Big quote: Pope Leo XIV has called for artificial intelligence to be "disarmed," urging governments meeting in Geneva for a UN weapons conference later this month to take concrete steps toward banning lethal autonomous weapons systems in warfare. Decisions affecting human life, freedom, and the use of force, the pontiff said, must always remain under human oversight.
The pope also made the Catholic Church's position clear on the debate over whether AI systems should be granted rights or legal personhood, saying the Vatican sees machines as tools, not sentient beings with a claim to legal rights of their own. AI is developed by human beings, he added, and granting it rights or personhood would obscure human accountability.
The future of artificial intelligence is not predetermined, according to the pope, but depends on the choices people make. "We therefore have the responsibility to guide, change and, when necessary, reject its applications," he said, adding that the decisive question about AI is not what it can do, but "What purpose should it serve?"
In an address on Friday, the Chicago-born pontiff also voiced strong reservations about the use of AI in warfare and border control, saying certain decisions "must never be delegated" to technology. Humans, he said, should always be in charge of target lists, border control databases, and autonomous weapons.
Explaining his stance, the pope said advanced technologies must be directed toward the greater good of humanity, a goal he said is only achievable if international institutions and governments work in unison to ensure that ethical principles, rather than corporate profits, guide the development of AI.
It isn't the first time Pope Leo has spoken out against handing lethal decisions to AI. When he made similar remarks in his May encyclical, Mistral co-founder and CEO Arthur Mensch pushed back, arguing that Europe needs its own military AI capabilities because its adversaries are already using the technology.
Pope Leo is not the first pontiff to denounce the use of autonomous weapons in warfare. In a 2024 address to the G7, Pope Francis stressed the importance of keeping decision-making in human hands, noting that a machine makes a technical choice based on defined criteria or statistical inferences, while humans "not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding."