As the US and China race on AI, the Vatican presses for global safeguards

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VATICAN CITY (RNS) — On Friday (Sept. 25), Pope Leo XIV is scheduled to give a keynote address at UNESCO headquarters in Paris, marking the first papal visit to the United Nations Educational and Scientific Organization in more than four decades, and capping off “a day of reflection on artificial intelligence, education and peace,” according to the organization.

The pope’s visit to UNESCO comes on the heels of a Washington summit between Presidents Donald Trump and Xi Jinping on Thursday, in which the two are expected to discuss, among issues of trade, the potential for shared AI guardrails between the U.S. and China.

Looming over the Trump-Xi summit are recent escalating demands for AI regulation — including from the leaders of top AI companies , who are calling for a global slowdown on AI development amid revelations of rogue AI agents and increasingly dire predictions that include civilizational annihilation. While Xi has publicly endorsed international cooperation on AI safeguards, Trump has resisted, dismissing the catastrophic warnings as a “ hoax .”

As the U.S. and China race for…