n my mind’s eye, I could see some Silicon Valley titan dismissively asking, “How much compute does the Pope have?” — just as Stalin once dismissed the Church for having no military divisions and thus lacking the power to make a difference in the direction of history.

The Pope is concerned that “the digital world will follow its own path and we will become pawns, or be brushed aside.” He has gone so far as saying that it is going to be “very difficult to discover the presence of God in AI.”

In a famous last interview in Der Spiegel in 1966, Heidegger declared, “Only God can save us,” because the planetary domination of modern technology had deprived humanity of the wherewithal to change course and rescue itself.