I'm back from a great vacation and side-quest experience in Asia, where one can always find brilliant human interactions even with imperfect linguistic competence. For example, having a haircut at a random salon in Taipei where the little nephew of the stylist offered fashion advice on the spot, gravely shaking his head at short haircuts for ladies, and anyway why didn't I dye it purple? Or a photoshoot on a bamboo raft on the Li river in the Zhuang autonomous region, with full-on Chinese style makeup in local costume for a solid two hours in the boiling sun with a patient photog.
While I was on vacation, Pope Leo published something important. It turns out, the "Woke Pope" is participating in an ever-more-woke religious discourse straight outta the Vatican, and as a borderline agnostic Protestant, I found it incredibly empowering. His "Magnifica Humanitas" encyclical is the thought leadership core document that many of us have looked for - a work that doesn't land on either the AI-hater or the All-In-AI extreme, but, in the best devout tradition, looks to religious texts for guidance to discover narratives that can guide our steps as we try to build with AI while not wrecking the world. Let's talk about it.
The Encyclical
This document is long and wide-ranging. It's broken into five chapters; the first two discuss the Catholic Church's evolving concept of Social Doctrine, the third talks about how AI is being built and dives into the narratives surrounding this building effort, the fourth discusses concepts of human dignity and freedom within this evolving ecosystem, and the final chapter offers a critique of the current ever-more ferocious culture of war and the aggressive exercise of raw power, citing the need to "disarm" these systems to build a "civilization of love". It's a beautiful vision, and a multimedia experience; there are videos and infographics - this is a Pope who well-understands the internet and the power of imagery.
Risks vs Humane AI
I didn't have it in my 2026 Bingo card to have the Pope exhorting software engineers: "Developers ... bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity. Just as the creator of an artistic or literary work must consider the values it conveys, so developers are called to embed values in their projects with due seriousness: with transparency, responsibility toward affected communities and careful attention to ensuring that what is being cultivated is a genuine good."
Parables and Exemplars
One motif that stood out to me is the Pope's insistence that, as part of the magnificence of humanity, every person is of value. But how can that value be measured? Rather than valuing the human by their output, society is better served by valuing the dignity of work itself. Stemming from the crisis of work triggered by the industrial revolution, the Church's social doctrine is evolving to cover a similar crisis around ensuring that everyone is afforded the ability to contribute to the social good via their work. "The human person is an end, not a means" flies directly in the face of much of the toxic corporate culture prevailing today.
The focus on recentering human beings within this high-tech moment has led some folks to closely examine the narratives presented in the document. One thing that longstanding religious traditions do well is use stories and parables to teach underlying values. The Pope leans on the well-known story of the Tower of Babel and the less well-known story of Nehemiah's rebuilding of Jerusalem to show 'exemplars'. Rather than creating a grandiose, yet dehumanizing tower where communication breaks down, we are encouraged to look at the way Nehemiah organized the collaborative rebuilding of a city for the greater good. This is a model of building software - AI or other - that benefits the many, rather than just a few oligarchs.
Two Cities, Two Models
One interesting aspect of this encyclical is the use of inclusive language and the special attention paid to those left behind by technological advances. The Pope takes care to address "men and women of goodwill" - an improvement on similar writing of the past, and notes that "there is still a long way to go to ensure that the rights of a great many, namely women, are equally and genuinely guaranteed throughout the world." But there is little acknowledgement about the specific ways that women have backslid in recent years or what specifically we should do to ensure equity.
I'll be honest here. I'm really worried about how people who identify as women are showing up in this new world. Starting in the mid 2010s, we worked at the grass roots to build community, launch initiatives, press companies for diversity programming, and create inclusive education. Today I'm seeing women-focused grass-roots orgs shut down or sucked into a corporation completely divorced from their grass-roots origin (WWC, I'm looking at you). In today's climate of oligarchy, technocracy, bare-knuckled corporate competition, and the dominance of silicon valley in AI discourse, I'm hard pressed to name 20+ visible female leaders who are influencing how AI is being built from an engineering standpoint. We all saw that awful photo of the Trump/Xi summit, with ZERO women at the table. This image says 1000 words. It's time to muscle back in to make sure we have a seat at the table so that we can build the kind of AI reality the Pope is envisioning.
We are in fact entering a perfect storm of underrepresentation, gaps in perception, and disproportional impact of AI on women's careers. According to Forbes, Axios, and panels at Davos, growth is slow, gaps remain large, and women are especially hard-hit by AI disruption.
- Women in AI engineering and research: slowly increasing but still underrepresented
- Women in AI leadership: Increasing, but leadership gap remains large
- Women using GenAI at work: Lower adoption than men
- Women receiving recognition for AI use: Lower than men, even when usage is similar
- Jobs most exposed to AI disruption: Disproportionately female-dominated occupations
So what are we going to do to close this gender gap?
A New City
Pope Leo leans on a comparison between two polar opposite models of building. But I propose that there's a third model that was described in the late Middle Ages by one of the first feminist writers in the West: Christine de Pizan, who wrote a rebuttal to the current fashionable narrative of her times, the Roman de la Rose. Rejecting this misogynistic (albeit wildly popular) book, she wrote her own vision of a new city: The City of Ladies.
Christine listens, learns, and builds
In Christine's vision, completed around 1405, the goddesses Reason, Rectitude and Justice all confer with the author to construct a new city populated by the virtuous women of history. Armed with the 'spade of intelligence' Christine sets to work to build the city, telling the stories of righteous women while building the walls, houses, and appointing a queen to rule them all.
These positive examplars of women of noble character continue the biblical tradition of providing instructive stories - and we can use this late medieval vision to provide a roadmap into something that I'm proud to launch as of today: a new nonprofit initiative that I'm calling Her AI Studio.
As an experienced nonprofit and educational founder (Wellesley Chinese Language School Co-Founder, Vue Vixens, Inc. Founder and CEO, Front-End Foxes School Founder and CEO, Beanpot Studio CEO) I know what it takes to launch nonprofits and keep them going through funding and mission challenges (hello COVID). So what will we build, exactly?
I'm inspired with a conversation with my daughter about the new interest in Cyber decks that's causing a renewed grass roots community to build hardware projects. I want this nonprofit organization to go global, opening cohorts for high-school aged students who identify as women mentored by college-aged students (and older) who will get girls building, fast. Staying on device, offline, and local, we will learn about protecting data, building ethically with locally-hosted models, and conserving our energy. We will focus on a four-beat cadence:
- Beginners: Discover - learn about AI by discovering the women who influenced and built the field, while building your first locally powered AI app.
- Intermediate: Create - build a local AI project bridging hardware and software focusing on image, text, and voice.
- Advanced: Engineer - build your cyber deck with your own kit, learning to program with AI and using AI to program.
- Capstone: Showcase your project in international celebrations - you're now ready to pay it forward!
What are we looking for?
- Interest - do you want to mentor? would you like to join me in crafting curriculum? are you a teacher curious about the initiative, or a student who'd like to potentially join? Sign the interest form at heraistudio.org.
- Funding - we can't go it alone. Each student kit is going to cost about $250 - we are looking for sponsors. Please reach out!
- Expertise - I've been working with hardware for years but chatting with you helps me stay up to date. I'd love to chat and learn your perspective on building with this model.
Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/jRkR2t4UpC and let's chat.
Get in, losers, we're gonna build a nonprofit
