SJES ROME

Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world of work on several fronts simultaneously. It alters the conditions of those who work to make it possible, often in invisible and precarious jobs; it changes hiring, organizational, and career advancement processes, where automated decisions can reproduce historical inequalities under the guise of neutrality; it heralds a new labor paradigm in which part of the economic value may grow without a proportional increase in human labor; and it transforms the way we educate professionals who will have to coexist with it, altering both teaching methods and the competencies required of graduates.

The inseparable link between those minerals and artificial intelligence haunts my daily life here. I do not approach this link through the archive, but through the ground I was born and raised on. To tell this history is not to complain about a stranger who wrecked our region; it is to take responsibility for what is happening in my country. And so, reading Pope Leo's new encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas (MH), I begin with the question that has long followed me: When will the majority of Congolese finally benefit from their own immense natural wealth, rather than paying for it with their suffering, and, too often, their lives?

The Industrial Revolution asked whether economic progress could be reconciled with workers' dignity. It also challenged the assumption that economic progress is inherently good. Can greater productivity alone be called progress if it comes at the expense of human dignity, social cohesion, or the natural world? More than a century later, artificial intelligence poses a different but equally profound challenge. Machines are no longer transforming only how we produce goods; they are beginning to transform how we think, decide, create, and even relate to one another. The question before us is therefore not merely technological. It is anthropological.

There are times when remaining silent ceases to be prudent and begins to look too much like indifference. I sincerely believe we are going through one of those times. The events unfolding around Ceuta—the images of people attempting to reach Spanish territory by sea or by swimming, the lives lost, and, above all, the narratives that immediately began to take shape around these events—should compel us to engage in a much deeper reflection than what is allowed by hasty headlines, political slogans, or viral social media posts.

Artificial intelligence is often presented as an immaterial technology, yet it rests on a very concrete infrastructure: devices, data centers, and networks whose manufacture requires minerals such as tin, gold, cobalt, lithium, and copper. For this reason, reading AI from the perspective of socio-environmental justice means looking toward the territories where its supply chains begin: communities marked by conflict, precarious economies, ecological damage, and violations of human rights.

The Jesuits for Climate Justice Campaign (JCJC) presents this updated Statement for COP31, informed the outcomes of the Bonn Climate Conference (SB64) in June, and the First Conference on the Transition Beyond Fossil Fuels in Santa Marta, Colombia in April. As people of faith, we reaffirm our urgent responsibility to protect our common home and defend climate justice.

From July 21 to 26, Fr. Roberto Jaramillo, SJ, Director of the Social Justice and Ecology Secretariat (SJES) of the General Curia of the Society of Jesus, visited the Mexican Province to gain firsthand knowledge of the work carried out by its social apostolate and to strengthen dialogue around the Society's social mission.

SJES, South Asia organised a three-day convention under the theme our role in nation building in Kodaikanal, Madurai province. A total number 115 delegates participated including Jesuits and the lay collaborators from 19 provinces. The convention was inaugurated by Mr. Sachitanantham, member of Parliament representing the local constituency. He called for a collective response to burning issues of the country. The president of the conference appreciated the committed service of the Jesuits in social action and invited them to be strategic in their response.

Magnifica Humanitas offers us — especially those of us who work in education from a tradition of faith and commitment to justice — a profoundly enriching challenge. It calls us to govern AI with wisdom: to build the structures that protect the dignity of the most vulnerable; to form persons capable of thought and decision; and to ensure that the organization of our own institutions is coherent with what we teach.

In Europe today, a refugee is identified first by a biometric system, before the perilous journey they endured to flee danger is heard. At the United States border, an asylum seeker may be told to seek protection through a phone application before a human being listens to how their rights were violated by violence and persecution that brought them there.