By Margherita Stancati and Sam Schechner
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Leo XIV warned that artificial intelligence "threatens to normalize an anti-human vision" and said that the concentration of immense digital power in the hands of a few private actors must be countered.
The encyclical letter -- a text that is poised to define Leo's papacy -- reads like a sharp warning to Silicon Valley executives and humanity more broadly about the future of civilization as new technologies rapidly advance.
The risk, he said, is that humans will be reduced "to mere cogs in a system driven toward ever greater efficiency."
Leo used two biblical images to describe the choice humanity faces.
"The primary choice is not between a 'yes' or 'no' to technology, but rather between constructing Babel or rebuilding Jerusalem," he wrote.
In the Bible, the Tower of Babel symbolizes a top-down, grandiose project where decisions are driven by pride, profit and a push for homogenization, the pope suggested in his text. In the rebuilding of Jerusalem, diverse people worked together to rebuild the ruined walls and established a fraternal coexistence within them, he added.
Leo's encyclical has been long-awaited by policymakers, business leaders and different faith groups who see the Catholic Church, the largest Christian denomination, as a source of ethical guidance on tech policy.
In so doing, the pontiff is specifically calling out the private actors who are building the AI systems that will transform society.
"Leo sees the challenge of AI as a choice about its design, and about who gets to make those choices," said Vincent Miller, a professor of theology at the University of Dayton, Ohio.
The encyclical is inspired by the church's thinking about what it means to be human, and draws on 2,000 years of moral and social teachings.
It is also the product of a yearslong dialogue between the Vatican and Silicon Valley on the ethical and social challenges posed by AI.
When Leo presents the document on Monday, he will be accompanied by Christopher Olah, a co-founder and safety researcher at AI firm Anthropic, which has tried to position itself as a proponent of AI safety. It is a central player in the AI landscape, both showing blistering growth in its business and also emerging as a flashpoint on questions of AI safety and national security.
Anthropic has leaned in to philosophical questions such as whether AI models experience consciousness. The company employs an in-house philosopher to help instill morality in its AI.
The planned inclusion of Olah drew criticism for appearing to give Anthropic the Vatican's stamp of moral approval. Vatican officials said Olah's participation wasn't intended as an endorsement, but as a gesture aimed at encouraging dialogue with the industry as a whole.
Meeting the pope has become a rite of passage for a new generation of tech leaders, including Anthropic's Dario Amodei, Cohere's Aidan Gomez, and top officials from OpenAI. Demis Hassabis, head of Google DeepMind, the search giant's AI arm, was in 2024 named by the Vatican to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
Write to Margherita Stancati at margherita.stancati@wsj.com and Sam Schechner at Sam.Schechner@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
May 25, 2026 06:00 ET (10:00 GMT)
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