Pope Leo XIV warns against unchecked use of AI, overly ‘affectionate’ chatbots  

By Leonardo Blair, Senior Reporter Tuesday, January 27, 2026

Pope Leo XIV has joined a growing list of influential voices warning against the unchecked use of artificial intelligence, as studies indicate rising global concern about the risks it poses to humanity, including privacy, jobs and security.

“Digital technology, when not properly managed, risks radically altering some of thefundamental pillars of human civilization, which we sometimes take for granted,” the pope wrote Saturday in a message shared at the Memorial of Saint Francis de Sales in Vatican City.

“By simulating human voices and faces, wisdom and knowledge, conscience and responsibility, empathy and friendship, systems known as artificial intelligence not only interfere with information ecosystems but also invade the deepest level of communication: the relationship between people.”

The United States-born pontiff’s warning comes ahead of the Catholic Church’s 60th World Day of Social Communications, which will be celebrated on May 17 this year.

While he supports embracing the benefits of AI and digital technology, Leo urged global cooperation to minimize the risks to humanity, which he said can be both subtle and intentionally seductive.

“Although AI can provide support and assistance in managing communicative tasks, bypassing the effort of thinking for ourselves and settling for artificial statistical compilation, in the long run it risks eroding our cognitive, emotional, and communicative abilities,” he noted.

“In recent years, artificial intelligence systems have increasingly taken control of the production of texts, music, and videos. Much of the human creative industry is thus at risk of being dismantled and replaced by the label ‘Powered by AI,’ turning people into mere passive consumers of unthought-out, anonymous products, devoid of authorship and love,” he continued. “Meanwhile, masterpieces of human genius in the fields of music, art, and literature are reduced to a mere training ground for machines.”

It has become increasingly difficult for people to distinguish between humans and virtual “bots” on social media, the pope stated, saying bots are being used to manipulate their decisions.

“The opaque interventions of these automated agents influence public debates and people’s decisions. In particular, chatbots based on large linguistic models (LLMs) are proving surprisingly effective at covert persuasion through the continuous optimization of personalized interactions. The dialogic, adaptive, and mimetic structure of these linguistic models is capable of mimicking human feelings and thus simulating a relationship,” Pope Leo wrote.

“This anthropomorphization, which can even be amusing, is simultaneously deceptive, especially for the most vulnerable. Overly ‘affectionate’ chatbots, besides being ever-present and readily available, can become hidden architects of our emotional states, thereby invading and occupying the sphere of people’s intimacy,” he explained.

Leo warned against disinformation from the acceptance of “approximations of the truth” created by AI through statistical probability instead of relying on vetted journalism, "which involves the continuous work of gathering and verifying information at the scene of events.”

Last month, TIME named the architects of AI as its “2025 Person of the Year." Pope Leo pointed out in his address that “only a handful of companies” have effectively created an oligarchic control over AI systems that could rewrite the history of humanity and the Church if allowed.

“This raises significant concerns about the oligopoly’s control of algorithmic and AI systems capable of subtly shaping behavior and even rewriting the history of humanity — including the history of the Church — often without our realizing it,” he said.

“The challenge ahead is not to halt digital innovation but to guide it, and to be aware of its ambivalent nature. It is up to each of us to raise our voices in defense of human beings so that these tools can truly be embraced by us as allies,” he added.

The pope’s message comes days after renowned historian Yuval Noah Harari warned world leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last Tuesday, that AI should not be mistaken for a tool but a thinking agent that can create new things and make decisions that will likely leave humanity in an identity crisis in the coming years.

“We always think that we can just use these things as tools. But if they can think, they are agents,” warned Harari, a University of Cambridge distinguished research fellow in its Center for the Study of Existential Risk.

“There is one question that every leader today must answer about AI. But to understand that question, we first need to clarify a few points about what AI is and what AI can do. The most important thing to know about AI is that it is not just another tool. It is an agent,” he declared.

“It can learn and change by itself and make decisions by itself. A knife is a tool. You can use a knife to cut salad or to murder someone, but it is your decision what to do with the knife. AI is a knife that can decide by itself whether to cut salad or to commit murder.”