Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical on May 25, 2024 [1], warning that artificial intelligence must be "disarmed" to protect human dignity.
The move signals a formal moral intervention by the Catholic Church into the rapid development of generative AI. The Pope said that without strict constraints, the technology could deepen global conflicts and erode the agency of individual humans.
Presented at the Vatican, the encyclical focuses on the moral imperative to safeguard workers. Pope Leo XIV said that the technology has the potential to displace large-scale human labor, creating a societal crisis if not managed with a focus on human dignity [2].
In the text, the Pope frames the current technological era as a crossroads for the species. "Humanity... is today facing a pivotal choice: either to construct a new Tower of Babel or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together," he said [3].
He said that AI must be disarmed and should not dominate humanity [4]. This call for "disarmament" suggests that the Church views AI not merely as a tool, but as a potential power structure that could overshadow human governance and ethics.
The Pope said that the objective of these constraints is to prevent the technology from dominating humanity, and to ensure that it does not deepen existing social and political conflicts [5].
“"Artificial intelligence needs to be disarmed."”
The Vatican's entry into the AI debate shifts the conversation from technical safety and copyright law toward a framework of global ethics and human rights. By calling for the 'disarmament' of AI, the papacy is positioning the technology as a systemic risk similar to weaponry, suggesting that voluntary corporate guidelines are insufficient to protect the global workforce and human agency.
