When the Vatican recently released a new encyclical addressing the rapid rise of artificial intelligence, few expected it to cross paths with one of the most beloved literary universes of the twentieth century. Yet there it was: a direct reference to J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. What might have seemed like an odd literary flourish at first glance quickly revealed itself as a pointed cultural commentary, one that inadvertently but effectively called out the very mindset driving Silicon Valley’s current AI gold rush.
When the Vatican Meets Middle-earth
At first glance, pairing the Holy Father with hobbits, wizards, and ancient rings might feel like a marketing stunt. But the reference is deeply intentional. Tolkien’s work has always been a meditation on power, technology, and the human condition. In his letters and essays, the author frequently warned against the unchecked pursuit of industrial efficiency and the dehumanizing effects of treating tools as masters. By weaving these themes into a formal document about artificial intelligence, the Pope is not just making a literary nod. He is drawing a direct line between Tolkien’s warnings about the industrialization of the Shire and today’s race to deploy autonomous systems at scale.
What the Reference Actually Means
Tolkien’s Middle-earth is built on a clear moral architecture. Technology in his world is rarely neutral. The forges of Moria, the machinery of Isengard, and the One Ring itself all represent systems that promise power but demand submission. They reward ambition while eroding community, craftsmanship, and individual freedom. The encyclical taps into this exact framework when discussing AI. Rather than framing artificial intelligence as a purely technical or economic challenge, the document treats it as a spiritual and ethical one. It asks whether we are building tools that serve human dignity, or whether we are creating systems that gradually reshape us in their own image.
Silicon Valley’s Favorite Fantasy (And Why It Gets It Wrong)
Here is where the unintentional trolling begins. For years, tech leaders have drawn inspiration from The Lord of the Rings, but they have consistently misread its core message. In boardrooms and keynote speeches, the One Ring is often treated as a metaphor for artificial general intelligence or monopoly control. The narrative becomes one of acquisition, scaling, and dominance. The assumption is that whoever controls the ring wins, and that the path to utopia lies in building the most powerful system possible.
Tolkien never wrote a story about winning. He wrote a story about letting go. The central conflict of the trilogy is not about forging a better weapon or outsmarting the enemy. It is about recognizing that some forms of power are inherently corrosive and must be destroyed, not optimized. When tech billionaires treat AI as a new kind of ring to be wielded, they are missing the author’s entire point. The encyclical’s reference acts as a quiet but firm correction: technology that isolates, surveils, or replaces human judgment is not progress. It is a slow march toward Mordor.
Why This Matters for the Future of Technology
The intersection of faith, literature, and artificial intelligence highlights a growing cultural divide. On one side, you have developers and investors measuring success through compute capacity, user engagement, and market share. On the other, you have ethicists, theologians, and everyday citizens asking whether these systems are making life more meaningful or more transactional. The Pope’s encyclical bridges that gap by grounding AI policy in timeless questions about stewardship, responsibility, and the limits of human ambition.
Practical implications are already emerging. Regulatory bodies are beginning to demand transparency in model training, restrictions on autonomous decision-making, and safeguards against manipulative design. Meanwhile, independent developers and smaller research groups are pushing for open, auditable systems that prioritize human oversight over black-box efficiency. The Tolkien reference reminds us that these are not just technical preferences. They are value choices.
Conclusion
The Holy Father’s encyclical may have been written in the language of doctrine, but its message speaks directly to anyone watching the AI landscape unfold. By invoking Tolkien, it challenges the prevailing tech culture to look beyond scale and speed. Artificial intelligence will inevitably reshape how we work, communicate, and create. But whether it elevates human potential or quietly erodes it depends on the values we embed into its design. Sometimes, the most effective critique of modern technology doesn’t come from a server farm or a venture capital pitch. It comes from a thousand-year-old tradition of wisdom, wrapped in a story about a ring that was never meant to be worn.
