Pope Leo XIV wants to disarm AI. Its developers want to win the race
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Marco Carnelos
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Sun, 06/07/2026 - 14:44
The new pontiff's first encyclical challenges the belief that technological superiority grants the right to dominate others, a principle driving Silicon Valley and western governments
Pope Leo XIV presents his first encyclical 'Magnifica Humanitas' at the Vatican on 25 May 2026 (AFP/Alberto Pizzoli)
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On 25 May, Pope Leo XIV published his first encyclical titled "Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence".
It is a clear attempt to recall the principles of the Church's social doctrine in the face of the challenges posed by the ultra-fast development of artificial intelligence.
The title itself states Pope Leo's central argument that humanity remains "magnificent" even amid rapid technological change, particularly in the context of AI.
The encyclical follows another foundational text, "Rerum Novarum", issued by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to address the upheaval of the Industrial Revolution. Where that document confronted the industrial age, "Magnifica Humanitas" addresses its latest, digital stage.
The first dealt with the 19th and 20th centuries, the second with the 21st - but the primacy of human dignity remains the cornerstone of both.
It also stands in the wake of one of Pope Francis's most important encyclicals, "All Brothers", and in particular its stark denunciation of the degeneration of neoliberalism and its inadequacy before the great challenges of our time.
One of the encyclical's fundamental premises is that technology is neither inherently good nor evil, yet never neutral: it inevitably reflects the values of those who design and control it.
Pope Leo sets out two biblical paths. One is the Tower of Babel, a future of technological power built without God, ending in confusion and domination. The other is Jerusalem, exemplified by Nehemiah and his patient, communal effort to rebuild society on a foundation of shared responsibility and hope.
Human dignity
The encyclical's core messages are several. Human dignity is not negotiable: it is inherent, and cannot be reduced to a person's productivity, intelligence or any other measurable data.
AI may eliminate dangerous tasks, the pope writes, but it also risks deskilling workers, intensifying surveillance - as is already happening - and creating new forms of unemployment. He warns of a dangerous concentration of wealth and power, and of a "data colonialism" built on the hidden labour that trains AI systems.
The acceleration of AI, he argues, has left society unprepared, threatening patience, attention spans and the capacity to ask meaningful questions. And he cautions that AI can easily amplify disinformation, blurring the line between truth and manipulation.
Pope Leo does not spare a strong political and ethical message either, condemning the use of AI in warfare and declaring that the traditional "just war theory" is now outdated.
Imagine, just for a moment, the consternation this is causing in western chancelleries. There, one of the standing justifications for endless war - for the "dirty work" carried out by their partners, and for the ambition to impose a "permanent security" doctrine across the devastated Middle East - is suddenly deemed unjustifiable.
The pope also calls for stringent ethical constraints to curb an autonomous-weapons arms race. Regulation alone, he argues, is not enough: AI, he said, "now demands to be disarmed, freed from logics that turn it into an instrument of domination, exclusion, and death".
Ultimately, "Magnifica Humanitas" is a hopeful call to action. Christians are urged to move beyond passive commentary and become active builders of a "civilization of love".
The aim is not to reject innovation but to build, consciously, a future in which technology serves human life - all human beings, not just a privileged few - and progress is measured by fraternity and the flourishing of every person, not by the size of their pockets.
Disarming AI
The usual suspects will do their best to bury Pope Leo's stark message, above all its political warning. They are counting on one of the most dangerous afflictions of our age: that most people stop at the headline, at the title, and never read the rest.
Paragraph 110 of the encyclical reads:
I would like to employ the expression "to disarm," which is close to my heart. Disarming AI means freeing it from the mentality of "armed" competition, which today is not limited simply to the military context, but is also an economic and cognitive phenomenon. This entails a race for ever more powerful algorithms and larger datasets, driven by the desire to secure geopolitical or commercial dominance.
To disarm means discrediting the assumption that technical power automatically confers the right to govern. To disarm does not mean rejecting technology, but preventing it from dominating humanity. It means freeing technology from monopolistic control and opening it to discussion and debate, therefore making it human-friendly and restoring it to the plurality of human cultures and ways of life.
Our task today is not only ethical or technical. It is ecological in the deepest sense, for it concerns a new dimension of our common home. AI is already an environment in which we are immersed, as well as a force with which we must engage. For this reason, merely regulating it is insufficient; it must be disarmed, welcoming and accessible.
Pope Leo is pointing directly at the mindset of those driving the AI revolution, warning them that being the most powerful confers no right to set the rules or to "secure geopolitical or commercial dominance".
An opposite vision
There is an easy comparison to help understand how important the pope's message is and how dangerous the mindsets of AI's top developers might be.
Set "Magnifica Humanitas" beside the essay published in October 2024 by Dario Amodei, co-founder and chief executive of the US artificial intelligence company Anthropic, titled "Machines of Loving Grace: How AI Could Transform the World for the Better" or the paper his company released days before the encyclical titled "2028: Two Scenarios for Global AI Leadership".
The impression these two documents leave is that Amodei may be as dangerous as other western AI tycoons and "gurus", such as Peter Thiel and Alex Karp, co-founders of the US data analytics company Palantir Technologies.
In a fully Manichean and supremacist mood, Amodei writes that "a coalition of democracies [should seek] to gain a clear advantage on powerful AI by securing its supply chain, scaling quickly, and blocking or delaying adversaries' access to key resources like chips and semiconductor equipment", while the pope warned against precisely such a race.
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Amodei goes on: "This coalition would on one hand use AI to achieve robust military superiority while at the same time offering to distribute the benefits of powerful AI to a wider and wider group of countries in exchange for supporting the coalition's strategy."
Pope Leo insists that technical power confers no right to govern.
He pushes for the concentration of AI power, and for using it to impose a single model: "If we can do all this, we will have a world in which democracies lead on the world stage and have the economic and military strength to avoid being undermined, conquered or sabotaged by autocracies and may be able to parlay their AI superiority into a durable advantage. This could optimistically lead to an 'eternal 1991'."
Amodei, a die-hard Cold Warrior, seems as obsessed with China today as the US establishment once was with the Soviet Union between 1947 and 1991.
The second paper goes further, urging the US to "lock in a 12-24 month" lead over China by blocking chips, cutting off model access and ensuring that "democracies, not authoritarian regimes" control AI. It also warns Washington against "squandering" its advantage.
It is the exact opposite of what Pope Leo urges in his encyclical.
Sadly, bad habits and mindsets never die.
Once again, western exceptionalism, supremacism and Manichaeism - now embodied, after Thiel and Karp, by Amodei and Anthropic - have met a stark rebuke from one of the world's highest moral authorities.
Will they heed the warning? Do not count on it.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.
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