MAGNIFICA HUMANITAS IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: HUMAN DIGNITY, COLONIALITY OF KNOWLEDGE, INTERCULTURALITY, AND PLURALITY OF KNOWLEDGES

Abstract

This article analyzes Pope Leo XIV's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas on safeguarding the human person in the age of artificial intelligence, connecting it with Benedict XVI's reflections on technology and integral human development and, above all, with Latin American debates on coloniality of power and knowledge, critical interculturality and epistemic plurality. The study adopts a qualitative, bibliographical and documentary approach grounded in the encyclical, Caritas in veritate, and authors such as Aníbal Quijano, Catherine Walsh and Gersem Baniwa, as well as studies on data colonialism and AI ethics. It argues that AI systems do not merely process information: they select, rank and make certain forms of knowledge visible, potentially reproducing historical asymmetries when languages, cosmologies, territorial knowledge and subordinated epistemologies are absent or distorted in training data. Leo XIV's notion of “epistemic asymmetry” creates a productive dialogue with decolonial thought while preserving the differences between their theoretical foundations. The article also addresses data colonialism, informational sovereignty, intercultural education, Indigenous knowledge, the humanities and ethical responsibility. It concludes that AI oriented toward the common good must be technically plural, socially participatory and epistemically open, recognizing peoples and communities not as passive sources of data but as subjects of knowledge, decision and rights.