An artificial intelligence (AI) marketplace named Almma AI was launched by a business professor at The Catholic University of America. The marketplace, initiated by Lucas Wall in mid-2023, allows users to upload and sell or offer AI-related products like LLMs, prompts, personas, assistants, agents, and plugins. Almma AI's mission is "AI profits for all," aiming to help individuals monetize their knowledge and ensure broad access to the AI revolution. A key differentiator is the marketplace's commitment to blocking the sale of any product deemed immoral or potentially sinful, aligning with Catholic social teachings.
about 2 months ago
Lucas Wall, a finance professor at The Catholic University of America, launched Almma AI in mid-2023.1
The platform serves as a marketplace for AI products like Large Language Models, prompts, personas, assistants, agents, and plugins.1
Almma AI's mission is "AI profits for all," enabling users worldwide to monetize their knowledge and creations.1
It blocks immoral content, such as artificial romantic chatbots, erotica, or AI for end-of-life consultations that provoke sin.1
The marketplace responds to Pope Francis's 2025 doctrinal note Antiqua et Nova, which calls for AI to serve the common good and human dignity.1
It draws inspiration from Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, emphasizing fair wages and worker dignity amid technological change.1
Unlike other AI marketplaces, Almma ensures broad access to AI benefits, preventing wealth concentration among a few.1
Wall criticizes big AI firms for unethical developments like pornographic content.1
Pope Leo XIV, elected in 2025, chose his name to honor Leo XIII's social teachings amid AI challenges to human dignity and labor.1
He has warned of AI's risks to human connections and workers while highlighting its potential for the common good.1
Wall welcomes Vatican guidance and prays for a new encyclical like Rerum Novarum addressing AI's economic impacts.1
The platform aims to foster innovation meeting morality within the Catholic community.1
Assess Catholic social teaching’s guidance on AI commercialization
Catholic social teaching (CST) provides a robust framework for evaluating the commercialization of artificial intelligence (AI), insisting that technological innovation, including its market-driven development, must always serve the human person and the common good rather than mere economic gain. Rooted in principles like human dignity, solidarity, subsidiarity, and the universal destination of goods, CST views AI as a fruit of humanity's God-given creative capacity but warns against its exploitation for greed or power concentration. Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly emphasized that AI commercialization should foster justice, fraternity, and integral human development, echoing Rerum Novarum's critique of industrial-era capitalism while addressing digital transformation. This guidance calls developers, entrepreneurs, and regulators to integrate moral discernment, ensuring AI enhances relationships and reverence for life rather than reducing humans to data or efficiency metrics.
At the heart of CST's guidance is the "ontological dignity" of the person, willed and loved by God, which must guide every aspect of AI's commercialization. Technologies like AI spring from divine creativity but carry ethical weight, as "every design choice expresses a vision of humanity." Commercial pursuits cannot override this; AI must respect dignity in education, healthcare, and governance, avoiding dehumanizing applications. For instance, in medicine, AI tools should enhance caregiver-patient relationships, not replace them or treat vulnerability as a mere "problem." Antiqua et Nova reinforces this, stating that AI's ends, means, and vision must be evaluated against dignity, with human intelligence directing its use beyond utility. Commercialization that prioritizes profit over such discernment risks the "technocratic paradigm," where efficiency supplants fraternity.
CST demands AI commercialization promote the common good—"tranquillitas ordinis"—fostering peaceful, just societies rather than benefiting elites. Pope Leo XIV poses the urgent question: "How can we ensure that the development of artificial intelligence truly serves the common good, and is not just used to accumulate wealth and power in the hands of a few?" This mirrors Rerum Novarum's condemnation of unchecked competition, usury, and labor exploitation, where the poor bear a "yoke little better than slavery." In AI's context, this applies to job displacement, biased algorithms, or surveillance capitalism that aggravates inequalities. Developers bear primary responsibility, but users and societies share it, requiring ethical frameworks centered on the person, not efficiency. Subsidiarity calls for local-global governance ensuring equitable access, especially for the 2.6 billion without basic connectivity.
Solidarity extends CST's vision to interdisciplinary collaboration, making AI commercialization an "ecclesial endeavor" for evangelization and development. Pope Leo XIV urges builders—researchers, entrepreneurs, pastors—to design AI reflecting justice and solidarity, such as tools for Catholic education or compassionate care. Rerum Novarum provides timeless principles: protect workers from greed, ensure rest proportionate to toil, and reject labor that "stupefies minds and wears out bodies." Applied to AI firms, this critiques gig economies or automation without retraining, demanding wages and conditions dignifying labor as co-creation. Early patristic witnesses like Cyprian reinforce detachment from wealth for heavenly treasure, urging shared goods as imitation of God's equity. Commercial AI must thus avoid mammon's service, prioritizing fraternity over profit.
CST mandates "moral discernment as a fundamental part of [AI] work," with prudence guiding applications for peace and environmental care. Antiqua et Nova stresses responsibility beyond results, encompassing care for others amid biases or autonomous decisions that erode agency. Pope Leo XIV, invoking Leo XIII, positions CST as response to AI's "industrial revolution," defending dignity, justice, and labor. In forums like Builders AI or AI for Good, he calls for governance upholding freedoms and values like inclusion and equity. Commercialization without this risks antihuman ideologies, as history warns—from eugenics to modern power abuses.
While sources affirm AI's benefits, they caution its pervasiveness alters perception, risking loss of human faces. Controversies like military AI or environmental harm demand nuanced ethics; CST prioritizes recent teachings like Dignitas Infinita and Antiqua et Nova over older ones where applicable. No source endorses unregulated markets; all converge on human-centered regulation.
In summary, Catholic social teaching guides AI commercialization toward ethical innovation serving dignity and common good, rejecting profit-driven exploitation. By heeding Pope Leo XIV's calls and Rerum Novarum's principles, stakeholders can ensure AI reflects the Creator's relational design, fostering hope for humanity.