Pope Leo XIV on Monday launched an impassioned call for regulation of artificial intelligence, warning that “opaque algorithms” controlled by a few powerful private companies could lead to “new forms of dehumanization.”
In his long-awaited new encyclical, “The Great Humanity” (encyclicals are an ancient form of Vatican communication), Pope Leo also warned that it is important that AI not fall into the hands of “a few”, highlighting that AI technology was recently used during the US and Israel’s war against Iran.
The Pope also said it was important that the ongoing technological revolution must not be driven by “the idolatry of profit.”
Typically, popes do not physically attend encyclical announcements, but in an unusual move, Pope Leo announced the Magnifica Humanitas himself at the Vatican, along with Christopher Oler, founder of leading AI developer Antropic, and a number of Catholic prelates and theologians.
Over the past year, Anthropic has held several events aimed at religious communities, inviting Christian leaders to its headquarters to discuss spiritual issues and the development of AI systems.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei clashed with US President Donald Trump and the Pentagon in February after refusing to comply with the Pentagon’s request to allow the US military unrestricted use of its AI assistant Claude.
“Humanity, a great creation of God, today faces a very important choice: either build a new Tower of Babel or build a city where God and humanity will live together,” Pope Leo said in the opening words of his encyclical.
According to Vatican News, the official news agency of the Holy See, “Magnifica Humanitas” is divided into five chapters, and “the fundamental premise is that technology is neither a “force hostile to humanity” nor “intrinsically evil.” But “technology is never neutral; it takes on the characteristics of the people who invent it, finance it, regulate it, and use it.”
