Thiel<\/a> told the New York Times last year. \u201cYou talk about existential risk nonstop, and this is what you need to regulate\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009The thing that has political resonance is: we need to stop science, we need to just say \u2018stop\u2019 to this.\u201d<\/p>\nThiel\u2019s views stand in stark contrast to those of Pope Leo, who has warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence and called for stronger regulation to minimise its risks.\u00a0The four-day series of lectures is not taking place at the Vatican \u2014 though its exact location in Rome remains secret \u2014 and is co-organised by a new fringe Italian group with links to Italy\u2019s far right and Catholic conservatives in the UK.<\/p>\n
In the run-up to Thiel\u2019s lectures, the Catholic newspaper Avvenire \u2014 which is owned by the Italian bishops\u2019 conference \u2014 has published a series of articles criticising Thiel and Palantir, saying that \u201cto save humanity\u2009.\u2009.\u2009.\u2009he proposes devices that ultimately restrict what is most human in humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n
Pope Leo said earlier this year that his call for AI regulation was not aimed at stopping innovation \u201cbut rather to guide it and be aware of its ambivalent nature\u201d. The pontiff and US bishops have also been highly critical of US President Donald Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown, which Palantir has benefited from, with its services used by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to track migrants.<\/p>\n
Massimo Faggioli, professor of ecclesiology at Trinity College Dublin, said Thiel\u2019s appearance in Rome was an implicit challenge to Leo by ultra-conservative Maga Catholics.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is an operation that I see as hostile to the papacy,\u201d Faggioli said. \u201cThis pope is very critical of AI and Thiel is one of the Mr AIs. This is part of an attempt to create an alternative American circle in Rome in competition with what Pope Leo is saying.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Vatican viewed Thiel as someone engaged in a \u201cviolent project to tweak the future\u201d which is fundamentally at odds with the vision and values of the contemporary Catholic Church, Faggioli said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you think that every possible solution, and ultimately salvation \u2014 immortality \u2014 comes from technology, you have made technology your god,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Father Paolo Benanti, the Vatican\u2019s adviser on AI, wrote on Le Grand Continent website on Saturday that Thiel\u2019s career \u201ccan be read as a prolonged act of heresy against the liberal consensus: a challenge to the very foundations of civil coexistence, which he now considers outdated.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another article in Avvenire described Palantir as \u201ca Big Brother that puts Orwell\u2019s prophecies to shame\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
![\"Pope](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/https:\/\/d1e00ek4ebabms.cloudfront.net\/production\/91308f92-a798-40a7-bf49-247daa4c447f.jpg\")
Pope Leo has said his call for AI regulation is not aimed at stopping innovation \u2018but rather to guide it and be aware of its ambivalent nature\u2019 \u00a9 Yara Nardi\/Reuters<\/p>\n
Thiel\u2019s Rome lectures were co-organised by the Vincenzo Gioberti Cultural Association, which advocates for \u201cthe restoration of Catholicism as the cornerstone of [Italy\u2019s] national identity\u201d and has organised events for Italian far-right politicians. <\/p>\n
The association was co-founded three years ago by Alberto Garzoni, who studies political theory at Oxford university and also chairs the UK\u2019s Catholics in the Conservative Party, which encourages Catholics to support the Tories and to enter public life.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Thiel lectures are shrouded in secrecy, with both the guest list and the venue itself not being made public. No phones or recording devices will be permitted.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a gentleman\u2019s agreement,\u201d said Garzoni. \u201cWe did share an NDA with a few individuals who collaborate with the press, but the average invitee is only bound by their conscience.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Garzoni said he hoped Thiel\u2019s lectures would \u201cempower conservative forces to think deeply about issues that are extremely important for the future of the west and our civilisation\u201d.<\/p>\n
Thiel is only the latest member of the US alt-right to make high-profile visits to Rome in recent years.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Both Maga ideologue Steve Bannon and Thiel\u2019s PayPal co-founder and longtime friend Elon Musk\u00a0have forged ties with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The Italian premier herself has warm relations with Trump and with vice-president JD Vance, whose political career was largely bankrolled by Thiel.<\/p>\n
Members of the Italian opposition have called on Meloni to clarify whether she will be meeting Thiel.\u00a0She has not responded.<\/p>\n
A spokesman for Thiel did not respond to requests for comment.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unlock the Editor\u2019s Digest for free Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favourite stories in this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543908,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[256,254,255,64,63,105],"class_list":["post-543907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543907"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543907\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}