{"id":260834,"date":"2026-06-01T06:09:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-01T10:09:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/opinion-pope-leo-xiv-is-right-about-the-risk-posed-by-ai\/"},"modified":"2026-06-01T06:15:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T10:15:18","slug":"opinion-pope-leo-xiv-is-right-about-the-risk-posed-by-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/01\/opinion-pope-leo-xiv-is-right-about-the-risk-posed-by-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Opinion: Pope Leo XIV is right about the risk posed by AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Opinion: Pope Leo XIV is right about the risk posed by AI<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/06\/01\/opinion-pope-leo-encyclical-artificial-intelligence\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-06-01 06:09:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.chicagotribune.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Pope Leo XIV\u2019s new encyclical on artificial intelligence is a warning to Catholics and non-Catholics alike: Take AI risks seriously, or risk losing our humanity. As Leo writes, \u201cThe risk of dehumanization \u2014 of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means \u2014 is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMagnifica Humanitas,\u201d subtitled \u201cOn Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence,\u201d applies to classic teachings of the Catholic Church such as the love of God, the dignity of the human person, and the importance of both rights and responsibilities in pursuing the common good. The pope offers a positive vision of a \u201ccivilization of love\u201d where AI could help \u201cbuild a universal human family.\u201d But he warns that our \u201csignificant spiritual and cultural blindness\u201d may instead lead us to build a new \u201cTower of Babel, relying on power and pride.\u201d A misplaced faith in AI and a technocratic pursuit of efficiency can undermine truth and democracy, deform education, devalue workers, accelerate warfare, and even expand \u201cslavery, (human) trafficking, and the commodification of persons.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

We are both practicing Catholics, so we follow the Holy Father\u2019s teaching. However, all persons of faith, as well as atheists and agnostics, would do well to heed his words. The risks of advanced AI affect all of humanity, and we all must answer the pope\u2019s question: \u201cWhat are we building?\u201d<\/p>\n

Techno-progressives such as Sam Altman and effective accelerationists such as Marc Andreessen have an answer. They maintain that whoever builds the most powerful AI \u2014 leading to artificial general intelligence (AGI) and then artificial superintelligence (ASI) \u2014 will secure a glorious future for humanity.<\/p>\n

Everyday Americans aren\u2019t as convinced. Eight in 10 U.S. adults are concerned about AI, citing job loss, impacts on privacy, environmental harms, energy costs and other…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Opinion: Pope Leo XIV is right about the risk posed by AI https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/2026\/06\/01\/opinion-pope-leo-encyclical-artificial-intelligence\/ Publish Date:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":260835,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.chicagotribune.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/CTC-Vatican-Pope-Encyclical_262967417.jpg?w=1024&h=683","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[22],"class_list":["post-260834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificial-general-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260834"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260834"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260834\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260836,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260834\/revisions\/260836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}