The Pope Takes On AI
As the technology's reputation wobbles, the pope joins a chorus of AI watchers calling out its potential harms and working with the industry to mitigate them.
In February, Pope Leo XIV told priests not to write their sermons with ChatGPT. This week, he’s taking it much further, releasing a 55-page memo on the technology that is ambitious, specific, and potentially uncomfortable for AI’s builders.
As one of the world’s most influential (and well-liked) figures, the pope’s growing focus on AI signals the stakes around the technology are escalating fast, adding yet another critical voice for the industry to contend with as its reputation craters. Notably, the pope’s rising concerns about AI track the technology’s progression from chatbot to a force capable of acting autonomously.
“Our task today is not only ethical or technical,” the Pope wrote. “It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home.”
The pope’s policy document (called an encyclical) calls out AI’s many potential harm, including war, AI-driven disinformation, surveillance, algorithmic addiction, and the degradation of democracy. The pope also said that AI simply can’t offer the genuine connection, love, and care that humans can, a viewpoint contrary to at least some AI supporters’ beliefs.
“For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected,” The pope said. “For a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change.”
The pope also made the case for slower AI adoption by suggesting that a pause isn’t necessarily opposed to progress. He called for AI to be “disarmed,” likening it to a weapon of war.
Other groups have tried (and failed) to slow AI’s progress, and the pope likely won’t succeed in this regard either. But memos like the one he wrote do have a way of catching the AI labs’ attention, especially amid a push reverse their creation’s unpopularity. Indeed, some have already chosen to work with him. More on that below…
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