Calling AI a threat to 'human dignity, justice and labor,' Pope Leo XIV of all people takes on Big Tech

Newly elected Pope Leo XIV, Robert Prevost addresses the crowd on the main central loggia balcony of the St Peter's Basilica for the first time, after the cardinals ended the conclave, in The Vatican, on May 8, 2025. Robert Francis Prevost was on Thursday elected the first pope from the United States, the Vatican announced. A moderate who was close to Pope Francis and spent years as a missionary in Peru, he becomes the Catholic Church's 267th pontiff, taking the papal name Leo XIV. (Photo by TIZIANA FABI/AFP via Getty Images).

As a tech journalist, I'm far from heartened by the AI feeding frenzy we're seeing. Besides the Trump administration rolling back Biden-era guardrails and handing OpenAI a frankly eye-watering amount of money via various contracts, the UK government attempted five times to pass a bill (which has since passed) that allows AI developers to largely scrape whatever copyrighted material they like. With patrons of the arts like this, who needs enemies? So, imagine my surprise when none other than the pope actually wants to approach AI with some amount of caution.

Pope Leo XIV spoke declaratively about the field of artificial intelligence while addressing the College of Cardinals recently, saying, "Today, the church offers its trove of social teaching to respond to another industrial revolution and to innovations in the field of artificial intelligence that pose challenges to human dignity, justice and labor" (via The Wall Street Journal).