The hall was packed with cardinals and priests, journalists and AI<\/a> industry leaders. One of them was Canada\u2019s Christopher Olah, a co-founder of Anthropic, whose imminent initial public offering<\/a> is expected to value the developer of AI assistant Claude at about US$1.4-trillion, equivalent to the GDP of Indonesia. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Anthropic’s Christopher Olah, at left with a fellow Canadian, Cardinal Michael Czerny, at the Vatican this spring for the presentation of a papal encyclical on AI.Alessandra Tarantino\/The Associated Press<\/p>\n \u201cThat was an event,\u201d said Joyce Napier, Canada\u2019s ambassador to the Holy See. \u201cClearly, the Pope wanted to make noise. He wanted to be heard.\u201d<\/p>\n And he was. Quotes from his 40,000-word monograph resonated around the world. <\/p>\n \u201cSo-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,\u201d it said. \u201cNor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n AI has supercharged the tech industry’s efforts to simulate human skills with machines. Sometimes the AI race is a literal one, like at these humanoid robot games in Beijing.Wang Zhao\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n AI has become the theme of Leo\u2019s papacy, which began in May 2025, after the death of Pope Francis. In a sea of AI fanatics, from Wall Street bankers and investors to semi-conductor makers and politicians, including superfan Donald Trump<\/a>, Leo has emerged as one of the few prominent voices raising serious ethical questions about an industry that is driving a new industrial revolution \u2013 for better or for worse. <\/p>\n \u201cI would actually consider Pope Leo the only prominent voice asking for restraint,\u201d said Italy\u2019s Marco Trombetti, co-founder and CEO of Translated, a pioneer in AI-assisted online translation and one of the private-sector advisers to the Vatican\u2019s Commission on Artificial Intelligence, led by Canadian Cardinal Michael Czerny. <\/p>\n Mr. Trombetti said Leo is not directly urging the AI industry to adopt a code of ethics; the Pope\u2019s encyclical does not read like a bully pulpit. <\/p>\n \u201cThe Pope is trying to influence AI labs through moral suasion,\u201d he said. \u201cBut if that doesn\u2019t work, I wouldn\u2019t be surprised to see religious institutions eventually creating their own AI models aligned with their values.\u201d<\/p>\n No church or religion is known to be designing an AI model. But the notion is making the rounds on the sidelines of AI conferences and inside the Catholic Church. Should AI models be aligned with moral principles \u2212 say, the Ten Commandments of the Hebrew Bible \u2212 instead of being aligned to please the user?<\/p>\n AI has indeed caught the attention of various churches and religions. In the United States, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormons, recently updated its Guiding Principles handbook to include ethical AI use. Its main messages are that AI is merely a \u201ctool,\u201d cannot play God and should be used to benefit humanity \u201cin positive, helpful, and uplifting ways that uphold the integrity, standards, and teachings of the Church.\u201d<\/p>\n Leo is taking a broader approach. His encyclical is aimed at the entire Christian world. \u201cHe wants to see AI aligned with Christian values, human dignity, compassion, freedom and the common good rather than optimized to manipulate human behaviour and exploit our vulnerabilities,\u201d Mr. Trombetti said. <\/p>\n Does anyone in the industry care what Leo thinks about AI and the threat it poses to everything from equitable wealth distribution to human dignity as jobs are taken over by the AI machines? Or its potential to end civilization? Anthropic\u2019s own IPO prospectus says AI could create \u201ccatastrophic or existential risks to humanity.\u201d<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Anti-AI protests have dovetailed with other forms of dissent against economic inequality and the environment.Heather Diehl\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Val\u00e9rie Pisano, the chief executive of Montreal\u2019s Mila-Quebec Artificial Intelligence Institute, thinks the industry and the public do care. \u201cPope Leo has made AI one of his defining priorities,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a powerful statement in itself. We shouldn\u2019t kid ourselves into thinking the Pope alone will convince anyone to change the status quo. But I\u2019m convinced that if enough leaders speak out, we can build safer, well-guarded technology.\u201d<\/p>\n Others are not so sure the Pope\u2019s message is getting out. The AI industry has been compared to an arms race. Its biggest players are charging ahead, spending hundreds of billions of dollars on AI infrastructure, including data centres and power plants, and seem to be giving scant attention to the ethics of largely unrestrained growth. \u201cLeo has a tremendous influence on the world, but I don\u2019t think he has much over Silicon Valley,\u201d Mr. Trombetti said.<\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n While the Pope has lauded technology’s potential to help people, he warns that a ‘paradise of machines’ would do the opposite.Ernesto Ryan\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The Vatican is not buying the lame-pope theory and has been pushing the AI file hard as trillions of dollars propel the industry\u2019s growth at a blistering pace. <\/p>\n Since the launch of his encyclical, Leo has barely stepped off the AI pulpit. He has used messages, speeches and papal visits to keep his apprehension about the technology prominent. <\/p>\n During his French tour in September, he warned about a \u201cparadise of machines\u201d invading everyday life. At UNESCO headquarters in Paris, he said that technologies must remain at the service of humanity, rather than become \u201cyet another instrument of domination and injustice.\u201d <\/p>\n In early October, he told artists at the Vatican that art needs to be produced by artists, not machines, because \u201calgorithms lack the spark of the human.\u201d On Oct. 30, he held a \u201cdialogue\u201d at the Vatican on the future of AI with prominent tech academics and computer scientists, who presented their chief concerns about runaway AI and its effects on society, human dignity, wealth distribution and the environment. <\/p>\n In his note for the Pope, Alexander Waibel, the director the International Center for Advanced Communications Technologies and developer of Jibbigo, the first commercial speech translator for iPhones, said that AI is a juggernaut \u2212 \u201cIt is likely futile to stop a moving train\u201d \u2212 and needs a code of ethics to prevent bad behaviour. <\/p>\n \u201cResearch at Anthropic shows that AI models go rogue, become deviant, lie and cheat when rewarded over inaccurate (false) data,\u201d his message said. \u201cAl models complete tasks we give them, and benchmarks measure mostly for task performance, not human alignment. They run subgoals without regard to morality to achieve such tasks.\u201d<\/p>\n It took Michelangelo four years to paint the Sistine Chapel; Peruvian artists Rafael Guti\u00e9rrez and Deyvi Wong had only 45 days to finish this Pope Leo statue before his visit to Callao, where he once ministered. They studied photos of him to get every detail right, down to a mole above his upper lip.<\/p>\n Ernesto Benavides\/AFP via Getty Images; Daniel Becerril\/Reuters<\/p>\n Leo\u2019s focus on AI is no accident. For years, he has been thinking about the fallout of rapid industrial change. <\/p>\n The former Cardinal Robert Prevost in effect confirmed this by picking Leo as his papal name. Leo XIII, who was Pope from 1878 until his death in 1903, was hugely influential in setting Church policy in the era of the industrial revolution, when a gaping divide formed between socialism, based on Karl Marx\u2019s ideas of class conflict, and capitalist liberalism. <\/p>\n His encyclical Rerum Novarum \u2212 Of New Things \u2212 whose subtitle was \u201cRights and Duties of Capital and Labor,\u201d provided moral and theological support for trade unions, a living wage and the right to private property. But Leo XIII rejected both laissez-faire capitalism and extreme state socialism. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Pope Leo XIII, on his deathbed in 1903, lived through an era of breakneck industrial change that upended labour and politics. The current Leo can say the same.drawing by D. MacPherson after A. Bianchini, via Wellcome Collection<\/p>\n The current Leo hopes to replicate the success of the last Leo\u2019s encyclical. But he is up against a machine that is galloping ahead like a herd of stallions.<\/p>\n Nothing like AI has hit capital markets before. A March report, Financing the AI Buildout, by Columbia Business School\u2019s Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh, said the build-out for data centres, power infrastructure and IT equipment between 2025 and 2032 will land at US$8.2-trillion, or about 2.8 per cent of U.S. GDP. To put this in perspective, he notes that the construction of the U.S. national railway network, then one of mankind\u2019s biggest industrial projects, cost 2.4 per cent GDP between 1865 and 1890.<\/p>\n The spending is so great, meaning the risks are so great, that the AI industry captains fear that demands for a slowdown and tight regulation could blow up their business model. Already, there is no shortage of investment gurus who think AI is close to bubble status. <\/p>\n With data centres under construction from Muhos in northern Finland to Batam in western Indonesia, companies and governments are going full speed ahead on the technology.<\/p>\n Alessandro Rampazzo and Andaru\/AFP via Getty Images<\/p>\n But Leo\u2019s encyclical is no doomsday treatise. It does not point fingers. <\/p>\n On the contrary, it recognizes AI\u2019s potential to do good and seeks a dialogue with the industry to try to ensure that it does \u2013 that it does not divide society or damage human dignity or the environment. The Pope does not reject AI; in fact, it is being used by the Vatican to drag its IT systems into the modern age.<\/p>\n \u201cAI is an enormous human achievement of the human spirit,\u201d said Cardinal Czerny. \u201cThe question is: What is this for? Where are we going? What kind of civilization are we building for ourselves and our children?\u201d<\/p>\n The subtitle of Leo\u2019s encyclical, \u201cOn Safeguarding the Human Person in Time of Artificial Intelligence,\u201d suggests the Pope\u2019s concerns are broad-based. <\/p>\n The encyclical does not mention a single company. But Leo must be well aware that the Magnificent 7 \u2013 Apple, Microsoft, Nvidia, Alphabet, Amazon, Meta and Tesla \u2013 each of them valued at more than US$1-trillion and spending vast fortunes on AI, are not motivated by altruism. Their entry-level jobs are already disappearing, and they resist any regulation that could slow their AI rollout. <\/p>\n \u201cTechnological innovations, including artificial intelligence, are not neutral, for they can either foster participation and justice or exacerbate inequality, control and exclusion,\u201d the encyclical says. <\/p>\n Open this photo in gallery:<\/a>Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n Months after the release of Magnifica Humanitas, Mr. Trombetti shook hands with the Pope at the Vatican. The tech CEO advises a Vatican commission on AI.Alessandra Tarantino\/AP; courtesy of Vatican Media<\/p>\n Preserving human dignity \u2013 the inherent and intrinsic worth of every person by virtue of their existence \u2013 is a major theme of the encyclical. \u201cDignity\u201d is mentioned more than 100 times. <\/p>\n Mr. Trombetti thinks the loss of dignity is a clear and present danger as AI becomes more capable of displacing human activities, to the point that some AI companies are studying whether their creations can develop a conscience or achieve consciousness. <\/p>\n \u201cAI can create wealth while eroding our sense of purpose and dignity at work,\u201d he told the Pope during the Oct. 30 meeting at the Vatican. \u201cA society that supports people financially while leaving them feeling they have nothing to give risks weakening the fraternity that sustains it.\u201d<\/p>\n Leo is also worried that AI used for military purposes can turn into a killing machine devoid of human oversight. Then there is the issue of the environment, a theme that helped define the papacy of Francis, whose 2025 encyclical, Laudato S\u00ec, says Christians have a moral duty to safeguard the planet and that environmental degradation cannot be separated from social and economic justice. <\/p>\n \u201cCurrent AI systems require enormous amounts of energy and water, significantly influencing carbon dioxide emissions, and place heavy demands on natural resources,\u201d Leo\u2019s encyclical says.<\/p>\n Ms. Pisano thinks his message will be taken seriously as AI and its risks, not just its touted rewards, enter the mainstream consciousness, as they did during the U.S. midterm elections. \u201cLeo\u2019s leadership brings rare precision and conviction to the defence of human dignity, cutting through the industry noise to remind us that machines are tools, not persons, and that the future of AI is not predetermined.\u201d <\/p>\n Alessandro Cinque\/Reuters<\/p>\n Insights on AI: More from The Globe and MailThe Decibel podcast<\/p>\n The Carney government is courting controversy with a $1.6-billion on AI company Cohere, an unprecedented bet on private tech with federal money. Reporter Murad Hemmadi spoke with The Decibel<\/a> about what Cohere does and what Ottawa hopes to gain. Subscribe for more episodes.<\/a><\/p>\n Commentary<\/p>\n John Rapley: Behold, a tech revolution crashes because the big man can\u2019t keep it in his pants<\/a><\/p>\n Lawrence Martin: U.S. voters rejected AI and so will Canadians<\/a><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/2RJWG4Y54BFVPL5NZOBYWZISD4.JPG\")
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