Pope Leo XIV warned that artificial intelligence risks undermining human dignity, authentic communication, and public trust in information in his message for the 60th World Day of Social Communications.
The pontiff called for stronger safeguards to ensure technology serves people rather than distorts human relationships and truth.
In his message, released Jan. 24, the pope said digital systems that simulate human voices and faces pose deep ethical and social challenges, particularly for journalism and public discourse.
“The face and the voice are sacred,” Leo XIV said, describing them as essential expressions of the human person created in the image and likeness of God. Safeguarding them, he said, means preserving “this indelible reflection of God’s love.”
The pope said the rise of artificial intelligence presents “not a technological but an anthropological” challenge, warning that poorly governed digital tools can disrupt the foundations of communication and human relationships.
By simulating “human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, conscience and responsibility, empathy and friendship,” he said, AI systems risk invading “the deepest level of communication, that of relationships between persons.”
Leo XIV raised particular concern over algorithms designed to maximize online engagement, saying they often “reward rapid emotions while penalizing human expressions that require time, such as the effort to understand and reflect.”
Such systems, he said, weaken critical thinking and contribute to social polarization.
He also cautioned against uncritical reliance on artificial intelligence as an omniscient source of information.
This attitude, he said, can “further erode our capacity to think analytically and creatively, to understand meanings, and to distinguish between syntax and semantics.”
Turning to journalism, the pope warned that AI systems frequently present statistical probability as knowledge, offering “approximations of truth, which sometimes are outright ‘hallucinations.’”
When combined with declining field reporting and weak source verification, he said, this creates fertile ground for disinformation and public mistrust.
“Information is a public good,” Leo XIV said, calling on news agencies and media organizations to resist algorithms that prioritize attention at any cost.
“Public trust is earned through accuracy and transparency, not through the pursuit of engagement at any cost,” he said.
He said content generated or manipulated by artificial intelligence must be clearly labeled and distinguished from human-created work, stressing that “authorship and the sovereign ownership of journalists’ and other content creators’ work must be protected.”
The pope also warned of the growing concentration of power in artificial intelligence development, saying control by a small number of companies could subtly influence behavior and even “rewrite the history of humanity, including the history of the Church,” often without public awareness.
Leo XIV said the response should not be to halt innovation but to guide it responsibly, calling for an alliance based on responsibility, cooperation, and education.
Legislators, regulators, technology firms, journalists, educators, and civil society, he said, all share responsibility for ensuring that AI respects human dignity.
He underscored the need for regulation to prevent people from forming emotional bonds with chatbots and to curb the spread of false or manipulative content, preserving the integrity of information “against deceptive simulation.”
The pope also called for expanded media, information, and AI literacy at all levels of education to help people evaluate sources, think critically, and understand how algorithms shape perceptions of reality.
“We need the face and the voice to once again express the person,” Leo XIV said. “We need to safeguard the gift of communication as the deepest truth of the human being, toward which all technological innovation must also be oriented.”
The World Day of Social Communications is observed annually by the Catholic Church amid growing global debate over the ethical, social, and political consequences of artificial intelligence.
