New Things, New Questions: Pope Leo XIV and the AI Revolution
Part Three: Defending Dignity from AI’s Challenges

Matthew Neugebauer

Monday, August 25, 2025

Digitized photo of a bearded man with glasses looking down sternly, with bright blue vertical bars in front of him.

New Things, New Questions: Pope Leo XIV and the AI Revolution

Part Three: Defending Dignity from AI’s Challenges

We’ve all seen the criticisms of artificial intelligence (AI) – everything from deepfakes and misinformation to its potential to displace artists and skilled workers (See Antiqua et nova #85-89). The Church is deeply invested in upholding the dignity of the person, and so that’s where the Magisterium’s biggest concerns about AI lie. At the same time, we’re called to engage with the world as it is, which now includes AI in all sorts of ways. This means that the People of God ought to offer a hopeful way forward in the midst of AI’s challenges.

I concluded my previous article by recalling how Pope Francis saw and Pope Leo XIV agrees that our society’s emerging use of AI is the capstone issue of our day. In Parts One and Two, I looked at some ways Francis weighed in and acted on the issue, and raised the likelihood that Leo now deems that a reflection on current “challenges [of AI] for the defence of human dignity, justice, and labour" to be worth a more authoritative pronouncement of the infallible Magisterium. In Part Three, I’ll look at some of these challenges of AI “for the “defence of human dignity,” and why we need to respond proactively and constructively.

Human dignity is the foundational principle of Catholic Social Teaching’s “moral vision for society.” We express and defend that dignity most of all when we “encounter [our] neighbour in a network of relationships” that develop and sustain the spiritual, physical, emotional, and intellectual parts of our lives (Compendium of the Social Doctrine Of The Church #4). In other words, we find our dignity in our personal relationships, and when we work for the well-being of everyone in society. Since “God is love,” and we are made in God’s image, then we are made to show God’s love to the world (Antiqua et nova #18-20). We violate the dignity of others and ourselves when we are greedy or merciless towards others -- the opposite of God's generosity and mercy. When we turn away from showing God's love to others, we push them away and cause them harm (see Compendium #26).

As I mentioned with the criticisms of AI above, some aspects of this new technology can keep us from treating others with mercy and compassion. Pope Francis alerted us to a large-scale example at the G7 Leaders Summit last year: the way that AI technologies make it easier to wage war. Like something out of a superhero film, there are already automated weapons systems that can select targets, either for defensive or attacking purposes. The late pope pointed out that these military technologies can only make “a technical choice” in response to strategy or data. He was most concerned about the way they can create “an even more cold and detached approach to the immense tragedy of war.” If AI can only see tactical information; it can’t encounter the real people and relationships impacted by violence. That means its decisions can’t be influenced by the compassion that develops in these human-to-human encounters.

Only real people, seeing their neighbours experiencing real suffering, can make a more human choice based on our relationships, our mutual need, and our common humanity. If we see our fellow human beings as creatures with the dignity of God’s image, we’re less likely to focus on “strategic objectives,” and more likely to focus on developing communities, promoting sustainable energy, enriching democratic participation, and other activities that build up peaceful relations. As St. Paul VI famously put it, “development [is] the new name for peace.”

The examples about employment and AI-generated art that I raised in Part One and earlier in this article also risk that same “cold and detached approach.” AI technologies can surely help employers weigh their options about hiring and firing or streamlining their organization’s creative process, for example. But they can’t adequately grasp the spark of human creativity, or measure intangible but important factors like employee engagement. Only real people, encountering colleagues, employees, and friends in real professional and personal relationships, can adequately incorporate these elements into their decisions.

Pope Francis explained this at the G7 meeting by asserting that “human beings, however, not only choose, but in their hearts are capable of deciding,” based not only on strategy but out of our vocation to reflect God’s generosity, mercy, and love. Our experience of our selves – our emotions, our thoughts, our bodies, our relationships, and our identities – can give us intuition and more importantly a sense of the effect our actions can have on others. Therefore, Pope Francis called on world leaders “to ensure and safeguard a space for proper human control over the choices made by artificial intelligence programs: human dignity itself depends on it.”

In Part Four, I’ll show how the Magisterium is open to the possibilities of AI, even as Pope Francis and other leaders have been sober about its dangers. Clearly, the answer isn’t a total rejection of AI technologies, other than a complete ban on weapons systems. UN Secretary-General António Gutierres notes that sadly, there continues to be an “absence of specific multilateral regulations,” even when it comes to these tools of warfare. He is highlighting the main concern of today, which is just like that of Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum during the 19th-century industrial revolution: Artificial intelligence is advancing at breakneck speed, without sufficient moral reflection or legal regulation, and without an adequate sense of humility about its destructive potential.

For Pope Francis, and now for Pope Leo XIV, this deeper reflection is an important part of their commitment to convincing world leaders to prioritize our God-given agency to choose human relationships over AI’s capacity for technical choices. Such moral, spiritual, and human-centred reflection can help policymakers become more inclined to multilateral regulation, peace-building, dialogue, political compromise, and ensuring ethical standards in private-sector technological development.