In the past year, it feels like the unchecked expansion of artificial intelligence has gone from a five to a 5,600. At this rate, we’ll all be Matrix-ed in a decade. (Unless we already are…but I’ll save that thought for my nightmares.) And while I wasn’t raised Catholic, these days, I can appreciate any leader of any corrupt institution speaking out against AI.
On Monday, Pope Leo XIV spoke to more than 1,000 journalists in his first official press conference. He suggested tempers need to cool, said imprisoned journalists must be released, called on everyone to “safeguard” the “precious gift of free speech,” and (basically) condemned to hell any media organization utilizing AI.
Leo, who mostly delivered his speech in Italian, urged journalists to use AI with “responsibility and discernment.” He added that the press needs to ensure “it can be used for the good of all, so that it can benefit all of humanity.” I don’t know how condemning someone to hell works, but it feels like the Pope telling you to use something responsibly means that if you don’t use it responsibly, you’ll be condemned to hell.
On Saturday, Leo also spoke about how the rise of AI partly inspired his name. (No, he did not ask ChatGPT for suggestions.) While addressing the College of Cardinals, he said he chose it after Pope Leo XIII, who led the Catholic Church through the Industrial Revolution and advocated for workers’ rights—seemingly suggesting he’s seeing his own papacy as guiding the world through the rise of AI. He pointed to his open letter from 1891 titled “Rerum Novarum,” also known as “Rights and Duties of Capital and Labor,” in which Pope Leo XIII emphasized that “some opportune remedy must be found quickly for the misery and wretchedness pressing so unjustly on the majority of the working class.” Nice! I’m sure MAGA would have also called Pope Leo XIII “woke.”
Like what you just read? You’ve got great taste. Subscribe to Jezebel, and for $5 a month or $50 a year, you’ll get access to a bunch of subscriber benefits, including getting to read the next article (and all the ones after that) ad-free. Plus, you’ll be supporting independent journalism—which, can you even imagine not supporting independent journalism in times like these? Yikes.
