Pope Leo XIV says concerns about artificial intelligence going rogue are not “fake news” and should be taken seriously ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE -- ABOARD THE PAPAL PLANE (AP) — Pope Leo XIV said Monday that concerns about artificial intelligence going rogue are not “fake news” and should be taken seriously, insisting that safety issues raised by AI experts should be discussed and acted on. Leo, who dedicated his first encyclical to AI and protecting humanity in its wake, was asked during a press conference about what the United States and China especially should be doing to prevent AI from posing catastrophic risks to humanity. President Donald Trump has called concerns about AI going rogue a “hoax.” “This is a problem that I think we need to sit down and talk about,” the American pope told reporters returning home from France.
He has said efforts to limit the technology were part of a “conspiracy” by his political opponents. Several AI giants, including Anthropic, have called for a slowdown in development to give safety measures time to catch up to the fast-moving technology. Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, for example, has warned that within six to 12 months AI could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could take over the entire internet.
Trump said on Sunday he planned to have a late dinner with Amodei, but he has not yet commented on the meeting. I sleep at night,” Leo said. The pope, who called for robust regulation of AI and a slowdown of the technolgoy in his encyclical “Magnificent Humanity,” is up to speed on developments in the field.
Despite being at the end of a grueling four-day trip to France, Leo noted a news report Monday afternoon about Nvidia introducing guardrails into AI. He also noted that the company has previously resisted outside regulation of AI development. Leo had identified AI as one of t he biggest challenges to humanity within days of his election and took the unusual step of personally launching his own encyclical alongside Anthropic's co-founder Christopher Olah at a Vatican event in May.
The initiative was part of the Vatican's effort to engage Silicon Valley about the human costs of AI. With his comments Monday about the legitimacy of safety concerns and AI development, Leo has confirmed another area of disagreement with Trump. The two had a back-and-forth in April over Leo’s opposition to the U.S.-Israeli war in Iran and Leo has also criticized the Trump administration’s migration crackdown.
Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping last week in Washington and while Xi said that it was important to ensure AI is “always under human control,” Trump focused more on trying to rebrand it as “superintelligence” and dismissed calls for regulation. However, the two leaders agreed to explore a new “notification mechanism” for AI incidents affecting national security. AI has become a major election-year issue in the U.S. as some of the country’s largest companies rush to build a national network of data centers while Americans from both parties increasingly raise alarms about the impact on farmland, water supplies and electricity bills.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
