The Pope’s AI warning, and how humanity can thrive in this new world

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Inez Jabalpurwala is president and chief executive of the Public Policy Forum

Andrew Nevin is the inaugural director of Brainomics Venture at the Center for BrainHealth.

Pope Leo wrote in his encyclical on artificial intelligence this week, “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs.”

In the encyclical, among the most authoritative teaching documents by a pontiff, Pope Leo called for more AI regulation and urged developers to work for the common good.

The Pope’s stark warning reflects a growing backlash against AI.

At several commencement addresses this spring, new graduates booed mentions of such technology. As with climate change, debt and affordability, AI has become something that a good number of young people – those who will be most affected by it – now fear and ridicule.

Those boos reflect a real worry that human skills and the dignity of work will no longer matter in the near future. AI will offer positive productivity gains, to be sure. But will Canadians still flourish in the workplaces of the future?

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While the big conversations about AI centre on the need for safety guardrails, an equally urgent consideration is how to grow an AI-fuelled economy in such a way that it still benefits people, and not just raw numbers on gross domestic product or the handful of tech leaders behind AI.

After all, what’s the point of AI if it is not to make people’s lives better in some way?

If you’re a young person or parent you’ve almost certainly confronted the big question: What skills will I need to get a job in the future? One clear answer is trade skills, which will be in high demand as Canada pursues its major project-building ambitions. Less obvious are the soft skills that are human advantages in an AI world: judgement, empathy, resilience, managing stress, getting along with people, problem-solving.

These skills and our overall brain health are vital assets, referred to as brain capital. Originally introduced by two Canadians – former finance minister Michael H. Wilson and a business executive, Bill Wilkerson – the concept of investing in brain health, just as one might invest in technology or new machinery, will be central to our ability to thrive as a healthy, happy society in the age of AI.

Mr. Wilson and Mr. Wilkerson’s work highlighted (long before AI came along) that improving brain health in workplaces leads to productivity gains. We know that the stronger the brain capital of a nation is, the stronger its individual performance and overall economic performance.

Today, the economics and the science are both encouraging. Forty years ago, the brain was thought to be a fixed object. It turns out this belief is not correct. The brain is the most modifiable part of the body. While there are many things that influence your brain health and performance (diet, exercise, sleep, the arts), the biggest impact on the brain comes from the way in which you use it.

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The brain can grow and adapt (neuroplasticity) or atrophy if one were to, say, offload to ChatGPT your thinking and reasoning.

Research shows that brain health and performance can improve for everyone in all populations. And, in the U.S. at least, school boards, colleges, corporations and the military increasingly understand that brain health is a high-return investment.

Canada needs to have the policies in place to make sure these skills – and overall brain health – are developed, from early education through to workplaces. Brain capital should be central to any AI-strategy.

AI promises extraordinary productivity gains, but so does investment in brain capital. Ironically, countries that rank high in flourishing surveys, which measure metrics such as life satisfaction and mental health, do not necessarily score high in GDP (Canada is not yet measured in these surveys). Focusing on GDP as the sole key measure of economic health could present a big blind spot in the AI era.

In Canada, some 60 per cent of jobs are already being transformed by AI. So it’s no surprise that some grads are jeering this uncertain future and a technology they’re simultaneously being asked to embrace in their work and avoid using in their studies. It’s no surprise either that the Pope, the head of the world’s oldest institution, is sounding the alarm.

There are no easy answers given all the unknowns around AI’s impact, but we do know that education systems and workplaces will need to adapt. Canada will need a policy framework that gives Canadians the skills – technological and brain skills – they will need to thrive. That will create a future we can all cheer for.