At companies including Meta and Microsoft, shareholders have decried the environmental impact of AI data centers, which consume vast amounts of energy and precious water resources, and in turn can emit large amounts of greenhouse gases.
Within creative industries, investors have challenged the leadership at companies like Disney, Netflix, and Warner Bros. to demand transparency about the ways they are using AI and to defend the inimitable human element in storytelling.
Soon, with OpenAI, Anthropic, and Grok all set to enter the public markets, we will be able to exert similar influence over what are now all privately held entities.
These actions by concerned investors not only call out misdeeds but hold fast to an immutable truth: that it is wrong to use technology to kill, harm, or oppress people. Every human being has a right to safe and effective health care and the opportunity to earn a dignified living. The stories we tell each other matter and require the human creative spark.
Investor advocates hail from a range of faith traditions. Some have no formal religious faith. Yet in their informed and tenacious advocacy, all these people echo the calls embedded within Pope Leo’s encyclical and act on its declaration that “it is essential that the use of AI, especially when it touches on public goods and fundamental rights, be guided by clear criteria and effective oversight.”
Encyclicals mark time. A century from now, how will we be remembered for how we met this moment? Will we be seen as having been too timid or shortsighted to prevent a small group of unfathomably wealthy and self-interested people from seizing ever greater control over the human family’s shared destiny?
Or will the years ahead be remembered as a turning point that helped us rebuild our common humanity? Let this be a time when people of good will and diverse talents come together through their own magnificent humanity to build a future that honors our Creator.
Father Séamus Finn, OMI, is a global leader in faith-based and socially responsible investing and a priest of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, a missionary religious congregation.
Sister Susan Francois is the assistant congregation leader and congregation treasurer for the Sisters of St. Joseph of Peace.
