mechanisms to
Speaker 1: sort of alter genes, but now they're going to combine
Speaker 1: that with artificial intelligence. The hope is that the technology
Speaker 1: will eventually produce gene editors that are more nimble and
Speaker 1: more powerful than those that have been honed over billions
Speaker 1: of years of evolution. Do you begin to say, I
Speaker 1: don't think most, including myself talking here, I'm not saying
Speaker 1: I understand it all. Probably most of you don't understand
Speaker 1: it all either, the kinds of moral nightmares that this
Speaker 1: can produce, especially in combination with I'll say it, a
Speaker 1: growing acceptance of IBF. If you're going to be creating
Speaker 1: large numbers of human being in glass in vitro, and
Speaker 1: you have the technology to edit the genes of this
Speaker 1: large number of human beings, then as a way of
Speaker 1: selecting out the best ones, are we approaching? Especially you know,
Speaker 1: there are some countries like Spain where over I think
Speaker 1: it's eleven percent. I forget if it was eleven percent
Speaker 1: or fourteen percent. Over ten percent of children in Spain
Speaker 1: are conceived via IVF. IVF doctors who do IVF. There
Speaker 1: are some of them who talk about the idea that
Speaker 1: a generation or two from now, IVF is going to
Speaker 1: be the only way that human beings are created, that
Speaker 1: sex will just be for fun and will not have
Speaker 1: anything to do with creating babies. Now, I think this
Speaker 1: is a moral enormity. I have, you know, on this
Speaker 1: show long been you know again, I'm not I recognize
Speaker 1: there are probably many people listening to this who have
Speaker 1: conceived children through IVF. I would say, though, that there
Speaker 1: are serious ethical problems with the practice of IVF. I
Speaker 1: think it results in the creation of far more embryos
Speaker 1: than can ever actually come to term as babies. The
Speaker 1: wastage of embryos is I think very serious and frankly,
Speaker 1: I also think though, that the create you know, and
Speaker 1: again this is with full acknowledgment of many parents who
Speaker 1: very deeply long for children, who have this natural desire
Speaker 1: for a child, and who are desperate to find some
Speaker 1: way to make that happen. I don't belittle that desire, however,
Speaker 1: I guess I would just ask how far away from
Speaker 1: natural reproduction can we go? And you're still okay with it?
Speaker 1: Are you at? Are you okay with human cloning? oOoOO? Okay,
Speaker 1: that's more scary, right? Why? Why is why is human
Speaker 1: cloning bad? Why is human cloning bad? Tell me why
Speaker 1: human cloning is bad? Well, it's bad, you think, because
Speaker 1: it's so far away from the natural order of things.
Speaker 1: And I think there's something to be said for the
Speaker 1: creation of human beings outside of the context of marital love,
Speaker 1: outside of the context of love as a gift, if
Speaker 1: you will, not a human being as a product to
Speaker 1: be as as happens today with IVF, where parents will
Speaker 1: select out. I want this embryo, but not this embryo.
Speaker 1: This embria is the best chance of survival. This embryo
Speaker 1: is a boy. I want a boy. This embryo is
Speaker 1: a girl. I want a girl. Now, not everyone who
Speaker 1: uses IVF does that, many do. It's sort of blatantly
Speaker 1: eugenic in many, many, not all cases. And again I'm
Speaker 1: not impugning the motives of any individual person who has
Speaker 1: done IVF, people who don't understand the moral implications involved,
Speaker 1: people who are really just motivated because they want a kid.
Speaker 1: I understand that doesn't change the inherent nature of the thing.
Speaker 1: So introducing AI into that AI being used as a
Speaker 1: tool for gene editing human beings, we're on the cut.
Speaker 1: I think the Pope rightly identifies Leele the fourteenth rightly
Speaker 1: identifies we are on the cusp of what could be
Speaker 1: a Copernican revolution when it comes to AI and what
Speaker 1: its implications can be for mankind. To have a world
Speaker 1: where human beings are being purely created in labs, where
Speaker 1: we human beings are just being discarded, where gene editing
Speaker 1: is taking place with embryos, or you know, early stage
Speaker 1: human organisms as sort of playthings for scientists, or you know,
Speaker 1: you know, well we screwed up with this one, let's
Speaker 1: do another one. The moral implications of all that are
Speaker 1: deeply terrifying. The idea that any human organism is excluded
Speaker 1: from the human family is wrong. Look, it sort of
Speaker 1: startles me how often I will get a Republican leaning
Speaker 1: pro life person who does not like abortion and think
Speaker 1: that killing an embryo in the womb, killing a fetus
Speaker 1: in the womb is wrong, But for in vitro fertilization.
Speaker 1: I guess because they have a friend who does it,
Speaker 1: a neighbor who does it, a cousin who does it,
Speaker 1: who used it, that same kind of embryo being created
Speaker 1: and and definitely thrown into storage or discarded, that they
Speaker 1: cannot understand the wrongness of that or why that would
Speaker 1: be morally problematic. I don't know what it is. I
Speaker 1: don't know if it's just a thing of IVF is
Speaker 1: sort of a thing that's commonplace among upper middle class Americans,
Speaker 1: whereas abortion is less common. But for Americans who are
Speaker 1: sort of lower on socioeconomic scale, abortions more common, therefore
Speaker 1: more accepted. I don't understand the sort of to the
Speaker 1: principle of non contradiction not being followed here. If an
Speaker 1: embryo is a valuable member of the human species, then
Speaker 1: an embryo is a valuable member of the human species.
Speaker 1: You can't say it's okay to destroy one in the
Speaker 1: context of abortion, or it's okay to discard one in
Speaker 1: the context of IVF. And I think I think the
Speaker 1: Pope wanting to engage with this now set the churches,
Speaker 1: you know, plant the church's flag on this stuff right now,
Speaker 1: because this stuff is coming. This stuff is coming down
Speaker 1: the pipeline, the ideas of gene editing and all this stuff.
Speaker 1: I really hope the Pope gets the time and the
Speaker 1: ability to write about this, to teach about this, to
Speaker 1: get the best thinkers possible, to apply the wisdom of
Speaker 1: the Gospel to this. I am very I think this
Speaker 1: is such an important thing. It's an audacious project for
Speaker 1: the Pope and a necessary one. When we return my
Speaker 1: favorite punching bag, President Unified. You know they're running commercials
Speaker 1: for presde Unified. Yes, the school district that you compulsorily
Speaker 1: have to send your kid to. Next on the John
Speaker 1: Girardi Show, So my wife and I TV was on.
Speaker 1: I think it was. I think it was on. It
Speaker 1: was on a network show and we might have been
Speaker 1: watching Wheel of Fortune or something, Okay, so Network TV
Speaker 1: and I think no, we'd finished up Jeopardy, That's what
Speaker 1: it was. We're a Jeopardy family, not a Way Wheal family.
Speaker 1: And an ad comes on for of all things, Fresne
Speaker 1: Unified School District, and I immediately say to my wife,
Speaker 1: what the heck is Fresnew Unified doing running television ads?
Speaker 1: If you live in the district and your kid has
Speaker 1: to go to school, what do they need to advertise for?
Speaker 1: And Holly, He's like, well, it's for preschool. You know,
Speaker 1: they don't compulsorily have to send their kid to preschool.
Speaker 1: It probably makes the money. Like, oh, okay, well maybe lame,
Speaker 1: but okay. And then in the picture, my wife took
Speaker 1: us a picture on her phone of the TV ad
Speaker 1: on our TV. It's sign your cut up for TK
Speaker 1: for preschool kindergarten with the Fresdent Unified School District. And
Speaker 1: it's got a child looking at a laptop screen or
Speaker 1: is that an iPad screen or a laptop screen, just
Speaker 1: staring at it. Let me just a word of advice
Speaker 1: for Fresdent Unified. Having kids stare at screens is not
Speaker 1: helpful for learning books. Have you heard of him? They're
Speaker 1: bound with like they're made out of paper, cardboard, for
Speaker 1: the covers. You glue, you sew in the pages. You
Speaker 1: you put words on them, and you read, reading from
Speaker 1: a book, not a screen. That'll do it. John Dierardy Show,
Speaker 1: See you next time on Power Talk