Pope Leo XIV Warns of AI’s Impact on Human Dignity, Peace and Justice

Pope Leo XIV has released its first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, on Monday. The document highlights the rapid rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and its disastrous impacts on human dignity, global peace, and social justice.

The primary focus is the unbridled use of AI in the real world. According to Pope, technology should not rule humans; it must be subordinated to them. He wrote: “Technology is never neutral, because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate, and use it. AI developers therefore bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity.”

The Pontiff warned against the concentration of power in the hands of a technocratic class. He urged the international community to reign in AI development as these models are responsible for spreading disinformation and exacerbating modern warfare.

He cautions that AI could become a modern-day “Tower of Babel”, a project fueled by the human desire for singular, absolute power. Pope has called for robust legal frameworks, government oversight, and active political involvement to tackle the growing threat of technology.

The Pope also repudiated the ‘Just War’ theory, calling it outdated. He stated: “Humanity is slipping into a violent culture of power, where peace no longer appears as a responsibility to be taken on, but as a fragile interval between conflicts.”

AI has fundamentally changed the moral landscape of warfare. The Pope explicitly condemned the use of lethal autonomous weapons and called for rigorous ethical constraints in AI usage.

The Pope also linked AI economy to modern slavery, highlighting how workers are exploited in the name of data labeling and digital colonialism. He has called for a fair tax system that safeguards the most vulnerable segments.

Discussing social justice, he stated: “It is important to move beyond the current metrics of development, such as GDP, since these metrics almost systematically neglect aspects essential to the overall wellbeing of people and the environment.”