In the past few days, there has been a huge amount of attention surrounding the election of the new pope, and of course this attention also extends to what the newly elected head of the Catholic Church - who has taken the papal throne and who has chosen Leo XIV as the papal name - considers the most prominent topics and what he intends to place special emphasis on in the coming period. In his first speeches, in addition to war and peace, justice and helping those, who are in needs, the new Pope also spoke about the challenges posed by artificial intelligence (AI), to which humanity must find an appropriate response.
In his message to the College of Cardinals, Pope Leo XIV – in line with his other statements – touched on the challenges posed by AI and at the same time referred to the fact that the choice of papal name is also related to the revolutionary changes represented by AI and the tasks necessary to deal with them:
Sensing myself called to continue in this same path, I chose to take the name Leo XIV. 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. (emphasis added)
What is Rerum Novarum?
Rerum Novarum is Pope Leo XIII's Encyclical on Capital and Labor, published on 15 May 1891 and which played a significant role in the development of responses based on Christian foundations to the social changes brought about by the Industrial Revolution and it provided the moral foundation of social rights aimed at improving the situation of the workers. With the presentation of the need for social justice and its proper framing in public thinking, the Encyclical Rerum Novarum has become a document of decisive importance, the significance of which goes beyond the framework of the Catholic Church (many achievements in modern labour law can be traced back to the principles appearing in the Encyclical).
What to expect from Pope Leo XIV on AI?
Obviously, it is too early to discuss in detail exactly how Pope Leo XIV will advance thinking about artificial intelligence, what answers he will offer to the many burning questions that AI means for humanity. It is important to emphasize that the discussion of the topic is not without precedent on the part of the Catholic Church. At the beginning of this year (January 2025), the "ANTIQUA ET NOVA - Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence" was published as a joint list of the Dicastery for Religion and Culture and Education.
In addition to the "Antiqua et Nova" ("Old and New"), we can find a number of other statements, even directly from Pope Francis, that could also serve as a precursor to Pope Leo XIV's future guidelines on AI. (For Pope Francis' thoughts on AI, see e.g. this summary.) Just as in the case of "Rerum novarum", the Church led by Pope Francis also approached artificial intelligence in such a way that it acknowledged its possible positive effects, the possibilities that this technology could unfold for humanity, but at the same time drew attention to the fact that AI can only truly serve the "common good" if it is applied within the right ethical framework and the human remains at the center. (See, for example, this message from Pope Francis, which was sent to the participants of the conference titled "The 'Good' Algorithm? Artificial Intelligence: Ethics, Law, Health" and the message for the World Day of Peace on 1 January 2024, entitled "Artificial Intelligence and Peace". In this context, see the "Rome Call for AI Ethics", which also expressed the need to place the development and use of AI within an appropriate ethical framework, and whose signatories include representatives of large companies such as Microsoft and IBM.)
Although we do not know exactly what responses the Catholic Church will give to the challenges posed by AI in the near future, the choice of the papal name and its justification, as well as the reference to Rerum Novarum, suggest a lot. Many of the challenges posed by AI to today's society can be found in the changes induced by the Industrial Revolution, such as the concentration of wealth, the increase in vulnerability, the risk of marginalization, environmental hazards, and the overuse of natural resources (in connection with the latter topic, it is worth referring to Pope Francis' "Laudato sí", which deals with environmental issues and Catholic responses to them). In order to find answers to these challenges, we are probably not wrong if we expect human dignity (human-centredness), justice and the pursuit of the common good, solidarity and social responsibility to be the building blocks on which an ethical framework for AI should be built.
What do world religions say about AI?
Although a more detailed overview of the topic would be far beyond the scope of this post, it is worth pointing out that it is not only the Catholic Church that has paid special attention to AI in recent years, but the issue is similarly of concern to representatives of other religions. The challenge posed by AI also appears in the thinking of representatives of Islam, Hindu or Buddhist religions, among others (see, for example, here, here, here). Interreligious dialogue is essential on this issue as well, so that a common minimum can be found that can provide an ethical framework for a global technology that can also be applied globally.
