Pope Leo XIV, the first US-born pontiff, has released his first encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas, a manifesto focused on safeguarding humankind in the age of artificial intelligence. Presented at the Vatican alongside AI experts, including Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, the document frames AI as a defining challenge of the modern era comparable to the Industrial Revolution. The 245-paragraph text, which consists of five core chapters and approximately 43,000 words, argues that AI must serve humanity rather than disempower it.
In the encyclical, the Pope warns against a culture of power and describes AI as an anthropological challenge that could dehumanize society, spread misinformation, and normalize war. He calls for AI to be disarmed and subject to the most rigorous ethical constraints to prevent it from deepening global conflicts. Leo XIV urges governments to slow the development of these systems and calls for robust regulation to ensure developers work for the common good rather than profit.
The pontiff specifically decries the concentration of technological power among a few global players, calling for an end to monopolistic control and insisting that AI data ownership not be left solely in private hands. He urges policymakers to protect the rights of workers and keep children safe from the technology while cooling the competition between AI companies. He emphasized that AI is not human, regardless of how closely it approximates the human mind, and that the primary challenge is remaining profoundly human.
Beyond technology, Pope Leo XIV used the encyclical to issue an unprecedented apology for the Catholic church’s long delay in condemning slavery, describing the failure as a wound in Christian memory. He linked this historical failure to the modern era, warning against new forms of slavery emerging from the digital economy.