In the recent Pope Leo's Magnifica humanitas, emphasis was laid on an appeal where AI must serve humanity not concentrate power. While AI in itself is not evil, it can become a tool of control and domination.
This feature examines the future of AI in its off the screen manifestations; in other words AI taking on "a body", replacing almost everything that is human (labour, judgement and authority).

Liberation technology or subtle enslavement

The world seems to be moving in the direction where the future of work, wars, and even humanity itself is not going to be decided in boardrooms or battlefields - but in the rise of machines that think, act, and rule without the need of humans.

Hollywood seems to be always one step ahead of the present reality in its depiction of science fiction and the future of planet earth. What we are witnessing now is not science fiction any more; it is happening at this very moment and it may change everything that we thought of as being the norm; safety, jobs, and power.

We need to discover what the implications of all this mean to life, faith and the future before it is too late.

No longer a screen matter

What people conclude about AI may sound fatalistic and dramatic but it is worth examining if the greatest threat to humanity is in fact not nuclear weapons, pandemics, or even climate change, but something more subtle, far more seductive, and far more powerful - manifested artificial intelligence.

AI is stepping out of the screen and into the real world. AI that sees, hears, touches, learns, decides, and acts - without human intervention. The moment when AI is no longer confined to our phones, chatbots, or algorithms is closer than we think.

A wold ruled by machines

A time will come when a robot can mow your lawn, clean your house, drive your car, cook your food, and diagnose your illness - better, faster, cheaper, and 24/7.

The robot does not need a salary, vacation, insurance or pension. From a purely economic standpoint, the choice becomes obvious. Why hire humans when machines never get tired, sick, emotional, or slow?

No longer a matter of speculation

Millions of jobs are already being displaced. Not just in factories - but in offices, hospitals, schools, finance, customer service, programming, even creative fields. AI is now replacing human roles faster than industrial robots ever did.

We were told technology would free us. Instead, it may be phasing us out.

The unsettling part

The next frontier isn't just smart software - it's geometric AI. Machines that understand space, movement, physical reality. Robots that can navigate the world like humans do... but better.

• Bipedal robots;
• Autonomous systems; and
• Self-learning machines. A robot could soon be capable of performing virtually any job that a human can - not just physical or intellectual work, but any form of labour.

At that point, the question stops being "What will humans do for work?" and becomes something far more existential.

An automated war

Nations are already integrating AI into military operations; Autonomous drones, Algorithm-driven targeting systems, Unmanned ground vehicles - machines making life-and-death decisions in real time.

For the first time in history, war is becoming detached from human conscience where mechanised mass killing takes place (just code, just objectives, just efficiency).

The danger of AI is not that machines will become evil, but those who hold power and control them become evil.

In such a scenario, humans will outsource their humanity; their thinking, their responsibility, their morality and their worship. 

What if AI was concentrated in the hands of a future leader who revered power, technology, and military strength - a person who elevated themselves to godlike status and ruled through unimaginable force?

Final thought

We are racing to create intelligence without wisdom, morality and soul. Let us not allow the future of humanity to be decided by code but decided by who we choose to trust.