Pope Leo XIV has denounced the 'culture of power' driving the rise of artificial intelligence, calling for the technology to be subject to the 'most rigorous' ethical constraints. In his encyclical, the first major text on safeguarding humanity of his papacy, he also apologised for the Catholic Church's long delay in condemning slavery, describing it as 'a wound in Christian memory'.
Speaking at the Vatican on Monday, the pope presented the document, titled Magnifica Humanitas (Magnificent Humanity), in a break from tradition. Among those in attendance was Christopher Olah, co-founder of the US-based AI firm Anthropic, which is involved in a lawsuit with the Trump administration over AI ethics.
In the encyclical, Pope Leo referred to 'a troubling revival of war as an instrument of international politics' and said AI was helping to facilitate the 'normalisation of war'. He urged the 'disarming' of AI, warning that some autonomous weapons systems are 'practically beyond any human reach' to control. 'Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of 'armed' competition,' he wrote.
The pope also warned that power over digital systems, infrastructure and data 'does not rest with states but with major economic and technological actors', and that such concentration of power 'in the hands of the few' risks becoming opaque and evading public oversight. Christopher Olah said the development of AI cannot be left solely to technology companies, urging greater oversight from religious leaders, governments and civil society.
Olah noted that there is 'a real possibility' that AI would displace human labour 'at very large scale', making support for those displaced 'a moral imperative of historic proportions'. He added that companies operate under commercial, geopolitical and personal pressures that can conflict with 'doing the right thing', making outside scrutiny essential.
