Concerns About AI and Its Impact on Humanity

There is AI, and there is AI. The world uses this term for artificial intelligence. But it can mean other things too. Artificial Incompetence. Avoiding Inconvenience. Always Interested. Always Improving. Artificial insemination. Amazing Impact.

AI is only as good as how it is used. It can never replace the human experience.

This is not the first time the world has faced the scary possibilities of AI. Before artificial intelligence, there was artificial insemination. This was seen as a real threat to natural human reproduction. Both technologies raised interesting psychological and cultural questions because they challenged what makes humans unique and how we create life.

Critics of artificial insemination in the 19th and mid-20th centuries said it reduced the sacred act of procreation to a mechanical process. They believed it lacked the “soul” and biological closeness of family creation. Today’s critics of AI say it takes away the special parts of art, writing, empathy, and problem-solving. They argue that if machines can think like humans, human uniqueness is lost.

As expected, religious and conservative groups strongly opposed early artificial reproduction. They often called it “unnatural,” adulterous, or a dangerous challenge to God’s authority. They questioned why humans should play God.

Some people worried about the idea of a child being conceived without a husband’s knowledge or consent. This raised fears about trust in families and concerns about lineage, inheritance, and identity.

Today, worries focus on deepfakes, synthetic media, and algorithmic deception. People cannot trust if an image, voice, text, or news report is made by a human or a machine. There are millions of examples on social media. In this election season in Nigeria, many will struggle to know what to believe. It is not surprising to say that deepfakes will be common during the elections.

On a global level, there are fears that AI agents or harmful malware could cause coordinated cyberattacks on power grids, water treatment plants, and transport systems all at once. This could stop society in its tracks. They could also deliver highly contagious and drug-resistant diseases without safety measures, a scary thought that has inspired many horror movies.

Critics remember that artificial reproduction was the first step toward state-controlled production of “designer babies” and the total commercialization of human life. These fears grew with IVF and cloning, echoing Aldous Huxley’s book, Brave New World.

In that famous book, Huxley imagines a grim future where society is engineered for stability and artificial happiness. Children are no longer born naturally. Instead, they are incubated and conditioned into a strict caste system from the smart Alphas to the manual-labour Epsilons.

To prevent emotional pain, individuality, family, art, and religion have been removed. People are kept calm through mandatory conditioning, casual relationships, and soma, a legal drug that provides quick escape. Can you picture a world where you need mkpuru mmiri (meth) to feel normal?

Warnings about AI often remind us of dystopian sci-fi stories where machines take control of their creators. Could anything be more dangerous than a robot that is smarter than its creator?

Once you start, you can’t tell how it will end. Remember Adolf Hitler’s eugenics program? It aimed to create a “racially pure” Aryan society through forced sterilization of people with disabilities. This led to the secret mass murder of disabled children and adults using lethal injections and gas. These ideas laid the groundwork for the Holocaust and mass genocide.

In the current discussion about AI, Pope Leo XIV is focusing on the ethics and social impact of AI. In his first major letter titled Magnifica Humanitas, released in May 2026, he sets a moral standard for the digital age. He points out the rapid changes from automation are similar to the Industrial Revolution.

He warns against the dangerous mindset that measures a person's worth only by their productivity. He compares the unchecked development of AI to the Tower of Babel, which sought absolute power, contrasting it with the rebuilding of Jerusalem’s walls by Nehemiah.

The world faces a real danger of relying too much on AI for critical thinking and governance. This could leave us unable to understand or manage our own systems if technology fails.

He cautions against leaving battle decisions to machines. He calls for the “disarming” of AI. He notes that automated weapons make it easier to start wars and can quickly get out of human control. The ongoing war in the Middle East shows how fast mass killings can become normal with unfeeling machines. The Pope says algorithms often encourage conflict, create divisions, and spread false information. He warns that uncontrolled automation could displace many workers.

He also criticizes the concentration of tech power in a few hands, saying data and digital tools should be a common good.

He urges global leaders and tech heads to create strict ethical rules and regulations. Instead of seeing technology as evil, he views AI as a way for human creativity that must be guided by “wisdom and charity” to promote peace.

For Islam, AI is allowed when it benefits humanity. But it becomes forbidden or restricted if it leads to deception, harm, or loss of responsibility.

Autonomous drones or nuclear systems could run amok, starting uncontrollable wars. AI in finance could crash markets, draining liquidity and destroying currencies. Widespread use of AI for surveillance and social credit could erase privacy and civil rights, leading to a state like the one in George Orwell’s 1984.

The world is in real danger of depending too much on AI instead of critical thinking and governance. This could leave us unable to run our systems if technology fails.

There is a need for the United Nations to create an AI watchdog, like the International Atomic Energy Agency, to set rules and monitor this new technology before it turns us all into helpless victims. If we don’t control it with regulations, it will eventually outsmart us.

And woe to any land where the master is a robot!