Since being elected as the leader of the Catholic Church, Pope Lion Fourteen has taken a bold stance on artificial intelligence, calling it a “challenge of human dignity, justice and labor.”
The new pope puts AI at the center of the church’s moral agenda, warning that we are entering a new industrial revolution that poses the same threat to workers and human rights over a century ago.
“On our own day…the development of the field of artificial intelligence poses new challenges,” Leo saysaddressed the Cardinal College in the new conference hall on Saturday.
He echoed Pope Leo XIIreleased in 1891 novarumis the basic text of Catholic social teaching written on the human loss of the Industrial Revolution.
Pope Leo XIV meets Cardinal College in new conference hall in Vatican (AP)
background
Pope Leo’s rhetoric is accompanied by a surge in global anxiety about the role of AI in economic, war and media integrity. The speech came a few days later:
Pope Francis, who died on Easter Monday at 88, has increasingly spoken about the moral threat of AI, especially in military use, warned “Far from the great tragedy of war.”
Pope Leo XIV refers to AI in his Pope, which shows the continuation and intensification of the Vatican’s efforts to shape global discourses about technical ethics.
Bottom line
The Catholic Church has just put artificial intelligence on its ethical radar. Pope Leo Xiv is sending a message: Spiritual leadership must be in sync with technical forces.
