Pope Leo XIV on Monday called for the "disarmament" of artificial intelligence in his long-awaited manifesto on the rapidly evolving technology, warning of "new forms of slavery" behind its growth, UNN reports, citing AFP.
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Leo, the first Pope from the US, warned against a "race for increasingly powerful algorithms and larger datasets driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance."
He personally presented his first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," at the Vatican alongside AI experts, including Christopher Olah, co-founder of the American giant Anthropic.
Pope Leo to present first encyclical on AI alongside Anthropic co-founder19.05.26, 09:45
Anthropic is engaged in a legal battle with the US military after opposing the use of its technology for lethal autonomous warfare and mass surveillance.
At the presentation, Olah said that AI companies operate "within a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing."
He welcomed the input of external actors, such as the Catholic Church, to "steer events in a better direction," stating that "the questions raised by AI are larger than the AI research community."
In the encyclical, Leo also sounded the alarm regarding AI-controlled weapons, stating that it is "unacceptable to entrust lethal" decisions to technology.
Leo has repeatedly clashed with the White House over the war with Iran and the use of religion to justify conflict.
The "just war" theory, recently supported by the Trump administration, was "obsolete," Leo wrote, adding that "no algorithm can make war morally acceptable."
According to the United Nations, the value of artificial intelligence could reach $4.8 trillion by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, with its profits concentrated in the hands of a limited number of people.
"To disarm AI means to free it from the mentality of 'weaponized' competition," the Pope wrote.
"To disarm does not mean to reject technology, but to prevent its dominance over humanity," Leo wrote.
He added that AI must be "human-friendly," accessible to all, and open to discussion and debate.
The head of the world's 1.4 billion Catholics has made this burning issue a cornerstone of his papacy, dedicating his first encyclical to it—a document that lays the foundation for Church teaching and long-term debate.
The manifesto mentions a range of cultural giants, from the Greek philosopher Plato to Beethoven and his Ninth Symphony, even quoting a character from J.R.R. Tolkien's "The Lord of the Rings."
"Magnifica Humanitas" was signed on May 15, the 135th anniversary of Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, which laid the foundations of the Church's social doctrine during the Industrial Revolution.
Leo warned of new forms of slavery fueling the technological revolution, noting that "nothing in the world of AI is immaterial or magical."
"Every seemingly immediate and flawless reaction... depends on the silent work of millions of people," from content moderators forced to watch disturbing material to children mining the rare earth elements upon which AI depends.
They are "scarred, wounded, and exhausted so that the computational flow can continue uninterrupted," he wrote.
Greater efficiency or innovation does not justify a "chain of exploitation that is intentionally hidden," the Pontiff wrote, while more must be done to reduce AI's environmental impact and "protect our common home."
As The Wall Street Journal notes, Pope Leo compared the threat of AI to the biblical "Tower of Babel."
The Pontiff warned that artificial intelligence "threatens to normalize an anti-human vision" and stated that it is necessary to resist the concentration of vast digital power in the hands of a few private individuals.
The risk, he said, is that humans will be reduced "to mere cogs in a system that seeks ever greater efficiency."
Leo used two biblical images to describe the choice facing humanity.
"The primary choice is not 'yes' or 'no' to technology, but rather the building of Babylon or the restoration of Jerusalem," he wrote.
Pope Leo XIV considers AI a key threat to humanity: details18.06.25, 14:04
As AFP points out, he also issued an unprecedented apology for the Vatican's role in the slave trade and in helping to justify slavery, calling it a "wound in Christian memory."
"For this, on behalf of the Church, I sincerely ask for forgiveness," Leo wrote.
The document was published after several years of Church study into AI-related technologies. Experts say "Magnifica Humanitas" could prove to be as influential as Pope Francis's "Laudato Si'," the 2015 climate manifesto that sparked political and civic reactions worldwide.