ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE — Pope Leo XIV urged world leaders on Monday to take expert warnings regarding the potential hazards of artificial intelligence seriously, insisting that safety concerns must not be dismissed as “fake news.”
Speaking to journalists aboard his flight back to Rome after concluding a four-day apostolic visit to France, the pontiff was asked how global powers like the United States and China should handle the potential for existential threats posed by advancing technology.
”This is a problem that, I think, we need to sit down and talk about,” the American pope said. “We can’t just sit back and pretend nothing is going to happen.”
The pontiff has made the human and ethical implications of artificial intelligence a cornerstone of his papacy, highlighting the issue in his first encyclical and advocating for continuous dialogue among governments, tech firms, and civic organizations.
His comments contrast with recent statements by U.S. President Donald Trump, who described rogue AI scenarios as a “hoax” while prioritizing American technological superiority over China and pushing back against regulatory limits.
Prominent industry executives, including Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, have voiced concerns over autonomous AI systems—a topic Amodei reportedly discussed with Trump during a Sunday dinner focused on U.S. tech leadership.
While emphasizing the need for proactive engagement, Pope Leo clarified that he remains calm regarding the issue.
”If someone were to ask me ‘Am I in panic mode?’ No, I’m not. I sleep at night,” Leo said. “I do think that the concerns raised by many of the experts, specialists in AI should be taken seriously.”
He explicitly rejected assertions that alarm over technology is merely manufactured disinformation created for financial exploitation.
”I don’t think that that is ‘fake news’ as some have said to try and cause whether financial or other some other kind of benefit,” Leo said.
The pope reaffirmed his call for international cooperation across public and private sectors to monitor the evolving impact of AI, stressing that development must never compromise human oversight or pose a threat to humanity itself.