Pope to release major artificial intelligence manifesto

https://www.straitstimes.com/world/europe/pope-to-release-major-artificial-intelligence-manifesto

Publish Date: 2026-05-24 22:27:00

VATICAN CITY – Pope Leo XIV will release on May 25 his long-awaited manifesto on artificial intelligence, a bid to address ethical and social challenges as the technology rapidly develops worldwide.

The US Pope will attend the presentation of the “Magnifica Humanitas” (Magnificent Humanity) encyclical at the Vatican in person – a first for the Catholic Church.

He will be joined not only by officials from the Holy See but experts including the co-founder of the American start-up Anthropic, a key player in the booming AI landscape.

Anthropic is in a legal battle with the US military after refusing to change its internal policy prohibiting the use of its Claude model for lethal autonomous warfare or mass surveillance.

Pope Leo has denounced the race for AI in the military field, saying that “delegating decisions concerning the life and death of human beings to machines” is a “destructive spiral”.

Since his election in 2025 as the Church’s first US pope, he has repeatedly warned of the dangers of AI, including “the gradual replacement of reality by its simulation”.

And he has slammed the “environmental devastation” caused by the “frenzied race” for rare earth elements, which are essential for modern electronics.

AI could be worth up to US$4.8 trillion (S$61.27 trillion) by 2033, a 25-fold increase in a decade, while concentrating its profits in the hands of a limited few, according to the UN.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres in 2025 warned “the window is closing to shape AI – for peace, for justice, for humanity”.

Pope Leo has made the hot-button issue a cornerstone of his papacy in dedicating to it his first encyclical – a document which lays the basis for Church teaching and longer-term debate.

Experts say Magnifica Humanitas could prove as influential as Pope Francis’ “Laudato Si”, a 2015 climate manifesto that triggered political and civic reactions worldwide.

The Vatican sees this new text as an extension of its social…

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