Pope Leo XIV warns against AI

Pope Leo XIV used two public interventions on May 14 to press a broader Vatican argument about artificial intelligence: that the technology must be judged by its effects on human dignity, peace and social life. At Sapienza University of Rome, Leo warned students about rising military spending and the dangers of AI in war. In a separate message to the Turin International Book Fair, he said literature should become a “school of fraternity and peace.” The Vatican has been building that case for months. A June 2025 papal message to a Rome conference on artificial intelligence said AI’s rapid development requires “serious reflection” on ethics and governance, and warned that the technology could be misused for selfish gain or to “foment conflict and aggression.” A January 2025 Vatican doctrinal note said AI touches work, education, healthcare, law, warfare and international relations, and raised concerns about truth, responsibility and human safety. (vaticannews.va) ### What exactly did Leo say this week? Pope Leo XIV told Sapienza University on Thursday, May 14, to become “artisans of true peace,” according to Vatican News. The Vatican’s news service said he warned against rising military spending and the dangers of artificial intelligence in war during the visit to the Rome campus. The Turin message, also dated May 14, did not focus on AI directly, but it used the same moral vocabulary. (vatican.va) Leo said literature should help people recognize “the dignity of every person, especially the most vulnerable,” and become a “school of fraternity and peace,” according to a telegram sent on his behalf by Cardinal Pietro Parolin. ### How does this fit the Vatican’s existing AI line? (vaticannews.va) A June 17, 2025 message from Leo to a Vatican-hosted AI conference described artificial intelligence as “above all else a tool.” That text said tools take their ethical force from the intentions of the people who use them, and it warned that AI can be deployed either to promote equality or to advance selfish interests and aggression. (vaticannews.va) The Vatican’s January 28, 2025 note “Antiqua et nova,” issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith and the Dicastery for Culture and Education, set out the institutional framework behind that argument. The document said the Church supports scientific and technological progress, but insisted that AI must be assessed through the “integral development of the human person and society.” (vatican.va) ### Why is labor part of this story? Axios reported on May 14 that Leo was expected to sign his first encyclical as soon as Friday and that the text would present AI as a moral and labor question in a new industrial revolution. Axios said the document was expected to place human dignity, labor rights and ethics at the center of the debate. Leo’s choice of papal name has fueled that expectation. Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical *Rerum Novarum* is one of the foundational texts of modern Catholic social teaching, especially on labor and capital, and Vatican AI documents already frame the technology in terms of work, human creativity and the common good. (vatican.va) ### Why bring literature into an argument about technology? (axios.com) The Turin message linked culture to the same concerns Leo has raised elsewhere about war, indifference and human dignity. In that telegram, he said children can offer hope in a time “suffocated by the horrors of war” and urged renewed attention to culture as a way to foster dialogue and concord. (vatican.va) Vatican News said Leo had made a similar appeal earlier in May to the Vatican Publishing House, where he described reading as a guard against “fundamentalisms and ideological shortcuts.” That language places books, education and moral formation alongside the Vatican’s calls for rules and ethical oversight in AI. ### What comes next? Turin’s International Book Fair runs from May 14 to May 18, according to Vatican News, and Leo’s message is already part of that event’s opening proceedings. (vaticannews.va) Axios reported that Leo’s first encyclical could be signed as soon as Friday, which would give the Vatican a more formal text for its position on AI, labor and human dignity.