Pope creates artificial intelligence study group to examine its potential effects on humanity
Pope Leo XIV has formed a group to study artificial intelligence, the Vatican announced Saturday, as he prepares to issue his first encyclical that is anticipated to stress the importance of an ethics-driven approach to the technology, with human dignity and peace at its core. The Vatican explained that the pontiff had chosen to create the internal group due to the rapid expansion of AI usage, "its potential effects on human beings and on humanity as a whole (and) the church's concern for the dignity of every human being."
The announcement followed Leo's signing of his encyclical the previous day, exactly 135 years after his namesake, Pope Leo XIII, dated his landmark encyclical, "Rerum Novarum," or Of New Things. That document tackled workers' rights, the boundaries of capitalism, and the responsibilities that governments and employers held toward workers during the Industrial Revolution. It laid the groundwork for modern Catholic social teaching, and the current pontiff has already referenced it in discussions about the AI revolution, which he views as presenting the same fundamental questions that the Industrial Revolution raised more than a century ago. The forthcoming encyclical is expected to frame the AI issue within the church's social doctrine, which also addresses matters including labor, justice and peace.
"I think that the Catholic Church in many ways is going to be the adult in the room on some of these debates about how we are going to integrate AI into the rest of our society," Meghan Sullivan, a philosophy professor at the University of Notre Dame who directs its ethics institute, told The Associated Press. "For sure, the pope is going to be one of the most forceful advocates for human dignity in these discussions."
Just days following his 2025 election, Leo informed the cardinals who elevated him to pope that the Catholic Church had a responsibility to share the "treasury of its social teaching" in addressing the challenges AI presents to "human dignity, justice and labor." The public unveiling of the encyclical, anticipated in the coming weeks, will likely spark fresh tensions between the Chicago-born Leo and the Trump administration, which has prioritized the accelerated advancement of AI as critical to national economic and security interests. The United States has firmly opposed international regulatory attempts to constrain AI and the Trump administration has eliminated bureaucratic obstacles hindering its domestic development.
The surge of Vatican engagement occurred as U.S. President Donald Trump concluded a visit to China that featured AI-related business. Among those accompanying Trump on Air Force One were Elon Musk, whose social media platform X hosts his AI chatbot Grok, and Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who recently obtained federal authorization to sell H200 AI chips to Chinese customers. Since the AI revolution began with ChatGPT's launch, the technology's remarkable capabilities have captivated the world. Tech firms have competed to build superior AI systems even as specialists caution about its dangers, from existential but far-off threats like rogue AIs running amok to everyday concerns such as bias in algorithmic hiring systems.
The United Nations last year established a new governance framework to regulate AI, following previous multilateral efforts — including AI summits organized by Britain, South Korea and France — that yielded only non-binding commitments. In 2024, the EU passed its own Artificial Intelligence Act, implementing a risk-based approach to AI regulation. The Vatican has sought to make its voice heard in the debate, issuing ethical guidelines for the use of AI across sectors ranging from warfare to education and healthcare. The central message has been that the technology must serve as a tool to complement, rather than replace, human intelligence.
The Vatican has also raised alarms over the environmental toll of the AI race, highlighting the "vast amounts of energy and water" consumed by AI data centers and computational infrastructure. "There are almost a billion and a half Catholics in the world, so that alone is reason to pay attention," said Thomas Harmon, theology professor at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. "But beyond the numbers, the Catholic Church has a deep and sophisticated tradition of thinking through what it means to be human."
In 2020, the Vatican enlisted tech companies to sign onto an AI pledge known as the Rome Call for AI Ethics, which outlined core principles for AI regulation, including inclusiveness, accountability, impartiality, and privacy. Microsoft, IBM and Cisco were among the private sector companies that signed on. In his final years, Pope Francis championed an international treaty to regulate AI, warning that the risks posed by technology devoid of human values such as compassion, mercy, morality and forgiveness were too significant to simply rely on the conscience of AI researchers and developers.
He also leveraged his influence at the Group of Seven, addressing a dedicated session on the dangers and potential of AI in 2024. There, Francis urged politicians to take the lead in ensuring AI remains human-centric, so that decisions around deploying weapons or even less-lethal tools always stay in human hands. He ultimately called for a ban on lethal autonomous weapons, commonly known as "killer robots." Internally, Leo has cautioned priests against relying on AI to draft their homilies. Yet the math-major pope, who does spend leisure time scrolling on his phone, has also spoken out on AI's broader impact on world peace, labor, and the very nature of reality.
For the Augustinian pope, generative AI's capacity to mislead and deceive through deepfake imagery is particularly alarming, given that the pursuit of truth lies at the heart of his religious order's spirituality. In a June 2025 address to an AI conference, Leo acknowledged generative AI's contributions to healthcare and scientific advancement. However, he questioned "its possible repercussions on humanity's openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp reality." Leo, who has emphasized a constant appeal for peace, has also called for monitoring how AI is being used and developed in warfare in the Middle East and Ukraine, where automated weapons systems are utilizing everything from aerial drones to maritime and ground-based platforms.
"What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation," he stated earlier this week at La Sapienza, Europe's largest university. The study group will now examine these and other dimensions of AI, working to ensure that the church's voice remains a moral compass in a rapidly changing technological landscape. As the world grapples with how to govern a technology that promises both immense good and profound risk, the Vatican's move signals a deepening commitment to centering human dignity in the global conversation.
Source: MSN News