Who Gets Crushed First
Pope Leo XIV called Monday for robust regulation of artificial intelligence and for its developers to work for the common good rather than profit, issuing a sweeping manifesto on safeguarding humankind as the technology impacts everything from work to war. In the text, he said the “culture of power” driving the AI race was especially visible in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare, and he declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems. He told a special Vatican presentation of the encyclical that “Artificial Intelligence now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion and death.”
The first people named as vulnerable in the document were not executives or developers but children and “the most vulnerable,” whom Leo said are endangered by the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector. He called for external regulation of that work and wrote, “It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required.”
Power Concentrated, Harm Distributed
His first encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), had been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first U.S.-born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today. The Vatican launch included remarks by the co-founder of Anthropic, which is currently locked in a legal battle with the Trump administration over access to its AI technology. The Vatican decided to involve Anthropic as part of its decade-long effort to engage Silicon Valley in dialogue over the human cost of AI.
Leo repeatedly blasted the concentration of power and data in the hands of so few people in the private sector as a danger, especially to children and the most vulnerable, and called for external regulation of their work. He added, “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.” He appealed to AI developers and political leaders responsible for regulating them to slow down and reflect on what they are doing, and urged them to use ethical and spiritual guidelines to make the choice to work not for their own profit or power, but the betterment of humanity.
The Bosses of the Machine
Experts in the tech industry, academia and Catholic morality said the document will likely become a benchmark in the debate over AI, a point of reference for policymakers, researchers and ordinary people alike. Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute, said the document would prompt people “at the forefront of these tools” to ask questions such as “What does it mean to be human?” Paolo Carozza, law professor at Notre Dame Law School and chair of the Meta Oversight Board, said, “I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document.” He added, “Pope Leo is offering a clear, comprehensive, and coherent voice urging us to take responsibility for constructing a world in which technology will serve humans rather than degrade them.”
Anthropic co-founder Christopher Olah welcomed Leo’s criticism and concern. He said such external checks were fundamental to the technology “going well” for humankind since there is so much at stake — “a real possibility that AI will displace human labor at a very large scale.” Olah said, “We need more of the world — religious communities, civil society, scholars, governments — to do what His Holiness has done here: to take this seriously, to look closely, and to push events in a better direction. We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend.” Brian Boyd, U.S. faith liaison for the nonprofit Future of Life Institute, said Anthropic’s inclusion was recognition of its prominence in the field and similar to a papal audience with a head of state, not an endorsement. He said Anthropic is an “enormous corporation that is taking onto itself an enormous risk and responsibility,” and added that the company has “demonstrated genuine goodwill and integrity and interest in dialogue.”
War, Work, and the Market’s Lies
In the encyclical, Leo traced the history of the Catholic Church’s social teaching and applied its core concepts — justice, solidarity, the dignity of work and the universal destination of resources — to the digital revolution. He signed the text May 15, the 135th anniversary of the publication of “Rerum Novarum” (Of New Things), the most important teaching document of Leo’s hero and namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That document addressed workers’ rights, the limits of capitalism, and the obligations that states and employers owed workers as the Industrial Revolution was underway. Leo said the current AI revolution poses the same existential questions that the Industrial Revolution posed over a century ago.
He wrote, “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good.” Leo also said in the strongest chapters that AI had helped accelerate the “normalization of war” by desensitizing people to its cost. He did not name specific conflicts, but cited “opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.” He demanded transparency and accountability by AI developers so that the chain of decision-making command in ordering strikes with AI weaponry is always known.
He declared that the Catholic Church’s “just war” theory, which provides specific criteria for when force can be justified, was now “outdated” given the technological advances of warfare. He also called for a shared international framework “to curb the technological arms race and ensure robust protection for civilians.”
The Costs Hidden in the Data Centers
Leo noted that the world’s wealth “is increasingly concentrated in fewer hands, widening inequalities.” In the age of AI and robotics, he said it is no longer possible to rely solely on the “invisible hand” of the market, urging politicians to orient policies toward “the common good” and to promote “dignified work, social inclusion and an equitable distribution of the benefits of innovation.”
He underlined the role of digital networks — including online platforms, messaging systems and anonymous payment methods — in human trafficking, which he said “must be recognized as a contemporary form of slavery.” He warned that failing to respond to or tolerating these practices risks complicity in “today’s sins, which are akin to those of the past when slavery was being concealed and justified.”
Leo also addressed the environmental costs of the data centers that are generating AI models, saying they consume “enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions.” As demands increase, especially for large language models, he called for the development of more sustainable technological solutions. He called for an alliance among policymakers, educational institutions and families to help navigate the “culture of immediacy and hyperstimulation” created by digital media.
He highlighted how AI amplifies the danger of predation on young people and warned against having personal mobile devices at too young an age. He wrote, “Online phenomena such as grooming, blackmail and the sexual exploitation of minors are not uncommon, and are made more insidious by the use of fake profiles, algorithms that facilitate dangerous contact, and AI tools capable of manipulating images and videos.”