Pope Leo XIV makes Artificial Intelligence a key concern of his papacy, urging ethical oversight to protect human dignity, justice, and labor in the age of automation
Pope Leo XIV has made artificial intelligence a central theme of his papacy, highlighting its potential threats to human dignity, workers’ rights, and social justice
Pope Leo XIV has made artificial intelligence a signature concern of his papacy, warning of risks to human dignity, justice, and labor and urging ethical oversight
The technology industry, which has spent years cultivating the Vatican, is being challenged by Pope Leo XIV, who is making the threat of AI to humanity a key issue of his legacy.
Leo XIII, the namesake of the new American pontiff, advocated for the rights of factory workers during the Gilded Age, a period of rapid economic change and extreme wealth inequality from the late 1870s to the late 1890s, during which corrupt industrial robber barons dominated.
Last month, the pope stated in a speech to a hall of cardinals that he would draw on the 2,000-year-old social teaching of the church to “respond to another industrial revolution and to innovations in the field of artificial intelligence that pose challenges to human dignity, justice, and labor,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
To influence governments and policymakers and to shape Rome’s dialogue on AI, leaders of Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and other tech giants have traveled to the Vatican to promote the benefits of emerging technologies.
Most tech CEOs would argue that the Vatican’s advocacy for a binding international treaty on AI threatens innovation.
