Socrates, Pope Leo XIV, and the Luddites' Lesson: Three Thousand Years of Technological Fears

Nottinghamshire, England, 1811. In the darkness of a March night, a group of textile workers bursts into a factory armed with hammers and axes. Their goal isn't money: they want to destroy the mechanical looms that are stealing their jobs. They call themselves "Luddites," after Ned Ludd, a weaver who, according to legend (it is historically more probable that the name implies a movement), had first smashed an industrial machine with a hammer. Their battle was destined for failure. Within a few years, government repression wiped out the movement: some ended up on the gallows, others deported to Australia. But the term "Luddism" survived, becoming synonymous with blind and irrational opposition to technological progress. Yet, not all fears stem from ignorance or the fear of change. Sometimes, the deepest concerns come precisely from great thinkers or ruling classes. And when we look back over the centuries, we discover a surprising common thread that unites some of humanity's most relevant figures. In 5th century B.C. Athens, Socrates, the philosopher who chose to die rather than renounce his ideas, harbored a deep distrust towards what was then a revolutionary technology: writing. In the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus, through the myth of the Egyptian inventor Theuth, Socrates expressed a fear that sounds strangely familiar: writing would weaken human memory, replacing authentic knowledge with an external and inert surrogate. Vatican City, 2025. Pope Leo XIV, a mathematician by training, issues a warning: artificial intelligence risks "depersonalizing man," reducing him to "simple algorithmic functions." Neither Socrates nor Pope Leo XIV are Luddites in the classic sense of the term. They do not call for the destruction of the technologies that concern them, nor do they propose a nostalgic return to the past. Instead, they offer something much more valuable: a critical reflection on the risks that every great innovation carries.

Socrates and the Danger of "External Memory"

For the Athenian philosopher, writing represented an existential threat to the very way of thinking. Like a painting that seems alive but cannot answer questions, he argued, the written word offers only "the appearance of life" without generating true knowledge. Socrates saw in writing a dangerous surrogate for living dialogue. Those who rely too much on texts, he warned, risk becoming "stuffed with opinions" instead of authentic knowledge. True science must be written "in the soul," through mnemonic effort and dialectics, not entrusted to external supports that make the mind lazy. In a culture still predominantly oral, where memorization and the direct transmission of knowledge were the foundations of education, the advent of writing must have seemed truly revolutionary. And potentially dangerous.

Pope Leo XIV and the Algorithm that Is Not Human

Twenty-five centuries later, the words of Pope Leo XIV resonate with surprising Socratic echoes. The Pontiff has warned about the risks of a technology that, "if not governed ethically, risks depersonalizing man." Just as Socrates feared that writing would replace living memory with an "external memory," Pope Leo XIV warns that artificial intelligence can replace human discernment with a static "algorithmic memory," devoid of creativity and authentic understanding. "The person is not an algorithm," the Pope declared, emphasizing that "personal and relational life is at a higher level of value than automatic logics." The risk, according to the Pontiff, is that AI will produce a modern form of alienation, replacing "the authentic voice with artificial simulacra" and interrupting "the chain of real dialogue and responsibility." One must not entrust to machines, he warns, "the depth of social relationships, creative memory, and moral discernment."

When Fears Prove Excessive (But Not Useless)

History has shown us that Socrates, however brilliant, was wrong at least in part. Writing did not destroy the human capacity for critical thinking, nor did it make memory superfluous. On the contrary, it freed the mind from repetitive mnemonic tasks, allowing it to dedicate itself to higher forms of intellectual processing. We have learned to integrate biological memory and "external memory," developing educational systems that make writing an instrument of liberation rather than impoverishment. The Socratic fear proved excessive, but not useless: it helped keep attention focused on the central role of dialogue and critical thinking in education.

Lessons for the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Just as Socrates was not a Luddite but a farsighted thinker, Pope Leo XIV does not ask us to renounce artificial intelligence, but to govern it. The Pontiff's concerns might prove, in a few decades, partially excessive like those of Socrates. But this does not make them any less precious: they remind us that every great technological leap requires a deep reflection on its effects on the human condition. The common thread that unites the philosopher of ancient Athens to the Pope teaches us that true wisdom lies neither in rejecting innovation a priori, nor in accepting it uncritically. It lies in asking the right questions: how can we ensure that technology remains at the service of humanity, and not the other way around? Ned Ludd and his followers destroyed machines with hammers, driven by desperation and fear. Socrates and Pope Leo XIV offer us more sophisticated tools: methodical doubt, ethical reflection, the ability to imagine alternative futures. Not hammers to destroy, but keys to open doors towards a more human progress.

A Personal Reflection

I think that God, if he exists, knows well what he is doing: I wouldn't worry too much about what man is or is not, because that is more His business than ours. What we must instead ensure is that a democratic spirit is maintained: no concentration of power and maximum transparency on the base architectures and training processes. I believe that the ontological theme of man cannot be altered by whether or not a technology is used, because ontology precedes – and does not follow – its applications. If God exists, He has already fixed this ontology, which therefore cannot be questioned, at least in an axiomatic sense.

Essential Bibliography

Plato, Phaedrus (circa 370 B.C.) Classic text where Socrates expresses his reservations about writing through the myth of Theuth. Fundamental for understanding the philosophical critique of technologies that "externalize" human capabilities.

Pope Leo XIII, Rerum Novarum, Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1891 The encyclical that first addressed the social questions of the industrial revolution and which inspires the name of Pope Leo XIV. A model of ethical reflection on technological and economic changes.

E.P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class, London, Victor Gollancz, 1963 (Italian translation: Rivolte nella storia. La formazione della classe operaia inglese, Milan, Il Saggiatore, 1969) A fundamental work for understanding the Luddite movement in the social context of the time, beyond the simplifications that reduce it to "irrational fear" of progress.

Pope Francis, Laudato si’. Encyclical Letter on Care for Our Common Home, Vatican City, Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2015 Encyclical that dedicates ample space to the critique of the "technocratic paradigm" and the need for integral ecology. Prefigures many themes taken up by Pope Leo XIV on AI.

Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, New York, PublicAffairs, 2019 (Italian translation: Il capitalismo della sorveglianza, Rome, Luiss University Press, 2019) Contemporary analysis of how digital technologies risk transforming human experience into "raw material" for algorithms, a central theme in the concerns of Pope Leo XIV.