Pope Leo warns of the dangers of AI in a major papal document

Pope Leo XIV warned of the dangers of AI and the powerlessness of technology in his first major papal document released on Monday. A Successful Person is a papal document on “protecting the human in the age of artificial intelligence,” in which he discusses the dangers of AI-driven warfare, the impact of AI on employment, and the need for new legal and ethical approaches to artificial intelligence.

In his papal letter – an open letter from the Catholic Church – Pope Leo emphasized the economic and social upheaval that the introduction of AI is causing, and the insufficient protection of people who threaten human dignity. He compared the current era of AI to the Tower of Babel, saying that people must “avoid the ‘disease of Babel,'” which he describes as “the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, uniformity that eliminates differences of opinion, and the pretense that a single language—even a digital one—can translate everything, including the privacy of the person, in information and behavior.”

Pope Leo’s letter touches on the main aspects of modern life in which AI is deeply embedded: the loss of jobs and jobs in general, wars controlled by AI, and children exposed to AI tools and content, among other topics. Above all, the book calls for public respect to be an integral part of decision-making and governance. The letter is a request for “ethical and social awareness that protects the dignity of man, to ensure that it will always be human wisdom, his conscience and his freedom, which guides the technology and chooses properly how to use it with limits,” writes Leo.

The letter, which contains more than 42,000 words, sets out a call for “smart, thoughtful and, in some cases, slow adoption of AI” as a “career for the human family.” Some of the suggestions:

The impact of AI on humanity has been a concern for Pope Leo: He he chose the name of the tree about the industrial revolution, when his predecessor, Pope Leo XIII, he issued his encyclical on protecting workers amid technological advances. Pope Leo has been working with AI companies – Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah was on hand when the pope presented his book on Monday. Politics report that representatives from Amazon, Meta, and Google met with Vatican officials before Monday’s release of a statement as tech companies try to woo churches. (There is also a subset trying “AGI-pill” papa; A Successful Person it does not refer to common sense.)

The encyclical is not a complete critique of AI. Instead, Pope Leo wants to “disarm” technology – both military and economic as well as cultural. AI should not be used as a competition to gain power or control people, he says.

“Disarmament is an affront to the idea that technology gives sovereignty.”