Pope urges ‘disarming’ AI, warns of new slavery and issues apology

Pope Leo XIV has called for “disarming” artificial intelligence* in his first encyclical* and warned of “new forms of slavery*” behind its rise.

The Pontiff*, the first American pope in history, cautioned against “a race for ever more powerful algorithms* and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical* or commercial dominance”.

He presented his first encyclical*, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity) in person at the Vatican in Rome, alongside AI experts including Christopher Olah, co-founder of US tech giant Anthropic.

Currently fighting a legal battle with the US military, Anthropic objected to its technology being used for lethal autonomous* warfare and mass surveillance.

At the presentation, Mr Olah said AI companies operate “inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing”.

In his encyclical, Leo stressed it was “not permissible to entrust lethal” decisions to tech.

Leo has repeatedly clashed with the White House over the Iran war and its use of religion to justify conflict.

The “just war” theory – espoused recently by the Trump administration – was “outdated”, Leo wrote, adding that “no algorithm can make war morally acceptable”.

“(The) questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community,” Mr Olah said.

The Pope said he had listened to scientists, engineers, political leaders, parents and teachers in preparing his manifesto, and had heard “very troubling voices” as well as “the silence of those who have no voice”.

AI could be worth up to $6.7 trillion by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the United Nations.

“Disarming AI … does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” Pope Leo wrote.

Laying the groundwork for Church teachings and longer-term debate by the leader of the world’s 1.4 billion Catholics, the papal letter also warns of new forms of slavery fuelling the technological revolution, including the children in some nations being put to work to extract the rare earth elements* needed to feed AI’s monstrous power demands. Greater efficiency and innovation did not excuse “a chain of exploitation* that remains deliberately hidden”, he said.

Issuing an unprecedented apology for the Vatican’s role in the slave trade and past attempts to justify slavery, the Pope said this history was “a wound in Christian memory”.

“For this, in the name of the Church, I sincerely ask for pardon,” Pope Leo wrote.

The release of the text follows several years of study by the Catholic Church on AI-related technologies.

As early as 2020, the Holy See* launched the “Rome Appeal for an AI Ethic”, which called for new technologies to respect human dignity.

Experts have suggested the “Magnifica Humanitas” could prove as influential as Pope Francis’s “Laudato Si”, a 2015 climate manifesto that triggered political and civic reactions worldwide.

The Pontiff’s wide-ranging manifesto references everyone from Ancient Greek philosopher Plato and Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to a character from JRR Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.

“Magnifica Humanitas” was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of an 1891 encyclical by Leo XIII, which laid the foundations of the Church’s social doctrine* during the Industrial Revolution.

– with AFP

POLL

GLOSSARY

• artificial intelligence: AI is the use or study of computer systems or machines that have some of the qualities that the human brain has, such as the ability to interpret and produce language
• encyclical: an official letter from the Pope to all Roman Catholic bishops, often about the Church’s formal stance on a subject
• geopolitical: connected with the political relations between countries and groups of countries in the world, as influenced by their geography.
• autonomous: state of functioning independently without control by others
• pontiff: formal term for the Pope, leader of the Roman Catholic Church
• algorithms: a set of mathematical instructions or rules that, especially if given to a computer, will help to calculate an answer to a problem
• rare earth elements: group of metal chemical elements that are difficult to find in large quantities and are important for technology and manufacturing, as in AI data centres
• Holy See: the government of the Roman Catholic Church, under the Pope

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QUICK QUIZ

1. What is the translation of “Magnifica Humanitas”?
2. Pope Leo welcomed the co-founder of which major tech company?
3. How much could AI be worth by 2033?
4. Approximately how many Catholics are there worldwide?
5. The Holy See under Pope Francis launched an appeal related to AI as early as what year?

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CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
1. Artificial intelligence dangers
List the key points as to why Pope Leo thinks the world is too reliant on artificial intelligence and the problems it could cause around the world in the future:

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Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, Civics and Citizenship, Digital Technologies, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

2. Extension
Pope Leo states that “Disarming AI … does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity”. Do you agree or disagree with this statement? Give your opinion and reasoning.

Time: allow 15 minutes to complete this activity
Curriculum Links: English, History, Civics and Citizenship, Personal and Social, Critical and Creative Thinking

VCOP ACTIVITY
Imaginative dialogue
Imagine you were there at the Vatican with Pope Leo, taking part in an AI panel about issues raised in his encyclical.

Create a conversation between two characters – you may need or want to include yourself as one of the characters. Don’t forget to try to use facts and details from the article to help make your dialogue as realistic as possible.

Go through your writing and highlight any punctuation you have used in green. Make sure you carefully check the punctuation used for the dialogue and ensure you have opened and closed the speaking in the correct places.