Pope Leo’s ‘Magnifica Humanitas’: AI Must Serve Humanity, Not Concentrate Power
In his first encyclical, Pope Leo XIV targeted the very structure of AI power — warning that AI development is concentrated in a handful of US tech firms, calling for it to be “disarmed,” and framing the issue as one of human dignity rather than just safety. It’s the Vatican’s most significant intervention on technology since, well, ever.
Anthropic’s leadership was present for the launch. Chris Olah said AI “must be guided from outside Big Tech.” The Pope cited Gandalf in arguing that those who wield great power must also recognise its limits.
Why it matters: This isn’t a religious curiosity. The Vatican has a 135-year track record of social teaching on industrial power (Rerum Novarum, 1891) and the environment (Laudato Si’, 2015). This encyclical puts AI governance on that same moral footing.
Anthropic Left 3,000 Unpublished Documents Publicly Accessible
Fortune exclusively reported that Anthropic’s CMS exposed roughly 3,000 unpublished assets — including details of an unreleased model, an invite-only CEO retreat, images and PDFs. The data was accessible to anyone who knew how to query the public-facing CMS system.
A Cambridge cybersecurity researcher found the issue. Anthropic fixed it after notification, blaming “human error in CMS configuration.” The system apparently made all uploaded assets public by default unless explicitly set private.
Why it matters: The safety-first AI lab with 1,300 internal messages showing 1 in 30 conversations may distort users’ grip on reality now has a data security problem to match.
Uber’s President: AI Spending “Harder to Justify”
The biggest enterprise AI adoption story this week isn’t about a breakthrough — it’s about a ceiling. Uber president Andrew Macdonald told the Rapid Response podcast that after rolling Claude Code out to 5,000 engineers and exhausting the annual AI budget in just four months, the company still can’t draw a line between token consumption and consumer value. “That link is not there yet,” he said. CEO Dara Khosrowshahi’s answer: hire fewer people. We published a full deep-dive: Uber Burned Through Its AI Budget in 4 Months.
Intuit Cuts 17% of Staff — “Nothing to Do With AI”
Intuit laid off about 3,000 employees — 17% of its workforce — alongside its Q3 earnings. CEO Sasan Goodarzi insisted the cuts were about “simplifying operations and improving execution,” not AI. But Intuit is simultaneously deepening its AI investments. The timing says what the press release won’t.
Microsoft Puts Accessibility Veteran in Charge of AI Governance
Microsoft has appointed Jenny Lay-Flurrie, its longtime Chief Accessibility Officer, to lead the Trusted Technology Group — the division responsible for AI governance and responsible AI. It’s a deliberate signal: the person who spent years making Microsoft products work for people with disabilities now oversees making AI safe for everyone. Whether it’s substance or optics depends on how much authority the role actually has.
Spotify Hires Stability AI’s Audio Lead for ‘Artist-First AI’
Julian Parker, a senior researcher behind Stability AI’s Stable Audio, has joined Spotify’s “artist-first AI” team — just days after Spotify’s landmark UMG remix deal. The hire signals Spotify is serious about AI-generated music tools that involve artists rather than replace them. Whether that distinction holds in practice is another question.
California Moves on AI Layoff Legislation
California is pushing legislation to address the impact of AI-driven layoffs, as Silicon Valley job cuts exceed 114,000 so far in 2026. The bill would require companies to disclose when AI substitution is a factor in workforce reductions — a transparency measure that tech companies are already pushing back on.
🔍 THE BOTTOM LINE
Two stories this week that shouldn’t be happening in the same news cycle: the Pope is calling for AI to be “disarmed” on moral grounds, while Anthropic — the safety-first lab on stage with him — left 3,000 internal documents open by default. The gap between AI governance aspirations and operational reality has never been wider. Meanwhile, the enterprise AI ROI question went mainstream — when Uber says the value link isn’t there, the AI spending bubble just got a reality check.