Pope Leo warns AI boom can give Big Tech and the people who run it too much power

Pope Leo XIV has made artificial intelligence the subject of the first major teaching issued since his appointment in May 2025, and included warnings that AI could lead to Big Tech companies and the moguls that accumulating power that they will abuse for the sake of profit. The Pope’s teaching is an encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas – On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. The Pope strongly argues that AI must not be considered human. “These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence,” he wrote. “In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing.” “So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.” Concentrated power needs regulations But Pope Leo wants the providers of AI to consider the ethics of their actions. “In many cases within the digital context, control over platforms, infrastructure, data and computing power does not rest with States, but with major economic and technological actors,” he wrote. “These entities effectively set the conditions for access, determine the rules of visibility and shape the very possibilities for participation. When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities.” A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few The Pope therefore wants strong regulation for AI. “For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions,” he wrote. “Otherwise, those who control AI will impose their own moral vision, which will become the invisible infrastructure of these systems. A more moral AI is not enough if that morality is determined by a few. What is needed is a more active political involvement that is capable of slowing things down when everything is accelerating, and of protecting the opportunities for communities still to be able to participate and ask questions.” The notion of AI morality being determined by a small group of people is not fiction: the prospectus SpaceX filed last week includes a mention of its Grok services “as a truth-seeking AI model, built on our founder Elon Musk’s mission to enable humanity to understand the universe.” Slow down because the suffering has begun AI boosters often advocate for rapid adoption of the technology. Pope Leo is having none of it. “Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family,” he wrote. “Otherwise, change will be governed only by technocratic thinking and presented as necessary and inevitable, ultimately imposing rules shaped by those who control data, infrastructure and computing power." The Pope argues AI is already causing human suffering, and even a new kind of slavery, by pointing to the low wages and unpleasant working conditions endured by content moderators, data labelers, miners, and those who work processing minerals needed to build computers, who toil “so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.” Change will be governed only by technocratic thinking and presented as necessary and inevitable The Pope also worries about AI’s environmental impact. “Current AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources,” he wrote. “As their complexity increases, especially in the case of large language models, the need for computing power and storage capacity grows too, which requires an extensive network of machines, cables, data centers and energy-intensive infrastructure. For this reason, it is essential to develop more sustainable technological solutions that reduce environmental impact and help protect our common home.” Another topic the encyclical touches on is war, which Pope Leo worries is made “more ‘feasible’ and less subject to human control” due to deployment of autonomous weapons. “For this reason, the development and use of AI in warfare must be subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints, to guarantee respect for human dignity and the sanctity of life and to avoid a race to develop such arms,” he wrote. It is certainly desirable for technology to relieve humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks The potential for AI to impact jobs also caught the Pope’s attention, and his take on the matter suggests “It is certainly desirable for technology to relieve humans of arduous, repetitive or dangerous tasks and to provide intelligent support for human activity.” But the Pontiff argues “protection of employment opportunities and the irreplaceable role of the individual must remain the general rule.” “The pursuit of greater profits cannot justify choices that systematically sacrifice jobs, because the human person is an end, not a means, and the economic order must remain subordinate to human dignity and the common good.” The Pope invited one the technocrats he warned about, Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, to comment on the launch of encyclical. In his remarks, Olah mostly agreed with the Pontiff, reminding us that “AI development is concentrated in a handful of wealthy nations” and asking “How can we ensure the gains of AI are shared globally?” He admitted “We do not have a mechanism for this. It is an unsolved problem, and it is the kind of problem the Church has historically refused to let the world ignore.” But Olah didn’t commit to solve the problem, saying that the release of encyclical “is just the beginning—the start of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we, from inside, cannot.” ®

source https://www.theregister.com/ai-ml/2026/05/26/pope-leo-warns-ai-boom-can-give-big-tech-and-the-people-who-run-it-too-much-power/5245883