Pope Leo makes AI’s threat to humanity a signature issue

Pope Leo XIV is making the threat of AI to humanity a key issue of his legacy, challenging the technology industry that has spent years courting the Vatican. 

The new American pope’s namesake, Leo XIII, stood up for the rights of factory workers during the Gilded Age, a period from the late 1870s to the late 1890s of swift economic change and extreme wealth inequality led by corrupt industrial robber barons.

Speaking to a hall of cardinals last month, the pope said he would rely on 2,000 years of church social teaching to “respond to another industrial revolution and to innovations in the field of artificial intelligence that pose challenges to human dignity, justice, and labor,” reports The Wall Street Journal.

In attempts to shape Rome’s dialogue on AI and, by association, influence governments and policymakers, leaders of Google, Microsoft, Cisco, and other tech giants have flown to the Vatican to preach the good word of emerging technologies. 

The Vatican has pushed for a binding international treaty on AI, something most tech CEOs would say threatens to stifle innovation.