Anthropic · Donald Trump · Iran · CBS News Technology
Pope Leo calls for "disarming" of AI in technology-focused encyclical
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Rome, Pope Leo XIV issued a major document Monday focused largely on the implications of the rise of artificial intelligence for humanity, warning the technology could make civilization itself "less human.
Key facts
- When the world's first U.S.-born pope chose his name last year, Leo deliberately invoked the last pope to bear it: Pope Leo XIII, whose landmark 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum helped guide
- Please note that the encyclical is not about AI," Cardinal Michael Czerny, one of the Vatican officials who helped present the document, told CBS News
- In the Magnifica Humanitas, the leader of the world's roughly 1.4 billion Catholics warned that artificial intelligence risked making civilization "less human," hollowing out work, concentrating
- As the Industrial Revolution transformed labor and capital, the AI revolution is transforming humanity itself, the pope cautioned in his remarks
Summary
Pope Leo, who has repeatedly clashed with the Trump administration over the Iran war and some U.S. officials' religious justification for it, also appeared to dismiss the argument that the conflict was a necessary preemptive measure for American safety. Francis also issued a first-ever apology for the Vatican's role in facilitating and justifying the transatlantic slave trade, calling it "a wound in Christian memory. "For this, in the name of the Church, the reporter sincerely ask for pardon," he wrote. But the vast majority of the encyclical was devoted to what Leo clearly sees as humanity's risk-laden embrace of AI.