AI is no match for human dignity

Pope Leo XIV, who has been outspoken about the misuse of artificial intelligence (AI), has released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, warning of the dangers of “dehumanisation”.

“The risk of dehumanisation – of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means – is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise,” Pope Leo said in his first encyclical.

In Magnifica Humanitas, Latin for “Magnificent Humanity”, Pope Leo has called on Christians not to be “passive spectators” or “mere commentators on what is crumbling,” but to take a proactive role in building the future. He said they can achieve this  by promoting community and in-person relationships, educating young people to love wisdom, being with the poor and the lonely, having a voice for justice, defending objective truth and managing the digital world as “a new continent to be evangelised.”

Joining the pope at the release of his encyclical were Christopher Olah, co-founder of the artificial intelligence company Anthropic, British theologian Anna Rowlands and Léocadie Lushombo, a professor of theological ethics at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University. 

From the start of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has taken a strong interest in AI, the dignity of the human person and the protection of workers’ rights.

Because of the speed in the growth of AI, Pope Leo XIV has also created an in-house study group to explore the issue further, “(due to) its potential effects on human beings and on humanity as a whole (and) the church’s concern for the dignity of every human being.”

Pope Leo XIV was at the Vatican press conference in person to mark the historic publication. Time magazine described the pope as a spiritual counterweight to Silicon Valley when choosing him on its 2025 list of the world’s most influential people in artificial intelligence.

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