Pope Leo has issued the first teaching document of his papacy, calling for urgent action to "disarm" Artificial Intelligence (AI) and warning of new forms of human exploitation.
Presenting the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, or Magnificent Humanity, at the Vatican on Monday, the Pope said the strong language was deliberate.
"The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention," he said.
The document, addressed formally to Catholic bishops but intended as a message to the wider world, focuses heavily on the ethical risks of AI.
It also contains one of the Vatican’s most direct apologies for the Church’s historical role in the transatlantic slave trade.
"It is impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many," Pope Leo wrote.
According to the Pope, he "sincerely asked for pardon" on behalf of the Church.
The Pope drew a link between historical slavery and the development of AI, warning against the normalisation of exploitation in both its production and use.
He described the risk of "new digital slaveries," arguing that humanity faces a moral crossroads similar to that of the colonial era.
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In a break with tradition, Pope Leo presented the encyclical himself alongside AI experts, including Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic.
Olah said every AI lab, including his own, operates "inside a set of incentives and constraints that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing."
He believed that questions raised by AI extend beyond the tech sector. "The questions raised by AI are bigger than the AI research community, not just in their implications, but also in their nature," he said.
Pope Leo argued that reducing human control over weapons makes it harder to consider conflict "just" and warned against an AI arms race.
"No algorithm can make war morally acceptable," he wrote, adding that AI risks making war faster and more impersonal by "lowering the threshold for resorting to violence, transforming defense into threat prediction and thus reducing victims to data."
He further criticised the use of AI to manipulate images and videos in politics, saying it exposes people to biased or misleading information.
Pope Leo likened the need for safeguards around AI to those introduced during the Industrial Revolution to protect human dignity.
He warned against repeating the delay with which society and the Church condemned slavery, and referred to the danger of "digital colonialism"
Addressing AI developers directly, the Pope issued a "special appeal," saying; "Developers bear a particular ethical and spiritual responsibility, for every design choice reflects a vision of humanity."
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