Pope Leo XIV Calls For 'Robust' Regulation of AI in Sweeping Manifesto

Pope Leo XIV on Monday published his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence outlining the Catholic Church’s response to the technology’s ethical and social challenges.

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.

“Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity), Leo’s first encyclical, has been eagerly awaited ever since history’s first US-born pope announced days after his election that he considered AI to be the biggest challenge facing humanity today.

In the text, Leo denounced the “culture of power” driving the AI race, especially in developing ever more sophisticated methods of remote warfare. He declared that it was “not permissible” to entrust irreversible, lethal decisions to AI systems, setting up another flash point between the American pope and the Trump administration, which has worked aggressively to deregulate AI development.

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 folk alike. It comes as the near-daily developments in the technology trigger concerns rise over AI replacing human jobs and even human intelligence.

“It lends itself to people who are at the forefront of these tools and able to see the incredible things that they’re able to do, to have questions about their own ‘What does it mean to be human?’” said Taylor Black, a Microsoft AI executive and director of Catholic University of America’s AI institute.

The pope was to present the text at a Vatican launch Monday that featured 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.

And yet in his text, 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.

“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,” he wrote. “A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few.” 

Leo appealed several times to AI developers and political leaders responsible for regulating them to just slow down and reflect on what they are doing. He 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.

AI competitors OpenAI and Anthropic are the second- and third-most valuable US private companies, each valued at hundreds of billions of dollars, more than the GDP of many nations. 

In a methodical text, the math major pope 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.

“I am convinced that this will prove to be a defining document for our era, a profound and prophetic document,” said Paolo Carozza, law professor at Notre Dame Law School and chair of the Meta oversight board.

“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,” he said.

Denounces AI in warfare

In its strongest chapters, Leo denounced how AI had helped accelerate the “normalisation of war” by desensitising people to its cost. He didn’t name specific conflicts, but cited “opposing imperialisms, between powers that wish to preserve their supremacy, and those that aspire to seize that supremacy.”

- FRANCE 24 with AP

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