Pope Leo XIV presented his first encyclical on artificial intelligence on May 25 at the Vatican’s Synod Hall, framing the technology as the latest phase of a “fourth industrial revolution” whose outcomes depend on who controls it and how people keep their primacy. In “Magnifica Humanitas” (“Magnificent Humanity”), the pope said AI can bring positive impacts for society and the environment, but he argued it also carries risks that range from economic disruption to democratic erosion and a loss of what he described as human dignity grounded in the fact of existing.
The pope’s central warning targeted power concentration in the hands of a small number of actors. He said AI “tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data,” adding that “small but highly influential groups can shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage, undermining social justice and solidarity among peoples.” He connected that concern to a broader gap between those who can participate in the digital revolution and those left on its margins.
Leo’s proposed remedy went beyond general regulation. He urged what he called “disarming AI,” writing that “disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of ‘armed’ competition,” which he said is not confined to military contexts but also reflects economic and cognitive competition. He said “Disarming does not mean renouncing technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity,” and argued that “merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible.”
At the same time, the encyclical argued responsibility must be established early in the technology’s construction rather than only after harms occur. The pope wrote that applying moral and ethical principles cannot wait until AI has “wreaked havoc on society,” saying: “responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions.” He also pushed back against executives who resist limits, saying that “calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family.”
The encyclical also expanded its focus to include war and lethal autonomy. In its discussion of the military use of AI, Leo wrote that such use “must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints,” and that responsibility for lethal action should remain with human beings, not machines. He called for traceability within military decision-making, human oversight, and international laws to address the increased use of automated weapons and their consequences.
In presentations around the encyclical, Vatican officials and outside observers also emphasized the pope’s insistence on human primacy. Card. Víctor Manuel Fernández, head of the Vatican’s doctrinal department, said that unlike philosophies that claim humanity has reached an “expiration date” and must be replaced, Catholic teaching holds that “every human being has infinite dignity.” Acknowledging the pope’s approach to human agency, Brian Patrick Green, director of technology ethics at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, said in remarks at the event: “This is a landmark opportunity for the world to look at a new technology and really think about what it is for,” and then asked a sequence of questions about the purpose of the technology and how it can help the most people.
Leo’s encyclical also addressed how people relate to AI in everyday life, warning that the danger is not only that someone interacting with an AI agent might mistake it for a person. He said the technology can weaken a person’s desire to seek other people, and he cautioned that handing decision-making to machines may “encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment.” In that framing, he urged education about AI “especially the young,” and warned that AI can shift the burden of adapting to machine speed and demands onto workers rather than designing systems around human work.
The pope’s text linked these concerns to a broader ethical critique of data, surveillance and power. He wrote that when power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of dependencies, exclusion, manipulations and inequalities. He also described what he called “new forms of colonialism” that appropriate data—health flows, epidemiological profiles, genetic maps and demographic data—saying these “have become the new rare earths of power,” while arguing that shared knowledge should become a common good rather than an instrument of dominance.
Finally, Leo’s encyclical treated proposed “ethical constitutions” for AI as not sufficient on their own. The pope wrote that “a more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few,” and he called for shared social justice criteria to be applied even to frameworks designed to guide model behavior. In his concluding appeal for broader participation, Leo said “Disarming is not enough, we must build,” and he invited involvement in programming, regulation and the benefits of AI.
At the Vatican event presenting the encyclical, Leo appeared alongside high-ranking Vatican prelates and Catholic theologians, as well as Chris Olah, co-founder of Anthropic, the American AI company behind the Claude system. Speaking at the presentation, Olah said AI development “operates inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing,” citing commercial concerns, geopolitical pressure and pride and ambition, and he added that “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.”