# Holy Smoke: Michael Gove on why the Pope's AI intervention shames our politicians

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-pope-s-ai-intervention-shames-our-politicians
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-pope-s-ai-intervention-shames-our-politicians.md
Podcast: [Best of the Spectator](https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373)
Published: 2026-05-28T10:56:14+00:00
Episode link: https://shows.acast.com/best-of-the-spectator/episodes/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-popes-ai-intervention-sha
Audio file: https://sphinx.acast.com/p/open/s/68358fb5e1abc4be6b0308eb/e/6a181edd029c20a5f6d66b20/media.mp3?tk=eyJ0ayI6ImRlZmF1bHQiLCJhZHMiOnRydWUsInNwb25zIjp0cnVlLCJzdGF0dXMiOiJwdWJsaWMifQ==&sig=TJT173RVjwRVWOkDtqYlpMp56WOMPSfyTVQ1jszBstU
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-pope-s-ai-intervention-shames-our-politicians
Duration seconds: 877

## Resource

The Spectator 's editor Michael Gove ‘was born into a sternly Presbyterian culture’, but – in this week's magazine – is ‘giving thanks to the Pope’ for producing  Magnifica Humanitas , his encyclical about artificial intelligence (AI). AI will be ‘as transformative as the Industrial Revolution’ but decisions ‘about where this technology is going and how it might be deployed are concentrated... in perilously few hands’. Michael joins Damian Thompson on Holy Smoke to explain why the document reveals Pope Leo to be 'intellectually confident and coherent', what the Christian response to AI should be and why he believes Catholic social teaching is 'absolutely essential' in instructing us for how to deal with this next technological revolution. Produced by Patrick Gibbons. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/best-of-the-spectator-45373/episodes/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-pope-s-ai-intervention-shames-our-politicians/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/best-of-the-spectator-45373/holy-smoke-michael-gove-on-why-the-pope-s-ai-intervention-shames-our-politicians.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.