Pope Leo XIV warns against unchecked use of AI and chatbots

Written by Leonard BlairSenior Reporter Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Pope Leo XIV has joined a growing list of influential voices warning against the unchecked use of artificial intelligence, as research shows growing global concern about the privacy, employment and security risks that artificial intelligence poses to humanity.

“Digital technologies, if not managed properly, risk fundamentally altering some of the fundamental pillars of human civilization that we sometimes take for granted,” the Pope said in a message shared at the Monument to St. Francis de Sales in Vatican City on Saturday.

“By simulating human voice and face, wisdom and knowledge, conscience and responsibility, empathy and friendship, the systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with the information ecosystem, but also intrude on the deepest level of communication, the relationships between people.”

The US-born pope’s warning comes ahead of the Catholic Church’s 60th World Social Communication Day, which will be celebrated on May 17 this year.

While Mr. Leo supported embracing the benefits of AI and digital technologies, he urged global cooperation to minimize the risks to humanity, which he said could be subtle and deliberately seductive.

“Although AI can provide support and assistance in managing communication tasks and avoid the effort of thinking for ourselves and creating statistics artificially, it risks impairing our cognitive, emotional and communicative abilities in the long term,” he pointed out.

“In recent years, artificial intelligence systems have increasingly taken control of the production of text, music, and video. As a result, many human creative industries are in danger of being dismantled and replaced with the label ‘AI-assisted,’ turning people into mere passive consumers of thoughtless, anonymous products, devoid of authorship or love,” he continued. “Meanwhile, masterpieces of human genius in the fields of music, art, and literature are reduced to mere training grounds for machines.”

It is becoming increasingly difficult for people to distinguish between humans and virtual “bots” on social media, the Pope said, adding that bots are being used to manipulate people’s decisions.

“The opaque interventions of these automated agents influence public debates and people’s decisions. In particular, chatbots based on large-scale language models (LLMs) have proven to be surprisingly effective in covert persuasion through continuous optimization of personalized interactions. The interactive, adaptive, imitative structure of these language models is able to imitate human emotions and thereby simulate relationships,” Pope Leo wrote.

“This anthropomorphism is even funny, but at the same time deceptive, especially for the most vulnerable. Overly ‘affectionate’ chatbots, in addition to being ever-present and readily available, can become covert architects of our emotional states, thereby invading and occupying people’s intimate spheres,” he explained.

Leo warned against disinformation by accepting “approximations of the truth” created by AI and statistical probabilities, rather than relying on vetted journalism “which involves the continuous work of gathering and verifying information at the scene of an incident.”

Last month, TIME magazine named AI architects its 2025 People of the Year. In his speech, Pope Leo noted that “a handful of companies” have effectively created an oligarchy over AI systems that, if allowed, could rewrite the history of humanity and the Church.

“This raises serious concerns about oligarchy control of algorithms and AI systems that can subtly shape behavior and even rewrite human history, including the history of the church, without us even realizing it,” he said.

“The challenge ahead is not to stop digital innovation, but to guide it and recognize its ambiguous nature. It is up to each of us to speak up in defense of humanity so that these tools are accepted as our true allies,” he added.

The Pope’s message came days after renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari warned world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last Tuesday that AI should not be mistaken for a tool, but rather a thinking agent capable of creating new things and making decisions that are likely to plunge humanity into an identity crisis in the coming years.

“We always think we can use these things as tools. But if they can think, they are agents,” warns Harari, a fellow at the Center for Existential Risk Research at the University of Cambridge.

“There is one question that every leader today must answer about AI. But to understand that question, we must first clarify a few points about what AI is and what it can do. The most important thing to know about AI is that it is not just a tool. It is an agent,” he clarified.

“AI can learn, change, and make decisions on its own. A knife is a tool. You can use it to cut a salad, you can use it to kill someone, but you decide what to do with that knife. AI is a knife that can decide for itself whether to cut the salad or commit murder.”