Demands AI rules

Pope Leo demands AI rules to ‘safeguard humanity’ — before it’s too late

The pontiff warns that artificial intelligence could exacerbate inequality, deepen social fragmentation and weaken moral responsibility unless it is constrained.

By Hannah Roberts

Pope Leo XIV on Monday laid out an ambitious vision for regulating artificial intelligence, challenging world leaders locked in a global AI race fueled by military and economic rivalry.

In an authoritative papal document known as an encyclical — a papal letter outlining the church's perspective on a key topic — Leo warned AI could exacerbate inequality, deepen social fragmentation and weaken moral responsibility if not constrained by ethical limits and democratic oversight.

The pontiff called on countries to intervene and regulate artificial intelligence to “safeguard humanity,” and urged global leaders to act before the technology outruns political control.

Leo condemned a tech development race he described as driven by “a dehumanizing ambition to develop ever more powerful technologies or to secure control over them.” The pontiff said the contest was being fought by “opposing imperialisms, powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.”

“Let us not sleep,” he said while presenting the document before an audience of pink-hatted bishops and red-hatted cardinals in the Vatican’s Synod Hall. “Vigilance is necessary.”

The pontiff’s open letter to bishops and Catholics around the world — the first encyclical of his year-old papacy — builds on the Catholic Church’s tradition of responding to major social upheavals.

Just as his predecessor Leo XIII used the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum to confront the impact of the Industrial Revolution on workers, Pope Leo XIV is seeking to shape the debate over the ongoing technological revolution. A mathematics graduate with an enduring interest in ethics and technology, the pontiff has framed artificial intelligence as not simply a technical issue, but also a moral and political challenge that will reconfigure warfare, labor and human dignity.

His encyclical builds on warnings issued by Pope Francis, who became increasingly alarmed by the rise of artificial intelligence during the final years of his papacy. Leo's predecessor warned that AI risked creating a “technological dictatorship,” and cautioned against allowing algorithms to make decisions regarding war, migration and human life in speeches to the G7 and the United Nations.

The document arrives at a moment when governments are increasingly integrating AI into warfare, surveillance and geopolitical competition. That's of particular concern to the pope, whose text sounded the alarm over the dangers of autonomous weapons systems. Artificial intelligence, he warned, could detach conflict from human responsibility and make it easier for political leaders to wage war.

The pope's calls for regulating AI and restricting its use on the battlefield place him at odds with the United States, China and Russia, all of which are incorporating artificial intelligence into their military strategies.

The document threatens to deepen existing tensions between the Vatican and the White House. U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has aggressively promoted AI development as both an economic and strategic priority, pouring billions of dollars into military and intelligence applications.

But Leo used his encyclical to warn of the moral consequences if technological competition is allowed to outpace ethical responsibility. In that vein, the pope appears more aligned with the European Union, which has moved to carefully regulate AI even as the bloc emphasizes global competitiveness.

In a sign of how seriously the Vatican is treating the issue, Christopher Olah, co-founder of AI giant Anthropic, joined Leo for the unveiling of the encyclical. The Canadian billionaire argued that the Church’s intervention was necessary because the AI sector is subject to pressures including market competition and personal ambition, whereas the Vatican can “say hard things and insist on safety.”

The encyclical is emerging as one of the defining projects of Leo’s early papacy: to position the Vatican as a influential moral voice in the battles over technology, power and human dignity that are likely to shape the 21st century.

While Olah emphasized that AI had adopted many human qualities, Leo insisted the technology would never be able to "reflect critically, choose and love freely, and form authentic relationships" as human beings do.

Those limitations, he added, meant that "no computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil.”