Pope Leo XIV says advancement of AI played a factor in his papal name selection

[ad_1] Pope Leo XIV revealed that his papal identify was partially impressed by the looming challenges of a world more and more influenced by synthetic intelligence.

In his first formal handle because the Vatican’s newly elected pope on Saturday, Leo informed the School of Cardinals that he selected to call himself after Pope Leo XIII, who led the Catholic Church from his election in 1878 to his demise in 1903. Throughout his papacy, Leo XIII maintained a dedication to social points and staff rights after a lot of the world had simply been reshaped by the Industrial Revolution.

Although he stated there are numerous causes for the identify he selected, Leo XIV primarily pointed to Leo XIII’s historic encyclical “Rerum Novarum,” also referred to as “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” which laid a basis for contemporary Catholic social teachings.

Issued in 1891, the open letter emphasised that “some opportune treatment have to be discovered rapidly for the distress and wretchedness urgent so unjustly on nearly all of the working class.”

“In our personal day, the Church presents to everybody the treasury of her social educating in response to a different industrial revolution and to developments within the discipline of synthetic intelligence that pose new challenges for the protection of human dignity, justice and labour,” Leo XIV, beforehand often known as Cardinal Robert Prevost, stated in his handle on Saturday, in response to a transcript.

Very similar to the Industrial Revolution, the acceleration of generative AI in recent times has already remodeled the world and raised a flurry of considerations over how these new applied sciences will affect human labor. AI, nonetheless unregulated in a lot of the world, has given rise to misinformation (together with by utilizing stolen human likenesses) in addition to conflicts over mental property and job displacement.

Francis himself was the topic of AI disinformation in 2023 when an AI-generated picture depicting him sporting a classy puffer jacket went viral on-line — one of many first widespread incidents showcasing the potential of AI to mislead and misinform.

Pope Leo XIV meets the School of Cardinals within the New Synod Corridor, on the Vatican, on Could 10, 2025. Vatican Media through AP In a warning issued by Francis early final yr, the pope addressed the potential of AI to push out “partially or utterly false narratives,” additional cement “echo chambers” and create “new castes primarily based on entry to info and thus giving rise to new types of exploitation and inequality.”

Leo, the primary pontiff born within the U.S., indicated in his Saturday handle that he goals to proceed furthering the work of Francis, who was recognized for his dedication to social justice.

“It has been clearly seen within the instance of so a lot of my Predecessors, and most lately by Pope Francis himself, along with his instance of full dedication to service and to sober simplicity of life, his abandonment to God all through his ministry and his serene belief in the intervening time of his return to the Father’s home,” the transcript stated. “Allow us to take up this valuable legacy and proceed on the journey, impressed by the identical hope that's born of religion.”