Pope Leo XIV issued a dire warning about AI this week, echoing widespread worries that the technology is moving too quickly with too little oversight.

During an address at the Élysée Palace in Paris, Leo warned that we risk “losing our humanity” in the AI revolution, which he described as a “‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives.” He emphasized that education and ethical judgement are urgently needed to shape a better future as the technology takes root in everyday life.

Leo turned his comments to the threat of AI after meditating on the ways that technology can be abused to power global conflict. “Humanity had come to realize that scientific progress, when severed from wisdom, can turn into a weapon of destruction,” Leo said, referencing the Second World War. “Our efforts in this domain must ensure that new technologies remain at the service of the human person, rather than becoming yet another instrument of domination and injustice,” Leo said.

“Over the centuries, many tasks once performed by human beings have been entrusted to machines, whose capabilities and applications have continued to expand. More recently, certain artificial systems have even been given the name of our human faculty of thought: intelligence. At the same time, however, our ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanization.

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