Pope Leo warns of the risks of AI in major papal document

Pope Leo XIV warned of the risks of AI and unconstrained technological power in his first major papal document released on Monday. Magnifica Humanitas is the pope’s manifesto on “safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence,” in which he discusses the dangers of AI-powered warfare, the effects of AI on labor, and the need for new legal and ethical frameworks to govern technology.

In his papal encyclical — a kind of open letter from the Catholic Church — Pope Leo stressed the economic and social upheaval that rapid AI adoption is creating, with inadequate protections for individuals that threaten human dignity. He compared the current era of AI to the Tower of Babel, saying society must “avoid the ‘Babel syndrome,’” which he defines as “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance.”

Pope Leo’s letter touches on major areas of modern life that AI has become deeply embedded in: job loss and labor generally, AI-powered warfare, and children being exposed to AI tools and content, among other topics. Above all, the encyclical calls for the dignity of humans to be a central part of decision-making and governance. The letter is an appeal for “moral and social discernment that safeguards the primacy of the human person, in order to ensure that it will always be human intelligence, with its conscience and freedom, that guides technical innovations and responsibly determines their use and limits,” Leo writes.

The letter, which runs more than 42,000 words, frames the call for “prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI” as “an exercise of responsible care for the human family.” Among some of the proposals:

The effects of AI on humanity have been a defining issue for Pope Leo: He chose his papal name in reference to the industrial revolution, during which his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, issued his own encyclical on protecting workers amid technological advancements. Pope Leo has also been engaging with the AI industry — Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah was present when the pope presented his encyclical on Monday. Politico reported that representatives from Amazon, Meta, and Google have met with Vatican officials ahead of the publication of Monday’s encyclical as the tech industry tries to influence the church’s positions. (There’s also a subset trying to “AGI-pill” the pope; Magnifica Humanitas doesn’t explicitly mention artificial general intelligence.)

The encyclical isn’t a blanket objection to AI. Rather, Pope Leo calls for the “disarming” of the technology — both in a military sense and also economic and societal sense. AI shouldn’t be used for a race to amass power or monopolize society, he says.

“To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity.”