Pope Leo XIV says control of artificial intelligence must not remain in the hands “of a few,” while warning that technology is fueling world conflicts, setting out his proposals in the first major theological document of his pontificate.
These include protecting the distinctive “grandeur of humanity” amid rapidly changing technology and for the use of AI in warfare to be subject to “the most rigorous ethical constraints.”
While the encyclical focuses on AI, it is a text that goes beyond technological questions and touches on crises facing humanity. Pope Leo said that the “just war” theory – a four-pronged Christian doctrine stating what conditions justify war – is “now outdated,” saying that military force can only be used for “self-defense in the strictest sense.”
He adds that the “litmus test” for social justice is the treatment of migrants and refugees and offered an apology for the church’s legitimizing in slavery and delay in denouncing the scourge.
Pope Leo XIV says control of artificial intelligence must not remain in the hands “of a few,” while warning that technology is fueling world conflicts, setting out his proposals in the first major theological document of his pontificate.
These include protecting the distinctive “grandeur of humanity” amid rapidly changing technology and for the use of AI in warfare to be subject to “the most rigorous ethical constraints.”
While the encyclical focuses on AI, it is a text that goes beyond technological questions and touches on crises facing humanity. Pope Leo said that the “just war” theory – a four-pronged Christian doctrine stating what conditions justify war – is “now outdated,” saying that military force can only be used for “self-defense in the strictest sense.”
He adds that the “litmus test” for social justice is the treatment of migrants and refugees and offered an apology for the church’s legitimizing in slavery and delay in denouncing the scourge.
Leo insists that the technology must protect peoples’ jobs and needs to be subject to “robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.”
An encyclical is traditionally a letter sent by the pope to the bishops and the wider Roman Catholic Church, but recently it has broadened with Pope Francis using the first encyclical of his papacy to address the whole world on protecting the environment.
Leo XIV’s document on AI, “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”), is being seen as a similarly landmark text for his papacy, and as addressing an epoch-defining topic which he addressed to Catholics and “every person of goodwill.”
Pope Leo has identified AI as a top priority, and he is the first pontiff to personally present an encyclical letter to the world at the Vatican.
Past popes have normally handed that role of presenting an encyclical to cardinals or other senior figures. Instead, the pope oversaw the release of the 235-page booklet alongside Chris Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, an AI company that has been in legal dispute with the Trump administration over the use of its technology in military and defense operations.
Olah, who said he has spoken with 15 different religious leaders about AI, told CNN he believed the implications of the technology go “far beyond scientific questions” and concern “human flourishing” and “what a good world looks like.”
Having a community “engaged and trying to push this (AI) in a good direction” is “really powerful,” he added, since it helps counter the pressures that “could force a race to the bottom on AI and cause things to go poorly.”
“One of the most powerful forces that can resist that and instead cause a race to the top is when lots of people who care about the right thing happening are deeply engaged and paying attention and understanding the situation,” he said. “And I hope that there can be more of that going forwards from all parts of society.”
He described himself as “deeply honored” to share a platform with the pope to release the encyclical text but also “relieved” that the church, and “by extension the world”, is engaging with the technology to “help us steer it towards a good outcome.”
Olah also said he doesn’t think “AI can replace religion”, and that “religions are very important for a reason.”
The pope’s text outlines an approach to AI which neither rejects the opportunities offered by the technology, nor sees it as opening a utopia-style future. His encyclical seeks to offer the resources of Catholic social teaching – the engagement with political and civic life – to the discussion on AI. Leo’s prime concern is maintaining the centrality, and unique dignity, of the human person.
To that end, the first American pope issues a critique of “transhumanism,” the idea that technology can help a person overcome physical and biological limitations such as aging, and of “posthumanism,” which questions the distinctiveness of human beings and blurs the boundaries between humans and machines.
“We cannot consider AI to be morally neutral,” the pope writes. “Every technical tool embodies choices and priorities through what it measures, ignores and optimizes, and how it classifies people and situations.”
Pope Leo ultimately prescribes the disarmament of AI, not as a means of “rejecting technology” but rather “preventing it from dominating humanity.” That doctrine means “freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly.”
