{"id":782596,"date":"2026-09-25T22:08:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-25T22:08:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782596\/"},"modified":"2026-09-25T22:08:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-25T22:08:09","slug":"pope-leo-warns-of-ai-threat-to-humanity-at-start-of-three-day-france-visit-pope-leo-xiv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/782596\/","title":{"rendered":"Pope Leo warns of AI threat to humanity at start of three-day France visit | Pope Leo XIV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pope Leo<\/a> has warned against losing humanity in a \u201cparadise of machines\u201d as he addressed global concerns over the dangers of artificial intelligence<\/a> at the start of a three-day visit to France.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are to avoid losing our humanity amid a paradise of machines invading and conditioning our daily lives, there is an urgent need for people to be educated in ethical discernment, capable of seeing what is morally right,\u201d he said in a speech at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e.<\/p>\n

At a second address on Friday, the 71-year-old head of the Catholic church insisted that new technologies must \u201cremain at the service of the human person rather than becoming yet another instrument of domination and injustice\u201d in remarks to a gathering at the Paris headquarters \u2060of the UN culture and education body, \u2060Unesco.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery science risks losing its proper meaning when pursued without ethics,\u201d he said. \u201cCertain artificial systems have even been given the name of our human faculty of thought: intelligence. At the same time, however, our ideas and relationships risk being impoverished by a process of dehumanisation.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWhile intelligence is attributed to computational systems, we struggle to recognise the inalienable dignity of human persons whose lives are judged according to the criterion of efficiency and when deemed no longer productive, rejected and discarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo also criticised world leaders who disrespect the \u2060rule of \u2060law, without naming individuals. \u201cInstead of \u200brespecting \u200cthe law, \u200cthose in power invoke \u200cit when it serves their interests and disregard it when it restrains them, treating even justice itself \u200cas though it were a commodity to be \u200bbought and sold,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Leo, who became pope in 2025, \u2060has been critical of the direction \u200bof \u200bglobal leadership in \u200brecent months. He \u200bsaid \u200cthe world was \u201cbeing \u200bravaged \u200bby a handful of tyrants\u201d last April.<\/p>\n

Pope Leo with the French president, Emmanuel Macron, and his wife, Brigitte Macron, at the \u00c9lys\u00e9e. Photograph: Maurizio Brambatti\/AP<\/p>\n

The first official papal visit to France<\/a> in 18 years comes as Emmanuel Macron\u2019s decade in office draws to an end ahead of next spring\u2019s French presidential election, for which the far-right, anti-immigration Marine Le Pen is polling high. Pope Francis did not make a full state visit to France during his 12-year pontificate and refused to join the inauguration of the rebuilt Notre Dame Cathedral in 2024.<\/p>\n

After France passed legislation in June granting some adult patients the right to assisted dying<\/a>, the pontiff said he was concerned by trends \u201cthat risk turning science and technology into profit-driven ventures promoting genetic manipulation, surrogacy, the trade in human organs or the possibility of arranging one\u2019s own death.\u201d<\/p>\n

A key moment of the three-day visit will be a giant outdoor mass on Saturday, led by the pontiff at Place de la Concorde.<\/p>\n

The pope, whose paternal grandmother was born in France, on Friday urged Paris to remain a \u201ctireless champion of peace\u201d worldwide. On Monday, he will deliver a speech on European peace in the eastern city of Metz as Russia\u2019s full-scale invasion of Ukraine continues into its fifth year.<\/p>\n

Leo called on the world not to \u2060become indifferent to the pain caused by \u201cthe scourge of war\u201d.<\/p>\n

He told Macron and other French politicians: \u201cI urge you \u2018\u2026 never to grow resigned to the prospect of war or to \u2060consider it \u2018inevitable\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leo will also visit Lourdes, a pilgrimage site for Christians worldwide, where he will privately meet seven victims of clerical sex abuse. After some survivors\u2019 groups suggested a larger number of survivors should have been canvassed, the Catholic church said the pontiff was seeking in-depth dialogue with individuals.<\/p>\n

France\u2019s Catholic bishops\u2019 conference has agreed to provide compensation after a 2021 report estimated that 330,000 children were sexually abused over 70 years by priests or other church-related figures in France. The report described a \u201csystemic\u201d cover-up by church officials.<\/p>\n

In recent years, further accusations have emerged, including against workers at the elite Catholic boarding school Notre-Dame de B\u00e9tharram<\/a>, near Lourdes.<\/p>\n

On his flight to Paris, Pope Leo told reporters they were welcome to cover him, as he responded to the Trump administration\u2019s attempt to bar US media<\/a> from the White House and affirmed the importance of journalists covering public figures.<\/p>\n

Asked by a CNN reporter about Donald Trump\u2019s attempt to bar CNN and other reporters, Leo said the media were welcome on his plane. \u201cI am very happy that here, you are all welcome,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pope Leo has warned against losing humanity in a \u201cparadise of machines\u201d as he addressed global concerns over…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":782597,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[554,733,4308,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-782596","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782596","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=782596"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/782596\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/782597"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=782596"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=782596"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=782596"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}