3 key takeaways from Pope Leos 42,000-word AI encyclical

Source: Mashable Tech

Pope Leo XIV has issued his first official piece of religious guidance to billions of Catholics, and it focuses on AI.

The document is a 42,300‑word papal encyclical titled Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”). Encyclicals are not papal law, but they serve as authoritative guidance on social and moral issues for members of the Catholic Church. This is the first encyclical of Leo’s pontificate and was presented with notable pomp, including the presence of Anthropic founder Chris Olah.

The Pope has spoken previously about regulating AI, urging industry leaders to consider the ethical implications of AI in their work. In May 2025, when explaining why he chose the name Leo, he specifically cited AI as one of his primary reasons.

“There are different reasons for this, but mainly because Pope Leo XIII in his historic Encyclical Rerum Novarum addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution. In our own day, the Church offers to everyone the treasury of her social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defence of human dignity, justice and labour.”

The encyclical also examines AI’s impact on jobs, education, and child safety, and includes remarks from Olah:

“We need moral voices that the incentives cannot bend. Today is just the beginning — the start of a long collaboration between those of us who are building this and those who can see what we, from the inside, cannot.”

Below are the main takeaways from the Holy See.

AI is a threat to workers

The Catholic Church warns that AI‑driven automation, robotics, and surveillance pose a threat to workers. Pope Leo links “Magnifica Humanitas” to earlier labor‑related encyclicals, noting widespread deskilling and increased monitoring:

“Today, the convergence of automation, robotics and AI is rapidly transforming the very structure of work. It is said that this will bring great improvements for everyone. In reality, however, the ‘new ways’ of working are not necessarily better.”

Don’t believe the AI hype

Leo cautions that current AI hype resembles a modern Tower of Babel, urging leaders to temper ambition and refocus on humanity. He joins child‑safety advocates in warning about excessive screen time:

“Psychological and psychiatric literature has documented with growing insistence how early and unsupervised exposure to digital devices and social media can negatively impact sleep, attention span, control of emotions and relationships, especially during the most vulnerable stages of life, at times with tragic consequences.”

He also highlights AI’s role in spreading misinformation and eroding critical thinking in schools, describing a dehumanizing force in the classroom.

Big Tech has created a “new form of slavery”

While issuing the first formal condemnation of the transatlantic slave trade, Pope Leo condemns exploitative tech manufacturing and global AI training as a “new form of slavery”:

“In some regions of the world, children and adolescents work in dangerous conditions, crushing the materials from which rare earth elements are extracted…The bodies of these people are scarred, injured and worn down so that computational flow may continue uninterruptedly.”

He connects AI development to ongoing global warfare, warning against entrusting lethal decisions to AI systems and calling for the strictest ethical constraints on AI‑enabled weapons.

“A subtle temptation may emerge, namely the thought that the problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference. Certainly, not everyone has the same power to make a difference. Yet, no one is without responsibility. We all have our own areas for action.”