Two speeches, one theme
Pope Leo XIV opened a four-day visit to France on Friday 25 September with a warning that a “paradise of machines” risks undermining humanity, the Associated Press reported. He raised it first in his speech to President Emmanuel Macron and assembled authorities at the Elysee Palace, then again at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education organisation.
The formulation at the Elysee was about attention rather than capability. “The paradox has become increasingly evident: while ‘intelligence’ is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognize the inalienable dignity of human persons, whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and, when deemed no longer productive, are rejected and discarded,” he said.
His prescription was education rather than regulation, at least in that passage: “If we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a ‘paradise of machines’ invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for education in ethical discernment and the capacity to acknowledge the moral good.”
The position behind it
Leo has treated AI as one of the defining problems of his papacy since it began, and devoted his first encyclical to the subject, calling for robust regulation and for developers to work for the common good rather than profit. In May he called on world leaders to set global rules for the industry.
At UNESCO he put it as a test of purpose: new technologies, he said, must “remain at the service of the human person rather than becoming yet another instrument of domination and injustice”.
He also told reporters he was pleased the message was landing, and that he hoped the dialogue the Vatican has opened with technology companies would continue. “And I think from their perspective, many of them, they’re very much open to looking for ways of making sure that AI does not displace or ultimately destroy humanity, but rather is a tool for human beings,” he said.
What else he said
AI was not the only existential theme. Leo reaffirmed the Vatican’s opposition to nuclear weapons and called the doctrine of nuclear deterrence “mistaken”, arguing it fuels a new arms race. “Peace is not a balance of power; rather, it is built day by day through dialogue and justice,” he said.
The visit is the first state visit by a pope to France in 18 years, and comes into a country whose constitutional secularism limits the church’s influence on ethical questions. Leo also used the trip to press the church’s position on the right to life, in a country that enshrined a right to abortion in its constitution in 2024 and recently passed a law allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication.
Why a papal speech counts as AI news
It is a position with a constituency, delivered where policy audiences sit. UNESCO is a UN body with a standing role in AI ethics, and the speech was addressed to diplomats and UN staff rather than a congregation.
It also lands in a week when governments moved the other way. The AP notes Leo has appealed to AI developers and the politicians regulating them to slow down, and says several leading AI companies appear to have taken that appeal seriously in recent months.
What to watch
Whether the Vatican’s dialogue with the companies produces anything with a name attached to it. So far the papal intervention is rhetorical: an encyclical, a call for global rules, and now a state visit. None of it is binding on anyone.
