Pope Leo says AI must be 'disarmed' in first major teaching

Pope Leo says AI must be 'disarmed' in first major teaching9 minutes agoShareSaveAdd as preferred on GoogleAleem Maqbool,BBC religion editorandCatherine Wyatt,in RomeGetty ImagesThe Pope warned advanced tech risks creating "new digital slaveries"Pope Leo has presented the first major teaching document of his papacy, warning that artificial intelligence needs to be "disarmed"."The word is strong, I know, but deliberately chosen because this moment needs words capable of attracting attention," the Pope said.Encyclicals are technically letters to Catholic bishops, but over recent decades the missives have become messages to the world from a Pope. While this letter was largely focused on AI, Pope Leo also included one of the strongest, most comprehensive apologies from the Vatican for the Catholic Church's role in slavery. It was "impossible not to feel deep sorrow when contemplating the immense suffering and humiliation endured by so many," the Pope wrote, adding that he "sincerely asked for pardon" in the name of the Church.Leo mentioned the slave trade in relation to AI, suggesting that the world was in danger of normalising the exploitation of people again - both in its production and in its applications.Some of the Pope's strongest imagery in the document related to slavery, warning parallels between the historical tragedy of traditional slavery and the emerging threats of "new digital slaveries".He suggested a risk of similar normalisation of exploitation and that humanity was at a similar moral crossroads.Unusually, Pope Leo chose to present the encyclical - titled "Magnifica Humanitas" ("Magnificent Humanity") - himself, at the Vatican, alongside AI experts including Christopher Olah, co-founder of US AI giant Anthropic.In remarks following the presentation of the encyclical, Olah said that every AI lab including his operated "inside a set of incentives and c...