Pope Leo calls for an ethical AI framework in a message to tech execs gathering at the Vatican

According to Pope Leo XIV, tech firms working on artificial intelligence should adhere to moral standards that uphold human dignity.

In a letter addressed Friday to an AI conference attended by Silicon Valley businessmen and Vatican officials, the pope stated that AI must consider human well-being not only materially but also intellectually and spiritually.

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According to him, no generation has ever had such rapid access to the volume of information made possible by AI. However, intelligence should not be mistaken with access to data, no matter how vast.

He also wrote that society’s well-being depends on allowing children to develop their God-given talents and capacities, voicing concerns about AI’s effects on children’s intellectual and neurological development.

The Pope made the statement on the second day of a two-day conference for tech executives in Rome to talk about the ethical and societal ramifications of AI. Academics from Harvard and Stanford, representatives of the Holy See, and representatives from AI leaders such as Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, IBM, Meta, and Palantir attended the second annual Rome Conference on AI.

The event takes place at a somewhat sensitive time for AI, as the quickly developing technology promises to increase worker productivity, speed up research, and end disease, but it also poses a threat to human jobs, spread false information, exacerbate the climate crisis, and develop even more potent weapons and surveillance tools. Regulations aimed at ensuring the responsible use of AI have been resisted by certain industry CEOs, who claim that they could impede innovation and international competition.

According to Leo’s Friday statement, artificial intelligence (AI) has occasionally been applied in admirable and constructive ways to advance equality, but it also has the potential to be abused for personal benefit at the expense of others or, worse, to incite hostility and war.

Despite lacking formal regulatory authority, the Vatican has been speaking out more and more about AI policy in an effort to utilize its clout to promote moral technology advancements.

The Rome Call for AI Ethics, a statement detailing ethical issues for the creation of AI systems, was the outcome of a 2020 event held at the Vatican when tech CEOs, EU regulators, and the late Pope Francis debated human-centric AI. Among the signatories who committed to upholding the document’s principles were IBM, Microsoft, and Qualcomm.

Francis demanded an international agreement two years later to control AI use and stop the rise of a technology tyranny. Months after an AI-generated picture of Francisin wearing a puffy coat went popular, he expressed concerns about surveillance systems and AI weaponry, as well as election meddling and rising inequality. He was the first pope to attend the G7 conference in 2024, where he presented the ethical framework for AI development that he hoped governments and large tech corporations would support.

Following Francis

Pope Leo XIV, who took over as head of the Catholic Church last month, gave the indication that his pontificate would follow Francis’ lead on issues like church reform and addressing artificial intelligence as a major concern for working people and human dignity.

Pope Leo XIII, who headed the church throughout the industrial revolution and published a seminal teaching document supporting workers’ rights to a fair pay and the ability to organize trade unions, is the man the future pope has chosen to name himself after. Leo has proposed that the church’s social teaching, which provides a framework for interacting with politics and commerce, be applied to new technological developments since the growth of AI poses a similar revolution to the one that occurred in the 19th century.

Leo stated in that May speech that in the face of another industrial revolution and advances in artificial intelligence that present new difficulties for the preservation of human dignity, justice, and labor, the church today gives to everyone the richness of her social teaching.

The roundtable debate on AI ethics and governance was part of the Friday event, which was held within the Vatican’s apostolic palace. Archbishop Edgar Pe a Parra, who serves as the Vatican’s sostituto (substitute), a position comparable to that of papal chief of staff, and Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, who has discussed artificial intelligence with business leaders, were among those in attendance from the Vatican side.

Leo made mention to AI earlier last week when addressing Italian bishops about issues that raise concerns about upholding human dignity.

He informed them that social media, biotechnologies, artificial intelligence, and the data economy are all significantly altering how we view and experience life.In this case, functions, automatism, and simulations run the risk of eroding or forgetting human dignity. However, the individual is a being, relationship, and mystery rather than a system of algorithms.

AI governance, or how the businesses developing it should balance their obligations to shareholders and the need to make money with the need to avoid causing harm to the world, is a major topic of Friday’s session. With a clause in President Donald Trump’s proposed agenda bill that would forbid the enforcement of state laws on AI for ten years, the United States is on the verge of kneecapping the enforcement of many of the few regulations that are currently in place. This makes the discussion all the more urgent.

As they attempt to create an ethical framework for AI research, Leo urged tech executives to recognize and value the distinctive qualities of the human person.

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