Pope Leo XIV Warns of AI Dangers on Youth

In a June 17 letter addressed to the Second Annual Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, and Corporate Governance, held in Rome, Pope Leo XIV warned that AI could hinder youth’s cognitive and spiritual growth.

The new pope has made the potential threats of AI a cornerstone issue for the Vatican ever since he assumed office earlier in the year. “Today, the church offers its trove of social teaching to respond to another industrial revolution and to innovations in the field of artificial intelligence that pose challenges to human dignity, justice, and labor,” said the head of the Catholic Church in a speech 2 days into his reign.

His message was read during the Rome conference held June 19–20. The Pope wrote: “AI, especially Generative AI, has opened new horizons on many different levels, including enhancing research in healthcare and scientific discovery, but also raises troubling questions on its possible repercussions on humanity’s openness to truth and beauty, on our distinctive ability to grasp and process reality.”

The pope specifically outlined his fears for the effect that AI could have on young people: “All of us, I am sure, are concerned for children and young people, and the possible consequences of the use of AI on their intellectual and neurological development. Our youth must be helped, and not hindered, in their journey towards maturity and true responsibility. They are our hope for the future, and society’s well-being depends upon their being given the ability to develop their God-given gifts and capabilities.”

Leo continues a similar stance to his predecessor, the late Pope Francis, who, in the final years of his life, warned of a “loss, or at least an eclipse, of the sense of what is human” as AI advanced.

The worries expressed by the Vatican’s leader aren’t completely unfounded. A recent study by the University College London and MIT found that repeated human-AI interactions could increase human biases.