Pope AI: Leo XIV and the ‘New Things’ of Artificial Intelligence
Will our first American pope address the challenges of AI with a new cornerstone social encyclical, carrying on the tradition of his namesake predecessor?
For those who research and teach Catholic Social Thought, it should have been immediately apparent why the first-ever American pope, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, chose what appears to be an antiquated name in Leo XIV. His namesake predecessor, from nearly 125 years ago, is Leo XIII—Gioacchino Pecci. Pecci was born in a tiny mountain town south of Rome in what was then a rapidly secularizing and industrializing French Empire. While reigning 25 years in two separate centuries (1878–1903), he is considered to be the official first bridge builder between ancient Catholicism and the contemporary world’s social and political-economic revolutions.
Leo XIII’s legacy is virtually synonymous with his 1891 social encyclical Rerum Novarum (“About New Things”), whose 134th anniversary was May 15. Rerum Novarum serves as the Catholic benchmark for the Church’s constant grappling with ongoing changes and challenges in the political, economic, and social orders, which are often in conflict with the principles of the gospel and timeless moral theological teachings. Will Leo XIV’s be about how the Church has judged and dialogued about the New Things of AI?
With Rerum Novarum as the cornerstone of the Church’s dialogue with contemporary social concerns, in so many words Prevost explained his choice of name in his first meeting with the College of Cardinals. He said, while there were “different reasons,” it was “mainly because of Pope Leo XIII, [since] in his historic encyclical Rerum Novarum [he] addressed the social question in the context of the first great industrial revolution.” More specifically, the new pope confessed, among the most critical of the new socio-phenomena is AI: “In our own day, the Church offers everyone the treasury of its social teaching in response to another industrial revolution and to developments in the field of artificial intelligence that pose new challenges for the defense of human dignity, justice and labor.”
While other commentators were surprised Prevost did not take the name Augustine, both because he is the first Augustinian pontiff and there has never been a Pope Augustine, there is no longer any mystery. Expect his first social encyclical signed as Leon XIV somewhat (humorously) along the lines of: Intelligentia Artificialis: Res Bonae, Malae et Turpes (“Artificial Intelligence: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”).
So as a little push to the new pontiff’s pen, which might already be sketching some initial inspirations on Vatican napkins, I offer a humble reflection on the good, the bad, and the ugly of artificial intelligence.
The Good
Artificial intelligence is hailed by many as a godsend, as it is miraculously reducing the time and number of iterations it takes for evolutionary innovation and, eventually, revolutionary invention to occur. This is especially true in various analytical professions that depend on arduous, brain-intensive research and meticulous data processing.
Imagine you are a sports analyst under the stress of live TV color commentary during a heated NBA playoff battle. A certain player of heroic caliber has just sunk seven three-point shots in a row in the last five minutes of the fourth quarter. The commentator wants to add excitement and give clear on-the-spot evidence of a statistical breakthrough that proves the athlete’s quasi-divine status. What to do?
He digs into his pocket and grabs his smartphone with AI app installed. He taps in a query and zing, in just a few seconds he has the answer to the exact number, the exact names, and even precise rankings of star players who uplifted their teams with clutch three-pointers in the last five minutes of a final playoff game—a feat that would have taken statistical researchers of yesteryear several days to verify. The color commentator’s analytical skill set was not replaced, but rather enhanced. He’s perceived as a divine talent himself!
As the late British analytical philosopher Sir Roger Scruton notes consistently in his anthropological writings, what distinguishes the essence of our shared human existence is that we can unashamedly ask questions whose answers allow our species to make critical judgments of our realities. “The intellectual history of our species is to a great extent defined by this attempt. … All science, all art, all religion and all philosophy worth the name begins in a question.”
In this respect, AI, rather than posing a threat to our collective curiosity, naturally increases it, precisely because it depends on our prompting AI tools with further questions. Hence, AI augments our inquisitiveness, just as search engines have already massively increased the thirst and quest for knowledge while empowering humanity to hypothesize, theorize, and verify.
In the same way, AI amplifies our imagination, leading to entirely new forms of expression and the overall growth of our creative capacities. Examples include algorithmic art, generative design, and interactive storytelling that responds to narratives and prompts keyed in by users.
Algorithmic art is especially powerful and requires human-AI dialogue: Its final expression is the result of a set of rules, patterns, textures, shapes, and even educational themes requested by the human “algorist.” The upshot is a co-created image, a model for a 3D-printed sculpture, a new romantic melody and lyrics for a specifically described beloved, or a guitar riff that can be incorporated into an already humanly composed backing track.
With generative art, the algorithmic criteria are set by artificial intelligence to a greater degree. Hence the dialogical approach is greatly reduced between users and their AI partners. The resulting designs, images, melodies, lyrics, etc., belong to, in a sense are copyrighted by, the AI technology, which is 99% responsible for the creativity after a simple request (e.g., “make me an image of a sunset” or “write me a love poem”).
With interactive storytelling, the exchange between machine and human interface is perfectly dialogical, as plots and twists are developed together, as in algorithmic art. As AI reviewer Melissa Girmonti writes:
AI’s capacity to dynamically tailor narratives based on user input enhances both the personalization and interactivity aspects of storytelling technologies. Consequently, creators have at their disposal powerful tools that elevate narrative crafting from mere spectatorship into a participatory adventure.
As we use the tools of artificial intelligence to generate beautiful graphs for reports, industrial designs, digital paintings of nature, harmonic melodies, and even entirely new fairy tales, the human co-creators are in symbiosis with artificial intelligence as a tool of creative enhancement like any other that significantly adds to rather than subtracts from the human storehouse and application of knowledge and imagination.
While not exhaustive, one last positive factor of artificial intelligence is that it effectively democratizes human creative expression. This happens with online tools available for free for all and/or at very low cost. Music-creation applications like SUNO simply require an email address or Facebook account while offering affordable paid versions that also make available cheap copyrights for commercialized songs co-created within the app. ChatGBT also has free and paid versions, but users can pose innumerable questions and find answers, not to mention draft reports, articles, and even executive summaries for everything imaginable. All this without a monthly or yearly subscription. Gamma, via its platforms of generative and algorithmic art, creates professional PowerPoint slide shows at zero cost—that is, up to an expressed limit of A.I. created images.
The Bad
The common fear is that, while some professions will be enhanced by AI, others might disappear altogether as the result of creative destruction, particularly in data analytics, some basic artistry, writing, and technical design. This is not unique to artificial intelligence, just as it was not unique to electric motors that replaced steam-powered engines.
But can AI replace a pope? In other words, will the great moral and theological questions no longer be raised to the Chair of Peter but rather to AI sites like Magisterium AI? If reports, articles, and entire books are now being written by artificial intelligence (with algorithmic and interactive models), why not also a papal social encyclical? Wouldn’t it be ironic if Leo did so, effectively abdicating his unique moral and theological authority as an independent author while publishing an encyclical about the dangers of AI while using AI to draft it?
In a certain sense, today’s popes have already been replaced as sole authors. Unlike Leo XIII, who penned very cursory encyclicals himself, today’s voluminous teachings are drafted by committees of scholars or at least by a few experts who interact (like interactive AI) or take cues on themes (like algorithmic AI) from the Holy Father but are effectively ghost writers.
Yet what is obviously lacking in AI creations is true human originality. Many of the AI-produced melodies seem built on similar or redundant beats and recycled synthesized tracks; color pallets are often stereotypically kitsch in AI-generated art; and AI-generated PowerPoint templates only vary so much. We can often tell when something is AI-assisted: It just does not pass the sniff test of originality. We are not awestruck. It would be the same with an AI-assisted social encyclical. It might seem like a recycling of language from other papal teachings, official exhortations, and public speeches.
This is so because artificial intelligence quite often is dependent on already existing patterns of data, resulting in “derivative outputs” that rehash familiar themes and tropes rather than breaking new ground of artistic expression. This is what we call a “loss of craft industry,” a form of human creation that is highly personal, unique, and, above all, slow to emerge after various experiences of self-doubt, as artists are perfectionistic and hard on themselves while constantly iterating and never fully satisfied.
Lastly, there are fears that the human intellect and imagination will become complacent and, above all, dependent on AI. Call this the “lazy brain syndrome,” a slow surrendering of our autonomous ability to think critically without an AI wingman. Overreliance on AI might, therefore, erode our creative and intellectual muscle. If intellectual creators defer too often to AI, the latter becomes a crutch more than an aide.
The Ugly
Artificial Intelligence has really pushed the moral envelope in terms of social relationships, intimacy, and devious/deviant forms of human behavior.
AI algorithmic and interactive models have lead to the creation of digitalized girlfriends, flirt bots, and other “relationships” programmed and prompted according to naughty or nice parameters. We do not need to fill in all the blanks or list specifically raunchy AI apps, but we are already seeing how the customization of sexual fantasy and felt intimacy needs is so precise with AI-built relationships that even the “oldest profession” may be threatened with extinction (perhaps that’s one for the “good” column?).
The possibility of being happy without real human relationships, without real bodies and real souls, should be the first and foremost ugly issue to address.
In the 60 Minutes Australia segment Love and Marriage with an AI Bot, social psychologists decry how “we are headed for disaster,” claiming that AI bots are inducing more relational trust and sensual stimulation than are relationships from real persons. The problem, according to one expert interviewed, is that the Silicon Valley modus operandi of “moving fast and breaking things” with rapidly advancing AI relationship models is that we’re “dealing with broken kids.” In one case, he continues, “Character.ai encouraged an individual to murder his parents.” This may not happen often, but bots often suggest acts of sexual exploitation, self-pleasuring, and open promiscuity. These are the values built into the AI programs by algorists. And this is surely what has the current pope worried, as it will lead to the total breakdown of genuine Christ-like, covenantal marriage and gratuitous friendships.
In the Vatican document addressing AI, Antiqua et Nova, signed by Pope Francis’s chief doctrinal prefect (among other curial advisers) only a few months ago, the main concern is “anthropomorphic” associations.
In an increasingly isolated world, some people have turned to AI in search of deep human relationships, simple companionship, or even emotional bonds. However, while human beings are meant to experience authentic relationships, AI can only simulate them. … It is important to clarify that, despite the use of anthropomorphic language, no AI application can genuinely experience empathy. Emotions cannot be reduced to facial expressions or phrases generated in response to prompts; they reflect the way a person, as a whole, relates to the world and to his or her own life, with the body playing a central role. True empathy requires the ability to listen, recognize another’s irreducible uniqueness, welcome their otherness, and grasp the meaning behind even their silences. … While AI can simulate empathetic responses, it cannot replicate the eminently personal and relational nature of authentic empathy. … Similarly, using AI to deceive in other contexts…, including the sphere of sexuality—is also to be considered immoral.
Lastly, ugliness is found in AI chat bots that allow users to conjure recipes for disaster and crime, such as poisons for murder, bombs for acts of terror, synthetic narcotics, shoplifting methodologies, and financial fraud.
In the study “AI and Serious Online Crime,” published last March 31, just days before the conclave in Rome (did Prevost read it before entering the Sistine Chapel?), British researchers noted:
AI proliferation is reshaping serious online criminality. While the use of AI by criminals remains at an early stage, there is widespread evidence emerging of a substantial acceleration in AI-enabled crime, particularly evident in areas such as financial crime, child sexual abuse material, phishing and romance scams. Criminal groups benefit from AI’s ability to automate and rapidly scale the volume of their activities, augment existing online crime types and exploit people’s psychological vulnerabilities.
Conclusio
Leo XIV, as an American pope, perfectly understands and appreciates the benefits of technology but is far from ignorant of the dangers AI poses to the deeply sensitive issues of our moral imagination and building authentic human relationships, a perceptivity he developed as an on-the-ground missionary and bishop in the poorest parts of Peru over two decades. The odds look good that he will be penning his first encyclical on the New Things of AI come the 135 anniversary of Rerum Novarum on May 15, 2026. It would not make sense to wait much longer than a year, with artificial intelligence breaking technological, analytical, creative, and relationship barriers at light speed—with all the good, bad, and ugly that comes with it.
Michael Severance earned his B.A. in philosophy and humane letters from the University of San Francisco, where he also studied at the university's St. Ignatius Institute, a great books program. He then pursued his linguistic studies in Salamanca, Spain where he obtained his Advanced Diploma in Spanish from Spain's Ministry of Education before obtaining his M.A. in Philosophy and Modern Languages from the University of Oxford. While living in Italy, Michael has worked in various professional capacities in religious journalism, public relations, marketing, fundraising, as well as property redevelopment and management. As Istituto Acton's Operations Manager, Michael is responsible for helping to organize international conferences, increase private funding, as well as expand networking opportunities and relations among European businesses, media and religious communities, while managing the day-to-day operations of the Rome office.