'It is urgent to heed the warning raised by Pope Leo XIV's encyclical on AI'

The publication on Monday, May 25, of the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas ("Magnificent Humanity") by Pope Leo XIV, "on the protection of the human person in the age of artificial intelligence [AI]," stands as a political manifesto of unprecedented scope. No government, regulatory authority or think tank had yet offered such a thorough and well-structured reflection on this technological revolution.

The holy father places himself in the tradition of his distant predecessor, Leo XIII, who in 1891, with the encyclical Rerum Novarum ("New Things"), offered a reflection on the condition of workers during the industrial revolution. That era shattered old forms of solidarity, crowded millions into factories stripped of rights and dignity and gave rise to a social question that neither liberalism nor emerging socialism could resolve. Rerum Novarum did not claim to settle the economic debate. It sought to set an ethical horizon.

What began 135 years ago, Leo XIV now seeks to extend to the field of AI. The goal is to raise the alarm about the risk of eroding individual dignity in the face of the promise of disembodied efficiency in the age of algorithms. While many advocate for a wait-and-see approach – driven either by naive fascination or by a catastrophism resistant to certain forms of modernity – the pope believes we must not wait for technological processes to mature before seeking to channel them.

Rerum Novarum did not instantly transform industrial capitalism. Its influence was slow and indirect. It inspired the emergence of political and social forces (Christian democracy, trade unionism, the welfare state) that took decades to become established. If the impact of Magnifica Humanitas is also to take several generations to permeate society, there is a serious risk that the damage caused by AI will be irreversible. The technology is spreading at dizzying speed, across all strata of society and on a global scale, much faster than countervailing powers, such as those the Vatican calls for, can be formed.

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