Pope Leo XIV’s Bold Encyclical: How AI Could Reshape Humanity-And The Risks Of Getting It Wrong

Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence, on May 25, 2026. The document addresses the rapid ascent of artificial intelligence and the subsequent risks to human dignity, creativity, and social justice.

In the encyclical, which was signed on May 15, 2026, the pope presents artificial intelligence as a tool that can potentially alleviate suffering and open up new possibilities, provided it is governed by humane values rather than the interests of monopolies.

A significant portion of the document focuses on the humanistic reservations regarding the nature of intelligence and connection. Pope Leo XIV warns against the tendency to equate machine intelligence with that of human beings.

He argues that human beings grow in wisdom through relationships and experiences of joy and suffering, including bodily pain—capacities that machines do not possess. He further suggests that AI technology can weaken personal creativity and judgment.

The pope also cautions that AI may foster the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject, a development he suggests could lead users to lose the very desire to form genuine human connections.

Leo XIV specifically rejects the philosophies of transhumanism and posthumanism, which propose using technology to augment or perfect the human person. He writes that these views of perfectibility threaten the vulnerable by making it easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy.

The pontiff notes that modern culture often views human limitation as a defect to be corrected, whereas he asserts that humanity often flourishes through those limitations.

The encyclical also addresses the economic and environmental costs of the AI industry. Pope Leo XIV decries AI-driven unemployment, particularly among young people, and the environmental degradation resulting from carbon-emitting, energy-intensive AI infrastructure.

He condemns the exploitation of the workforce supporting these systems, including those who extract the resources needed for microprocessors, as well as workers tasked with moderating disturbing content or labeling data.

The document was informed by more than 10 years of dialogue between the Vatican and the tech industry, a process that began under Pope Francis. During a panel presentation of the document, Christopher Olah, a co-founder of the AI company Anthropic, discussed the internal pressures of the industry.

Olah stated that every frontier AI lab operates within a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing, emphasizing the need for earnest critics outside those incentives to insist on safety.

Pope Leo XIV warns against the concentration of platforms, data, and computing power in the hands of a few, stating that such concentration tends to become opaque and evade public oversight.

He argues that small, influential groups can use this power to steer economic dynamics, influence democratic processes, and shape consumption patterns to their own advantage.

To counter this, the pope calls for increased transparency and accountability, particularly when algorithms influence personnel selection, credit distribution, or access to services. He insists that such decisions must be understandable, contestable and subject to oversight.

The encyclical further denounces a new form of colonialism involving the extraction of demographic and health data, which Leo describes as the new ‘rare earths’ of power.

He asserts that individuals must maintain the ability to decide how their health data is used to ensure this information remains a common good rather than an instrument of dominance.

Beyond technology, the document addresses broader moral and historical issues:

• The pope condemns the normalization of war and the rise of a culture of power.
• He takes a firm stance against autonomous-weapons systems, stating that lethal decisions cannot be entrusted to artificial systems because moral judgment requires conscience and personal responsibility.
• He offers a formal apology for the delay in the Church’s absolute condemnation of slavery, which did not occur until 1888, describing the delay as a wound in Christian memory.

The encyclical follows the tradition of Catholic social teaching established by Pope Leo XIII, specifically the 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which defended worker rights during the Industrial Revolution.

Pope Leo XIV frames the current era as a choice. He warns that if technology becomes the ultimate criterion, the human person risks being reduced to a commodity or a cog in a machine. Conversely, he argues that if technology is integrated with a wise perspective, it can serve as an instrument of fraternity, justice, and growth.