In his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity"), published on Monday, the Pope said AI must be "disarmed" – meaning freed from monopolies, opened to democratic debate and returned to the diversity of human cultures.
"To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity," he wrote.
The document warns that power over technology is increasingly held by private, often multinational corporations whose resources and influence exceed those of many governments, making it harder to regulate in the public interest.
Leo XIV argued that patents, algorithms, digital platforms and data should now be considered common goods, and that concentrating them in too few hands creates dangerous new inequalities.
He warned against what he called the "Babel syndrome": "the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralises differences, and the pretence that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance."
On the use of AI in warfare, the Pope cautioned that it risks lowering the threshold for the use of force, blurring accountability, and reducing enemies to data points.
He called for the strictest ethical limits on AI in military contexts.
The Pope acknowledged that any statement on AI risks being outdated quickly given the pace of development, but said the technology demands responsibility and transparency.
He also noted its significant environmental costs, including high energy and water consumption.
"In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human," the Pope wrote.
(ał)
Source: PAP, vatican.va