Pope Leo XIV has called for the “disarming” of artificial intelligence (AI) and urged the faithful to “fast” from the technology in his long-awaited first encyclical, warning of “new forms of slavery” tied to its rise.
The first US pope presented Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity) in person at the Vatican, alongside AI experts.
Signed on May 15, the document marks the 135th anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical that laid the foundations of the Church’s social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution.
Across five chapters and 110 pages, Leo frames the AI revolution as a civilisational choice between raising “a new Tower of Babel” or building “the city where God and humanity dwell together”.
The Pope insists technology “is not neutral, because it takes on the face of those who design it, finance it, regulate it and use it”, warning against “a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance”.
In one of the encyclical’s most striking passages, Leo calls for an “educational alliance” so that young people retain the capacity to think for themselves: “We must educate ourselves in fasting from AI.”
He also rejects a “technocratic paradigm” in which efficiency and profit dictate the rules, stressing that “the fundamental dignity of every person is not acquired or earned, nor needs to be demonstrated”.
On warfare, Leo argues the digital revolution is transforming the “grammar of war”, making the use of force “ever faster, more distant and impersonal”. He is firmest on autonomous weapons: “No algorithm can make war morally acceptable.”
The Pope criticises rising military spending presented as the “only response” to insecurity, calling such logic a “false realism” and a realpolitik that “normalises war and turns peace into a utopia”. Some governments, he warns, may use conflict as a form of “cynical management” to mask domestic problems.
Anthropic, meanwhile, is embroiled in a legal battle with the US military after opposing the use of its technology for lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance. Olah told the presentation that AI firms operated “inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing”.
Leo denounces “digital colonialism” – the appropriation of personal data – and the new forms of slavery behind the tech boom, citing content moderators forced to view disturbing material and children with “bodies marked, mutilated, consumed” who extract rare earth elements for the industry.
AI could be worth up to $4.8 trillion (€4.4 trillion) by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, with profits concentrated in the hands of a few, according to the United Nations.
Against this, Leo proposes building the “civilisation of love” – not rejecting technology, but inhabiting it “from the Gospel” so that even in the age of algorithms, “the world may recognise in the human being the place where God desires to dwell”.
