Pope Leo will write the first encyclical about the moral problems with AI
The Vatican says that Pope Leo’s first encyclical will talk about AI, workers’ rights, war, and protecting human dignity.
On May 25, Pope Leo XIV, the head of the Catholic Church, will release his first encyclical, which will be called “Magnifica Humanitas.” It will discuss the moral problems that come up with AI, workers’ rights, and world peace.
The Vatican City said on Monday that Pope Leo will write about the rise of AI in his first in-depth text outlining his worries. The pontiff himself will release the text on May 25.
The letter, which is called an encyclical, is expected to condemn the use of AI in war and talk about how it threatens workers’ rights.
The Vatican announced that the pope officially signed “Magnifica Humanitas,” or “Magnificent Humanity,” last Friday, before its release.
Leo, the first American pope, will give the text at the Vatican, which is not usual for a pope. Chris Olah, co-founder of the AI company Anthropic, will also be there.
Usually, popes don’t read their works in public. Instead, they let Vatican cardinals and press officials do that.
Encyclicals are one of the best ways for the Church’s 1.4 billion people to learn from the pope.
John Thavis, a retired Vatican reporter who covered three popes, said, “A pope’s first encyclical usually lays out his priorities, focusing on what he sees as serious social and moral issues for the modern world.”
Monday’s release indicated that the text would focus on “protecting the human person in the age of AI.”
In the past few weeks, the Catholic pope has spoken out strongly against the direction that world leaders are taking. He made President Trump furious by criticizing the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran.
It has been in the works for months and will likely cover a wide range of social problems. It could also be the Church’s most comprehensive statement on workers’ rights in decades.
The text was signed by Leo, the 14th pope to bear that name. It was on May 15, 135 years after an encyclical by Pope Leo XIII called for better pay and working conditions for workers.
He had been pope for a year on May 8, and he had warned many times about the dangers of AI.
Last week, he spoke out against its use in war at Europe’s biggest university. He used the conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, and Iran as examples of “the inhumane evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation.”
Olah is a co-founder of the AI company Anthropic. The pope may have invited him because he is researching how neural networks work, which is what AI is based on.
Anthropic has had problems with the Trump administration, especially because it wants strong rules on how its models can be used for military tasks like automatically aiming weapons or spying on people at home.
He also released another important document in his first year as pope. It was the conclusion of an apostolic letter that was started by the late Pope Francis and called for big changes to the global market system to fix the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
Francis put out the last letter in October 2024. It told Catholics to give up their “mad pursuit” of money and focus on their faith instead.
