Imagine trying to explain what it feels like to lose a parent to a being that has never known love, never felt grief, never held a hand. You could feed it every book, every poem, every tearstained letter, and it might learn to mimic the words back to you, but it would not understand them from the inside. That is the gap at the heart of the new papal encyclical that Pope Leo XIV released this month. Titled Magnifica Humanitas, or “Magnificent Humanity,” the 200-page document is not a rejection of technology but a plea to remember what we are as human beings. The Pope writes that so-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships, and do not know from within what love, work, friendship, or responsibility mean. That last phrase, “from within,” is the key. A machine can be trained to recognize a sad face, but it cannot be sad. It can produce a beautiful song, but it cannot be moved by beauty. It can calculate the most efficient way to organize a workplace, but it cannot care about the worker who just received bad news. Leo is not trying to shame us for using these tools; he is trying to protect something precious. When we start to mistake a simulation for the real thing, we cheapen our own experiences and make ourselves more likely to believe that humanity can be reduced to data. The encyclical’s title reminds us that there is something magnificent about flesh-and-blood existence, with all its messiness, vulnerability, and surprise. No algorithm has ever had a childhood, a falling-out with a friend, a moment of grace, or a sleepless night of worry. And while that may seem obvious, the Pope worries that in our excitement over what machines can do, we are forgetting what they cannot be.
Leo is careful not to sound like a Luddite. He explicitly distinguishes between rejecting technology outright and taking steps to ensure technology does not come to dominate humanity. The first would be a mistake, because technology has always served human needs and can continue to do so. But the second is a duty, one that grows more urgent as artificial intelligence becomes more powerful. “Technology is never neutral,” he writes, “because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use it.” That is a way of saying that every app, every algorithm, every data center is built by people with values, assumptions, and interests. It can reflect their biases or their generosity. A facial recognition system can be designed to treat everyone fairly or to lock in prejudice. A chatbot can be designed to comfort or to manipulate. The person who sets the goal, writes the code, decides what data to collect, and chooses how to deploy the result is making a moral choice, even if they never stop to think about it. Leo calls on those behind AI development to bear “a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity.” That is a heavy thought for a late-night debugging session. But it is also empowering: if technology reflects the people who make it, then better people can make better technology. The Pope is not asking engineers to become saints; he is asking them to think about what kind of world they want to live in. Do we want machines that nudge us toward our worst impulses, or ones that encourage compassion? Do we want automation that isolates us, or tools that help us connect? These questions are not technical. They are human. And they cannot be delegated to an ethics committee after the damage is done. They need to be asked from the very beginning, with all the humility and hope that being human entails.
In the United States, however, this kind of warning has become a political football. President Donald Trump has repeatedly dismissed AI fears as just another hoax, lumping them in with a long list of controversies he says were invented by the radical left to destroy the country. “Over the years, there have been many Hoaxes,” he wrote, listing Russia, Ukraine, global warming, and transgender rights before arriving at “the decimation, or destruction, of AI.” For anyone who has watched tech news, this is jarring. The people building AI systems are themselves warning that the technology could spin out of control, yet the president has called the concern fake news. He has also praised the data centers that make AI possible, saying communities should welcome them or risk becoming “backwards and poor.” That rhetoric may appeal to voters who are tired of hearing doom and gloom, but it can also make it impossible to have a calm conversation about real problems. When one side says “AI is going to destroy everything” and the other side says “AI is a hoax,” ordinary people are left in the middle, unsure whom to trust. The Pope’s message offers a different way: you do not have to believe that robots are coming to kill us to take responsible precautions. You can believe in human creativity and still admit that powerful tools need rules. You can reject the panic and still reject the indifference. By ignoring the nuance, the loudest voices on both sides do us all a disservice. They turn a question of stewardship into a cheap identity badge. But the stakes are too high for that. The decisions being made about AI right now will shape how we work, how we heal, how we learn, and how we treat one another. That is not a joke, and it is not a tribe to belong to. It is a shared condition.
What makes the Pope’s warning less abstract is that some of the loudest alarms are coming from the very people who are building and funding the technology. Dario Amodei, CEO of the AI company Anthropic, recently wrote: “Like many technologies before it, AI brings risks, and because it is such a powerful technology, these risks are serious. They include the risk of losing control of AI systems, misuse of AI for cyberattacks and bioterrorism, and serious economic disruption. A race to the bottom, spurred by commercial incentives, can make these risks more acute.” Amodei is not a fringe critic; he is one of the most influential entrepreneurs in the field. When he says that commercial pressure can make risks worse, he is speaking from painful experience. The temptation to release a product before it is safe, to cut corners on testing, to keep quiet about problems—these are not bugs in the business model. They are features of a system that rewards speed over care. Yet the people inside that system are not villains. They are often brilliant, well-meaning, and genuinely excited about what their creations can do. They see the potential to cure diseases, solve climate challenges, and create abundance. And then they stare at their own creation and wonder what happens when it outgrows them. That is a strange place to be: the creator who feels like a child next to the god they have built. The Pope’s message gives them language for that unease. “I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI, should be taken seriously,” he told Axios. “I don’t think that is fake news, as some have said, to try and cause whether financial or some other kind of benefit.” Because he is not in panic mode, he can say this without being dismissed as a doomer. He is simply asking for a conscience.
Pope Leo XIV’s own tone is deliberately calm. In an interview with Axios, he made clear that he was not in “panic mode” over AI. He does not believe that humanity is doomed, and he is not predicting a Terminator-style war. But he also refuses to paper over the danger. He says that concerns raised by AI experts should be taken seriously—not dismissed as fake news. That phrase, “fake news,” is a direct echo of the political world, and it may be his gentle way of saying that false reassurance is its own kind of dishonesty. The Pope’s position is a middle path, but it is not a mushy compromise. It is a demanding balance. On one hand, we should not stop innovating, because technology can heal, teach, feed, and liberate. On the other hand, we should not allow innovation to become a religion, where every new product is treated as sacred and every critic is treated as a heretic. The encyclical is called Magnifica Humanitas, not “Magnificent Technology,” because Leo believes that the glory of God is found in human beings, not in their inventions. And human beings are not just thinking machines. We are bodies, memories, relationships, loves, losses, and hopes. We need food, shelter, friendship, and meaning. We make mistakes and grow. We forgive and are forgiven. No algorithm can replace that, and no algorithm should be allowed to undermine it. To protect that, we need more than regulations and safety tests—though we need those too. We need a shared sense of humility. We need to admit that, for all our intelligence, we are not always wise. The Pope’s document is not an answer key; it is an invitation to ask better questions. What kind of people do we want to be? What kind of future do we want to leave for our grandchildren? How do we use the tools we have built without losing the soul that makes us human? Those questions hang in the air for us all.
At the end of Magnifica Humanitas, the Pope seems to be saying something simple and radical: the future is not a fate handed down by machines; it is a choice made by people. We are not helpless passengers on a runaway train. We can decide where to put the tracks. We can demand that AI be developed with fairness, for the common good, not just for profit. We can support workers who are displaced, not blame them for not keeping up. We can teach our children to think critically about the media they consume, instead of letting a silent algorithm shape their worldview. And we can remember that, behind every powerful technology, there is still a human face: the developer who chooses to add an extra safety check, the manager who resists the urge to click “release,” the voter who asks candidates about their plans for privacy and automation. None of these choices are glamorous, but together they weave the fabric of a humane society. The Pope’s warning is not a prediction of doom; it is a reminder of responsibility. Yes, AI can be a threat. It can concentrate power, destroy livelihoods, spread lies, and dull our senses. It can also be a gift, if we treat it with the same care we would give any powerful thing—fire, medicine, nuclear energy, the internet. Fire can burn your house down, but it can also keep you warm. The difference is not in the fire; it is in the person who wields it. Pope Leo XIV is asking us to be the kind of people who wield our power with love, with courage, and with a deep respect for the millions of small, irreplaceable moments that make a human life worth living. That is the magnificent humanity he wants to protect. In the end, his message is not really about AI at all. It is about us—what we value, who we become, and how we treat each other when no one is watching. And that is a conversation we all belong to.