The pope’s AI letters aren’t really about AI

Pope Leo XIV published his the first encyclical Monday, called Personal Groups on “protecting man in the age of artificial intelligence.” And while AI is the hook, the problems Leo focuses on are ancient and pervasive: disunity, war, the erosion of democracy, and too much power in the hands of those who don’t care if humanity prevails.

In the 200-page document, which the pope issued together with Anthropic co-founder Chris Olah, Leo says that technology built and controlled by a small elite cannot, by definition, help the common man.

“When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few people, it becomes unclear and avoids public oversight, increasing the risk of perverse forms of development that lead to new dependencies, exclusions, disruptions and conflicts,” he writes.

“Instead, as with most technological revolutions, AI tends to increase the power of those who already have wealth, technology and access to information,” the book continues, expressing concern that elites may use their power to “create information and resources, influence democratic processes and control economic benefits.”

The encyclical comes a few days after President Donald Trump delay in signing his AI law, which would give the government control over new models before they are released, he says at the urging of VC investor and former White House AI czar David Sacks.

Pope Leo called for AI to be guided by “clear processes and proper supervision” due to the participation of the communities that may be affected by it. In particular, Leo called for the competition of AI tools to eliminate “very powerful algorithms and large documents” that companies and countries believe will “protect national or commercial sovereignty.”

“Disarming is an affront to the idea that technology gives sovereignty,” he wrote.

Again, these dynamics preceded AI. Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 Rerum Novarum also spoke of the same increase in power during the Revolutionary War, but we need not look back so far. Elon Musk found Twitter and deployed the platform to help elect Trump; and hundreds of millions are flowing from technocrats to high PACs to prevent AI control – the type that inspired Leo XIV’s work.

Pope has come to the same conclusion that many have come to: the surreal power and potential of today’s AI is overwhelming.

Notre Dame Law School professor Paolo Carozza, a member of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences and chair of the Meta Oversight Board, told TechCrunch that fake news and AI-driven disinformation “have disrupted our ability to discern what is true and what is not, and that has implications for democratic politics.” The technology industry’s practice of “harvesting and manipulating” people’s information, he added, “poses serious challenges to the right to know.”