Pope Leo XIV unveiled his inaugural encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," on Monday, addressing the critical theme of "safeguarding the human person in the time of artificial intelligence." While AI serves as the central focus, the Pontiff highlights that the underlying challenges he scrutinizes are long-standing and widespread: systemic inequality, armed conflict, the degradation of democratic institutions, and the consolidation of power among individuals who may not prioritize the broader well-being of humanity.
Within the extensive 200-page document, presented by the Pontiff in conjunction with Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, Pope Leo asserts that technology designed and controlled by a limited elite inherently struggles to genuinely serve the collective welfare of society.
"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," he writes.
The encyclical further elaborates, "In fact, as with every major technological shift, AI tends to amplify the power of those who already possess economic resources, expertise and access to data," underscoring worries that privileged groups could leverage their influence to "shape information and consumption patterns, influence democratic processes and steer economic dynamics to their own advantage."
This publication coincides with President Donald Trump's recent delay in signing his executive order pertaining to AI, an order that would have established governmental oversight for new models prior to their release, reportedly influenced by the counsel of venture capitalist and former White House AI czar David Sacks.
Pope Leo advocated for AI development to be governed by "clear criteria and effective oversight," firmly rooted in the active participation of communities directly impacted by these technologies. More specifically, he urged an end to the AI arms race, characterized by the pursuit of "ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets" which companies and nations often seek to "secure geopolitical or commercial dominance."
He articulated, "To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern."
These power dynamics, it is noted, are not new to the age of AI. Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, *Rerum Novarum*, similarly addressed the concentration of power during the Industrial Revolution. However, more contemporary examples abound, such as Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter and its subsequent use to support Donald Trump's election, or the hundreds of millions funneled by tech elites into super PACs to obstruct AI regulation — patterns that evidently served as significant inspiration for Leo XIV’s current work.
The Pontiff ultimately concurs with a widely held view: the extraordinary power and capabilities inherent in contemporary AI technologies dramatically escalate the risks and implications for society.
Paolo Carozza, a professor at Notre Dame Law School, member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences, and chair of the Meta Oversight Board, informed TechCrunch that the proliferation of AI-driven misinformation and deepfakes has "corroded our capacity to recognize what’s true and what’s not true, and that really has consequences for democratic politics." He further emphasized that the tech industry’s systematic "harvesting and manipulating" of human data presents "fundamental challenges to cognitive freedom."
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