POPE LEO XIV AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: BACK TO THE FUTURE?
POPE LEO XIV AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:
BACK TO THE FUTURE?
12 May 2025 – Andrew Dolan
In his first formal address to the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV referenced the importance of the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on society. For some commentators, the emphasis put on a range of social issues seemed reminiscent of an encyclical by one of Pope Leo XIV’s predecessors at the end of the nineteenth century, when the then Pope Leo XIII published his famous ‘Rerum Novarum’ on capital and labour in 1891.
The 1891 encyclical did not specifically address the impact of technology on society but there was no disguising its presence. Similarly, today, the explosion of AI across large swathes of industrial and financial policy and its seepage into politics, education, entertainment and culture, is having a significant influence on how our society is progressing. Indeed, I would suggest that an earlier encyclical of Leo XIII’s, the 1879 ‘Aeterni Patris’, which addressed the relationship between the Catholic Church of its time and philosophical ideas, should be explored alongside the thoughts on catholic social teaching.
That said, I think the fact that Pope Leo, in raising this issue so soon after his election, is probably more likely to impress upon his ‘flock’ the impact of AI on the here and now. In fact, the Catholic Church has been monitoring AI developments for some time and actively engaged in trying to better understand what the most likely consequences could be.
One such effort has gone into trying to work at the UN to dampen the development and deployment of so-called Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems or LAWS. The Church has argued against such a development: it stresses the ‘slippery slope’ issue of having no humans in the ‘loop’ of targeting decision in conflict for example, being wary of machines having ‘agency’ in the selection of human targets and their elimination. Given the prominence of such weapon systems, such as certain types of combat drones used in Ukraine and Gaza, it is far from sure that Vatican engagement has moved the dial on deployment. However, the Church for sure does have a solid understanding of the rationale and arguments for and against such families of weapons and the ethical considerations the debate generates. What might be more problematic in the future is the likelihood of traditional technology and ‘Big Tech’ companies, many associated with traditional technical commercial products, moving into the defence and security arena and blurring the debate around the generation of data and privacy. Pope Leo will have to quickly determine the extent to which the Church can engage with what in effect might become ‘dual use technology providers’ and the type of influence they might have both in terms of war and peace.
Another pillar of AI concern will focus on the impact of machine intelligence and its nexus with life sciences. The Church is already concerned with global public health issues and clearly recognises the potential benefit of AI support to medical research. Yet it also has genuine concerns about some of the frontier research and potential applications of certain cutting edge technological and AI-enabled medical processes. Certainly, the Catholic Church will abhor experimentation on humans, especially children, in the name of science or so-called ‘gain of function’ research, which might have devastating consequences if mistakes are made. Beyond such forms of research, a more problematic problem is likely to arise from AI-enabled medical success, namely the question of who gets access? Will there be an ethics of allocation? Could AI advances lead to medical haves and have nots depending on the ability to pay and what fissures could this lead to within society?
Such considerations abound more frequently today as our society slowly but surely comes to terms with the revolution or evolution that AI is having on what constitutes ‘humanity’. For some AI enthusiasts, they cannot wait until the dawning of the age of ‘singularity’, the melding of legacy humans and machines. There is serious speculation that various forms of neural links or ‘augmentation’ technologies will herald a significantly enhanced human or ‘cyborg’ over the next few decades and that furthermore, we should start planning for this eventuality now.
Whether or not you buy into this future, whether it is dystopian or mankind’s next stage of evolution, it is probably inevitable that ‘believers’ will emerge and possibly place their faith in this new form of creation. Could such a development lead to alternative forms of religion or apocalyptic thinking? Would it be unreasonable to consider that some driven adherents of new faiths try to hasten the demise of humanity on earth?
Pope Leo XIV will certainly take note of the issues surrounding his predecessors’ encyclicals on social teaching. He might also find much to ponder on the more philosophical warnings of Pope Benedict who saw in emerging technologies, an influence that could be malign if not handled properly.
Clearly, one possible direction for the Church’s engagement with AI is to address the social impact, ranging from possible economic dislocation, the future and dignity of labour and the balance of AI-enabled consumerism with some other potential negative trends for society, whether this is in the magnification of the existing glaring wealth inequalities of today or issues such as the loss of privacy, the inability to determine what constitutes the truth or the psychological challenges of societal surveillance. The Church’s social teaching and faith formation will play a significant role in embracing the good and deterring the bad.
The other potential direction is arguably more fundamental with the concept we have of ourselves – what are we as individuals, as society and as a unique presence on earth? What constitutes human intelligence? Could this be under threat from various forms of machine intelligence? If we as humans embrace Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) or even Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI), where are we going as mankind? Would we feature in concepts of machine intelligence ‘reality’?
The exhortations of Pope Leo XIV on AI should suggest that to make sense of what is coming with this new wave of technology, we need to understand it better before deciding how best to integrate these considerations into Catholic Social Teaching.